Christmas Eve 2015

We tried to do it up right on Christmas Eve.  We started with dinner, then I bought a gingerbread train kit from the store so the boys could put it together.  There was definitely a ton of candy on it, but it turned out really cute.  

The finished train

After the train, we opened our Christmas Eve presents, pajamas.

 The boys were super excited for theirs. 

After that, we have a tradition to watch the Polar Express.  This year, Nate got the book Polar Express as a gift from one of his students. So first, we listened to a cd of someone reading it while we followed along. 

When the book was over, we got all ready for the movie.  We made hot cocoa and popcorn.

I love that movie and think it's a perfect way to end Christmas Eve. 

This year, Kayton's teacher did something really cute.  She made reindeer food for us to sprinkle around the yard of our house.  It had food and sparkles in the bag so that the reindeer would see it and come down to our house.  We spread it all around the backyard before going to bed that night so that the kids would know for sure that Santa would come.  

Happy Christmas Eve everyone. 

Nate at Star Wars

The new Star Wars movie was a big deal of course.  Nate was lucky enough to get invited by a church friend to go to a pre showing which included a party and stuff.  He had a blast and was glad he got to take Mike with him.  

Snow Day and Sledding

What do you do when you have your first snow day of the year?  Go sledding of course.  Merrick begged for us to take him sledding so we found all the snow equipment and even went to the store to buy some new sleds.  We decided to go eat lunch with some friends first and we are glad we did because it snowed pretty hard while we were in there eating.  When we were done, it had cleared enough for us to head out and sled.  The kids had a blast.  I was a little sick and couldn't do too much, but I grabbed my selfie stick and went down a few times with it.  I love that the boys are older and wanted to try going down by themselves and Merrick loved eating the snow too.  It was a perfect day off.

Breakfast with Santa

I love that our ward does this for the Primary kids every year.  They get to come and eat a pancake breakfast then meet Santa and do some Christmas crafts.  The boys were really into Christmas things this year so it made it even more fun that they really wanted to go talk to Santa and had no fears.

Kayton Christmas Concert

Since this is my first kid, I was really excited for this Christmas Concert.  He loves singing and did so well. All of the kindergarten classes sang together for 2 songs and a poem.  I loved all of it.  

Feaste of Carols

Another Feaste of Carols and of course we went.  Our family friends, the Pratt's, son was one of the kings and Brent was also one of the ones with talking lines.  It was a wonderful performance.  One of the fun things they did this year was each king picked a few people from their kingdom and knighted them as to say they were special people in the kingdom.  Jeremiah chose Nate as one of his so he got knighted and Nate got a crown to wear.  I loved it. 

Symphony Christmas Concert

The White Mountain Symphony Orchestra has their Christmas concert every year and this time I was asked to play on it too.  There were lots of little groups that played and I played in a flute quintet with some people I knew from Show Low.  It was a lot of fun.  Nate played on the concert and also helped out with some pre concert entertainment.  It was a great Christmas concert.  I'm glad we got to do it together.

I forgot to get a picture with me playing.

My Christmas Decorators

I got my Christmas tree up a little later than I hoped to this year, but thankfully, I had some great helpers to put things on the tree for me.  I loved the way it turned out and we were so ready to start the Christmas season.