December Part 3

The Saturday before Christmas eve we got out of the house and went to the outlet mall. We enjoyed people watching, eating lunch, decorations, and returning home with a Cinnabon each! It was a lot of fun and sadly it inspired me to make home made cinnamon rolls Christmas eve. We may or may not have eaten the 24 batch of cinnamon rolls...

 Christmas eve was on Sunday! We loved having one hour of church!!!!! 

 When we got home we were able to open one present left behind by fudge (our Christmas elf!)

 For some reason the kids thought my pajama pants were something to play with.

 I asked Natalie to pose and she gave it to me in gangster style. Maybe I should check to see what they have been watching on Netflix lately...

For the evening we sported our new pajamas, got hot chocolate, and took a drive for our annual Christmas light viewing. The kids had so much and went to be promptly with no yelling. It was a Christmas miracle!!!!! 

December Part 2

ZOO LIGHTS!!!!!!

Riley was little mad that we wouldn't buy him glow lights at the zoo. He quickly got over it but punished me with no looking pictures.

 Proof that we made it to the north pole

 Every year we get to be swallowed by hippopotamus!

It's fun when the zoo lets you wear lights too!

 The zoo had switch boards with huge buttons to engage children in controlling which lights to turn on and off. It was their favorite part! 

 The ice sculpturist is always fun to watch.

Lorelei pretending the light would warm her hands.

The Denver zoo lights are magical and a ton of fun. We never get through all of it because Natalie always has a melt down 3/4ths of the way through and screams she wants to go home. Then when we reach the end she cries she doesn't want to leave.

December Part 1

DECEMBER!

Riley carefully and excitedly made these streamers. He asked me to help tape them up where he wanted them. 

Really Riley?

 The Christmas ward party this year was very long. By the end Natalie had had enough and really wanted to see Santa. We ended up towards the back of the line. This caused Natalie bouts of crying on and off. By the time we got to the front she ran screamed "Santa!" and jumped into his arms. It was really sweet.

 We did a lot of Christmas coloring to keep our excitement at bay.

 Riley ended up with a 24 hour stomach bug the weekend before we colored. He thought it was funny to make these sick throwing up gingerbread men. They ended up moving around our house the whole Christmas season. At one point they ended up in the bathroom. Natalie was not happy about their appearance in the bathroom and freaked out until I disposed of them. She said they were scary.  

 Natalie loves making forts with pillows and blankets.

 I love making Christmas gifts. Every year I am either making an advent Calendar, wreaths, decor or a gift that comes to my mind. This year I created puzzles for grandparents with the images below! It was so much fun to see the products arrive and Natalie exclaim "my face is on a puzzle!" It was one of my favorite projects. Another one I took on last minute were the doll beds. Melissa and Doug had the cutest wood beds that were screaming for adorable bedding. So I picked out some fabric with my mom (while she was here) and then got work. There are a lot of flaws in these blankets, but I had so much fun trying something new!