Christmas Day

Christmas Day was perfect! We didn't get out of our pajamas all day and we took our time opening presents, eating, and playing all day. It was fantastic. The kids were so excited! 

We got a lot of fuzzy pictures, but oh well. We'll figure out our settings better next year. Everyone was really happy with their gifts! One of our favorite things this Christmas was seeing the kids give gifts for each other and be so polite and gracious when they opened them. We kept hearing things like "I thought you would like that" and "Thanks a lot ______! That's great!" It was really sweet and made us happy that the kids got more out of Christmas than just getting things.

Legos! All this kid wanted was a Lego Ninjago set, and we delivered. He was very very excited. Connor wanted a Batman lego set, so we got him one, along with a Batman action figure, which he loves. For some reason he loves batman (and has for a couple years now), so he was pretty happy.

Anna with her new doll cradle.

Oh boy, way too many presents!

Everyone got new hats and gloves.

New drill for Jeremy! He loves it!

Our delicious Christmas breakfast. The kids were too excited to eat, so after a few bites, they went to play with their new things and didn't stop for quite a few hours! So Jeremy and I enjoyed a nice breakfast together.

Finally taking a break to eat something...

Like I said, it was a wonderful relaxing day! We had so much fun just playing together. I feel like I don't play with my kids nearly enough because I'm always busy doing things (especially at Christmas time!) so it was fun to be done with all the work and just enjoy lots of yummy leftover food and lots of fun games and activities.

Christmas Eve!

We had an absolutely fabulous Christmas this year. It was so wonderful! We have really enjoyed staying home with just our little family the last few years. It is so relaxing and such a special time to be together. Christmas Eve was a beautiful warm sunny day! The kids played outside right up until the time our guests arrived and it was a great day. Jeremy and I really enjoy cooking in the kitchen together so it was fun to do that while the kids were happy and excited for Christmas.

I tried a delicious raspberry swirl cheesecake this year and it did not disappoint! Wowzers, it was good.

Jeremy got called to be the Ward Mission Leader a few months ago and we have really enjoyed spending time with the missionaries. I think they really love to be in our home too, so we invited all of them over for Christmas Eve dinner. (Normally we can't have both the Elders and Sisters for dinner, but they make an exception for holidays). We sure love our missionaries! We also invited Joe and Linda over. Joe works for Jeremy as his Manufacturing Manager and was expressing some sadness over them being alone during the holidays. He and his wife moved from Chicago the same time we did, but they don't have any family or friends really, so Jeremy invited them over. I was so happy they could join us. They are the nicest people and it was fun to have a full table. The missionaries were excited to have some non-members there too, of course. ;)

We had a very delicious feast! Ham, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, roasted green beans, rolls, broccoli cauliflower salad, corn casserole (Linda brought), carrots, and Christmas jello. My mom always made that fun layered jello at Christmas, but this is the first year I decided to do it. I thought the kids would think it was fun, but it was the adults that loved it! The kids didn't really like it but everyone else ate it up and commented how much they loved it! Haha.

After dinner, Jeremy read from Luke and the kids and missionaries acted out the nativity. We also sang a few Christmas hymns. The missionaries had to leave after that, but Joe and Linda stayed a little longer and we enjoyed visiting with them. They were so sweet and brought gifts for each of the kids. They have only been married for 5 years, so they don't have any kids together, and Linda is estranged from her only daughter. I felt so bad that they are so lonely, so it felt nice to include them in our Christmas celebration. Joe told Jeremy he really appreciated it. Hopefully we can have them back next year too.

Sister Bluder made a beautiful angel. Elder Van Alfen was a shepherd I think? And Connor and Anna were Mary and Joseph.

Wisemen Elder Miller and Eli bringing gifts.

I sure love these kids! They make Christmas so special.

After everyone left, we just sat by the glow of the Christmas tree for awhile before getting everyone to bed. Then Jeremy and I had a fun time setting out some presents for the kids before going to bed. It was a wonderful day!

December Festivities - Week Three!

This week was full of more fun. I started in on some serious holiday baking which is always fun and dangerous. But we like to bring treats to people and enjoy a few ourselves too. :) We brought some to our neighbors and to some Home Teaching families. Also this week was Eli's school class Christmas party. I was able to go and help out and bring Connor and Anna and then we stayed for lunch and recess which was so much fun! It was so great to see Eli at school. I've helped out a couple times, but this was the first time having Connor and Anna there and was probably the longest I've been there, so I really got to see him doing a lot. He was really excited to have us there and was a really great brother to Connor at recess. He plays soccer with a bunch of boys during recess and made sure Connor was included and had fun. It made me so proud!

 Connor and Anna insisted on bringing their backpacks to school too. :) They are cute. When we got in the car, Connor said "I wish I was in first grade". I think he's very excited to be in school with his big brother next year!

 Another awesome and hilarious thing about his school is that every Friday (or Thursday in this case, since it was their last day of school), the school janitor dresses up like Elvis and sings to all the kids during lunch. Haha, it it so fun! The kids all sing along at certain parts and he high fives everyone as he walks through the aisles and totally plays it up. It is pretty awesome. Anna wasn't too excited about all the loud noises, but Eli was singin' along having a great time.

Pre-Christmas photo. Eli loved curling up to read in front of the fire. :)

 And one of my very favorite parts of Christmas is getting cards from loved ones around the world! I ended up getting more than I could fit here, it was so fun.

Another fun tradition we've done the last few years is decorate gingerbread houses. I use the term "gingerbread" very loosely, because I actually don't go to all the trouble to make gingerbread, I just use graham crackers. My superstar sister Amy makes and cuts out gingerbread for her entire family of 8 but that sounds like way too much work to me! The kids look forward to this every year and we had a lot of fun doing it. It was hard to find good candy this year, since we don't have a place to get it in bulk, but we made do. They turned out great! Connor and Eli did theirs completely on their own and Anna just needed help putting the icing on.

 Cutie Anna knew exactly what she wanted on hers and she did a great job! Connor amazed us by doing his completely on his own, with no help. Way to go buddy!

 Aaaand here's Jeremy, still working on his after everyone else was done. Haha. His was definitely the prettiest though. Our personalities really come out when decorating these! I get mine done quickly, not caring too much about the detail, and Jeremy's is slow, thought-out, and perfect. I sure love that guy. I always say if I want something around the house done fast I do it myself, but if I want something done right/well, I ask Jeremy to do it. Patience is a virtue.

 Eli got the award for the most candy piled on! He just kept adding it in interesting arrangements. Haha.

And the last thing we did this week was host a Christmas singing party! I was so bad and didn't get any pictures!!! Ugh. I guess that's what happens when you're the hostess. My parents drove down that day, which was super fun. They brought songbooks and folding chairs, which was very helpful! I invited a bunch of people and I think we had about 40 total! A lot of those were kids, so we were very grateful for our basement. The kids played, the adults sang, and afterward we had lots of yummy food. I think everyone had a really good time. I had a few people say what a good idea it was and a couple people talked about next year, so it will probably become a tradition! I always loved doing that growing up, so I thought it would be fun to do now that we have a great house for it. We set up chairs in the living room/dining room combo and then moved to the kitchen/family room after. It was a great party!

I forgot my mom took these pictures of the kids and I decorating sugar cookies when they were here. I'm sad I didn't get them in the pictures, but here they are anyway:

December Festivities - Week Two

This last week has been great! I dove into Christmas shopping the end of the first week and finished most of it up this week. I had a late and slow start, so I forced myself to get going and now I'm feeling much better! Much of my week was spent shopping, wrapping, and mailing! We sent off our Christmas cards and a couple packages and now we even have a few presents under the tree!

Then on Friday night, Jeremy and I went to his company Christmas party. It was quite the event! They had it at the Holiday Inn nearby in their Conference Center, and there were about 600 people there. It was a casino theme, so they had a bunch of casino games going on and tons and tons of food. We mostly were mingling the whole time, but it was fun. It's always weird for me to hear so many people introduce Jeremy to their significant others as their boss. Especially since most of them are twice his age! He clearly is a well-liked boss, which is great (especially by the older ladies, haha). It was fun to meet some more of his colleagues I hear him talking about too, and to get to know the wives better. Of course everyone was enamored by my belly and that was usually the topic of the conversations for me! By the end of the night my feet were killing me, but it's always nice to get out and do something different. I also loved that the dress for the night was casual! Some people were more formally dressed and some were super casual, but I always worry about what to wear if it's a more formal event. Casual is something I can do!

Saturday was another eventful day. We started the morning off by going to Eli's school for their annual Christmas pancake breakfast. It was so fun! I have to say I really love being out here in Cincinnati where most people are Christian and aren't afraid to be. The school is all decked out in Christmas decorations and "Merry Christmas" everywhere, and it's nice that it's not played down at all. So we ate some yummy pancakes, sausage, biscuits and gravy and then we went to the art room to do some crafts. They had a bunch of different things for the kids to do and they loved it. The elementary school is mainly made up of kids from our neighborhood and one other neighborhood, so I'm recognized more and more people and these kinds of things, which is great. They also had a holiday shop for kids to buy presents and a little photo booth set up.

After we left the school, we went to Dollar Tree for the kids to pick out some Christmas gifts for each other. We do this every year, so they can give gifts instead of just getting them. They've been working hard lately to do extra jobs to earn money so they could buy some presents. Jeremy and I took shifts with each kid, so we could make sure everyone got something for everyone without giving it away! It was a little tricky, but I think we figured it out.

That afternoon, Connor had a Christmas party for all the Sunbeams at his Primary teacher's house. They are so sweet and threw a really nice little party for the kids. He came home with a big smile and a giant stuffed bear, so I think he had a good time. Then that evening was our Ward Christmas activity! Whew. It was a busy day. They did a "Back to Bethlehem" theme, so everyone was encouraged to dress in biblical clothing and bring a blanket to sit on. They had hummus and pitas, and meats and fruit and stuff to eat, and then they did a little program. It was pretty short, but it was a nice evening. I forgot to snap a picture of the kids in their clothes, but they were pretty cute. Anna called me Mary all night. She's a goof.

We have a few more Christmas activities and parties this next week and then it's Christmas! Yippee!

December Festivities - Week One

As I mentioned in my last post, it took me awhile to get into the Christmas mode. First off, I had Thanksgiving on the brain for a long time, so I hadn't even thought past that. Usually I start some Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving, but that definitely didn't happen this year. And second, we have been having the warmest weather! Saturday was 70 degrees! December 12! It's very strange and has been throwing me off. We haven't had any snow yet this season and it's just making it seem like Christmas shouldn't be right around the corner yet. (I don't know how you do it in Florida, Wendy!)

Despite my sluggishness, we have managed to do a few really fun things this Christmas season so far. And planning and forcing myself to get into it has really helped! (Also, our poor pre-lit artificial tree had some major issues with lights this year, so it took a good week or so after we set it up before it was actually working).

The first weekend in December we had a "family date night". I love doing outings as a family and for some reason it feels like we don't do them very often. I found a Groupon for a Lego display down in Newport, Kentucky - just across the river from Cincinnati (only 25 minutes away), and I thought the kids would love that! So we went down on a Friday late afternoon and checked it out. It was AMAZING! They had two big rooms full of huge displays and the boys were in awe. In fact, we were all in awe. It was really cool. I took a ton of pictures, but I'll only share a few. We spent about an hour looking at all the displays and then they had a little area where the kids could play with some duplos. It was a really fun activity!

 It was amazing! I was wishing some of my lego-obsessed nephews could have been there to see it too!

The displays were inside the mall in the Newport on the Levee, which is a really cute spot along the river with lots of restaurants and shops and stuff. It doesn't feel like a regular mall, it's a lot nicer. So anyway, after that, we went out to dinner at Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which was of course also a hit with the kiddos. It was great also because we were there early enough in the night that nothing was crowded at all!

 After dinner we walked around outside a bit to look at all the Christmas lights. They had some music playing and the lights were synchronized to it, so that was really fun. It was actually the only night this month that has been cold, so we didn't stay too long, but it was fun to get bundled up and enjoy the fresh air.

Then on Saturday, we put up some Christmas lights outside for the first time! We didn't go too crazy, but it was fun to do it. The kids were pretty excited. Everyone does Christmas lights out here so it's really fun. That night, I sang and played in a Christmas Concert put on by another ward that meets in our building. I sang in a few small groups and accompanied someone else. It was really nice to hear some great Christmas music and enjoy some good musicians. There were singers and instrumentalists - flugel horn, penny whistle, flute, cello, and oboe. Then on Sunday we watched the Christmas Devotional broadcast, which is always a favorite Christmas season activity. It was SO GOOD! We loved the music and the talks and it was a perfect end to the first week of December.