December Suff

We got our Christmas tree up a couple days after Thanksgiving.

The bottom half of it got totally rearranged by cute little hands well before Christmas day!

 Our elf (Tebow) made his debut the night of Dec. 1st.

He fell asleep a lot this year and would forget to fly home.  Sometimes he did that for a few nights in a row.

Our kids sure loved running out each morning to see where he was.  

Keith and I were ready to send him home early.  :)

 Grant wanted to make bears for Brett & Camille for Christmas.  So I "helped" him.  He was really good at stuffing them.  And he was so excited to give them!

 This kids nativity is one of my favorite things!

 Christmas PJ's were given at the beginning of December when we had a Family Home Evening lesson about the gift of Jesus Christ to the world.

 Taking a snooze by the tree.

 Grant reading books to Brett with Keith's glasses on.

 Playing with my girl.

Grant is so cute to have grabbed the camera and taken a picture!

 Camille really started to eat a lot in December.  She eats anything we put in front of her.

She loves to throw her sippy cup on the floor and have the boys pick it up.  The boys think it's so funny!

 We had a Relief Society Christmas wrapping night that I was in charge of.  It was so much fun!  We had tons of wrapping supplies and we all brought as many gifts as we wanted and got our wrapping done!  It was so nice to have it all done and to have a good time doing it.  We held it at our R.S. presidents home and she made tons of delicious treats and apple cider for us.  I felt spoiled!

We also had a Relief Society Bethlehem night.

 We had a stable made and brought in live animals and a Mary and baby.

The son of the girl whose house this was at was dressed up like a shepherd and he welcomed us all and Mary told us her story.  Then we had a beautiful song sung.  It was all so great that we did it again for the whole ward and all the neighbors the following Sunday night, minus the animals.  :)

 I have to share this great idea my friend came up with.  She put a toy camel down on the ground with a book light next to it and made camel silhouettes on the walls all around her yard.  It added so much to the Bethlehem mood!

 Everyone got to take home an olive wood ornament that was made in the real Bethlehem.

 Spaghetti face!

 Cool Santa Dude!

 Camille in her Christmas dress after church.

 again...

...and again

 This is the best we could do for a family shot.  Our kids were so wound up that we just gave up after a while.

 Love this shot!

 Rearranging the ornaments!

 I was so excited to put up a little Christmas tree in the toy room this year!

 Grant was so excited on Christmas Eve for Santa to come that he got the cookies and carrots ready early in the morning for Santa and his reindeer.

  

 Keith and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. 

These roses lasted through Christmas!  They were so pretty!

 Our nutcracker looking handsome on the piano.

 On Christmas Eve we bagged up leaves for our neighbor.  We got soooo many bags full, it was kind of crazy!  The boys had so much fun doing this service for her.

 Keith also edged her lawn.  She was so surprised and grateful.  The boys loved doing this!

 Grant took some of the giant leaves from our neighbors yard.  Keith helped him make a leaf museum.  He was so proud of it!

 We lined our whole little street with luminarias on Christmas Eve.  I wish I had a better picture of the whole thing.  It was so pretty!

 We had flautas and cheese dip for dinner and then read from Luke 2 with the kids.  And then everything was ready for Santa to come.

 Camille's stocking wasn't quite done yet so I whipped up the white one on the end for her after the kids went to bed.

My grandma started making all of her grandkids these stocking when I was a kid.  My mom started making them for all of her grandkids.  She's made them for everyone except Brett (I made his) and then I made Keith's.  And she's almost done with Camille's.  They have a lot of pieces and take a while to put together, but they look so beautiful altogether!

 It was fun to listen to the boys on Christmas morning.  They were so excited!

Brett loved the bear that Grant made for him.

 I tried this recipe for French Toast Bake for Christmas breakfast this year.  It was soooo good!  We served it with bacon, scrambled eggs, and freshly squeezed orange juice.  I will definitely be making this again.  I love having something delicious that is put together the day before so I can just throw it in the oven on Christmas morning and have it fill our house with yummy smells while we open gifts.

 Santa brought the boys Plasma cars and matching green helmets.  They loved them!  We rode them throughout the house all day on Christmas, as well as outside.

 We had my parents and my brother's family over for Christmas dinner.  We served prime rib, fresh green beans, garlic mashed potatoes, rolls, Christmas Jell-O, and had a bunch of yummy desserts to choose from.  It was so much fun!  I had never cooked a prim rib before and was so scared that I'd ruin it, but it turned out great!  Hooray!

We set up the kids table in the toy room (which is just off the entry way, by the dining room).

 Taking the plasma cars for a spin at the park.  We borrowed the cute pink car from Keith's parent's so Camille could have something to ride too.  We didn't last long.  It was so very cold!

 We went to see the Christmas lights at the Mesa temple after Christmas.

 Our kids love seeing the statue of Jesus in the Mesa Temple Visitor's Center.

 We took the kids on a hike.  We don't have a hiking pack for Camille so Keith decided to take the jogging stroller.  It was so funny to watch him push that stroller up the rocks!  We only made it a little ways up before it just became ridiculous.  But we still had fun!

 We also took the kids to the zoo.  Grant loved his map and kept looking at it over and over again.

 Pretty lavender growing in the farm area of the zoo

 Brett loves making funny faces in pictures.  This one tops the list of hilarious!

 Keith's parents gave us some gift cards for fun places to take our family.  So we used up the one for Iceberg after the zoo.  It was yummy!

December was a busy and fun month.  I always look forward to this time of year when Keith's office is closed and school is out and we can spend so much time together.  And that we did!  Now I need to be left alone for a while and get back into a routine!  HA!