The Most Magical Night of the Year!

The kids were pretty giddy with excitement all day long on December 24th. It is such a magical day, the anticipation of Christmas day so close you can feel it in the air!

After our traditional dinner of pizza, breadsticks and salad, we headed out on the town to look at a few Christmas lights. Then we headed back home in order to read and act out the Christmas story.

We have the main parts covered in our home, although the "baby Jesus" isn't exactly a baby any longer!

 

Our beautiful and serene-looking Mary...

 

Our "baby" Jesus...

 

And our noble-looking Joseph...

After the Nativity, it was time to open our Christmas Eve pajamas...

Don't they look adorable?

 (I think I should earn a medal for being able to find matching pajamas that would fit all three kids and were gender-neutral. Not such an easy task!) The bonus part about these pajamas are that they are super warm fleece ones and although they have the Christmas colors, they are actually apples so not too holiday-themed. Thank you Amazon!!

Then it was time to open a new family game...Twister!!

This was actually a pretty fun game to get since we can all "play" it together (although Nolan tends to cheat a lot :)

After a short Christmas video, we laid out our treats for Santa, sprinkled reindeer dust on both the front and back lawns, and then said goodnight. Abby and Nolan fell asleep rather quickly, but Landon was our night owl again. It takes him a while to fall asleep on a normal night, so Christmas Eve was especially difficult for this little guy to quiet his mind and enter dreamland. I think he FINALLY fell asleep around 11 p.m., with just enough time for Santa's "helpers" to get things arranged for the next day. 

"T'was the night before Christmas!!"

The Eve of Christmas Eve...

We spent the weekend before Christmas baking and delivering homemade treats to people in our neighborhood and ward. I know this is kind of a dying tradition (along with Christmas cards, sadly) but it is one tradition that our whole family really enjoys.

On the Monday before Christmas (what we like to call "the eve of Christmas Eve," we put together our annual gingerbread house. I think the kids enjoy this tradition mostly because of the all the candy that they get to consume while putting it together, but it's still fun.

Not sure what is going on with Landon in these pictures. I guess he was just really excited about the house. Abby likes to do this model pose now and Nolan, well, he is just as cute as ever!!

TNT Frosty Meet

We had our first home gymnastics meet on Saturday, December 14th. Abby ended up getting four more medals and even a trophy! That was a big goal of hers on her bucket list of life! (Especially since Landon already has two trophies from soccer.) Here she is on the floor, vault, beam and bars. She is definitely better at some of the events (bars and floor) than others (vault, beam) but she keeps improving and is loving it all so that's what counts the most.

First Snowfall of the Season

While my mom was visiting, we also got our first snowfall of the season. I love looking at the world with a beautiful white blanket of snow on it... 

This was also our dog Cooper's first time with the white stuff and we were anxious to see how he would do. Needless to say, he LOVED the snow and it was so cute to watch him frolic in the snowdrifts. (Love those bearded white faces!)

 
Of course Abby and Landon hurriedly got their long-buried snow gear out from the closet so they could enjoy the snow too!

 

And busily worked on their snowman. Meet "Olaf"...

They decided they didn't want Olaf to be lonely so they made another little friend for him too.

 

It was actually good timing for the snow since they cancelled school on Monday and Tuesday and the kids were able to enjoy my mom's last few days here. I am sure we will enjoy many more snow days this winter!!

Our Greatest Joy...

During my mom's visit, she always takes a nice snapshot of each child in order to update her frames at home. Here are her pictures from December 2013...

Nolan (2 years old)

Landon (5 years old)

 

Abigail (7 years old)

Oh how we love these little ones!!!

Grandma's Visit

My mom came to visit us during the first week of December. It was her first time out here during the holiday season so it was fun to share some of our traditions with her.

Of course no visit from Grandma Julie would be complete without a little gift straight from her suitcase...

The kids loved having Grandma come to school and eat lunch with them up on the stage.

They were even more excited that we brought Subway sandwiches with us!!

 

 

 

Abby enjoyed showing off her competition wear for gymnastics...

And even demonstrated some of her amazing flexibility!

 

My mom loves the fact that Abby and Landon are so creative just like she is. They spent many hours creating lots of fun craft projects together!

 

There is something about these curlers that kids really like. They built some pretty elaborate creations with them.

On Friday, December 6th we attended our Ward Christmas party. It was a nice evening complete with dinner and some spirit-filled entertainment.

The next morning we headed over to Home Depot to do another Kid's Build project.

This time we made some Tic-Tac-Toe game boxes to take home.

Even Nolan enjoyed getting in on the action!

After Home Depot, we headed over to Jason's work where Citi was holding their annual Kid's Christmas party. This year's theme was Candyland and it was adorable!

 

Jason helped to build this fun maze out of appliance boxes...

 

And no Citi party would be complete without some balloon animals/swords (even if they did start to pop within 10 minutes of getting them!)

Our annual picture with Santa didn't turn out quite as planned. Nolan wanted no part of the big red man nor his wife and Landon decided he would rather not get near him either so at first it was just Abby who was our only willing participant.

Then a promise of a lollipop created some extra motivation for Landon to join in on the fun (no, we are not above bribing!!) But no amount of bribing could convince Nolan!

On Saturday night, Jason and I took advantage of some free babysitting (thanks Mom!) and headed out on a date to see a movie ("Catching Fire") and dinner. The kids all had a great time doing more crafts with Grandma while we were gone!

This pet kennel comes in pretty handy to control this little animal as well!

On Sunday, we got a pretty good amount of snow and church was cancelled. We stayed at home and enjoyed working on projects and watching church movies all day. School ended up being cancelled on Monday and Tuesday as well which was perfect for the kids to be able to spend more time with Grandma before she headed to Virginia to spend a week with my sister and her new baby. During their time off from church/school, Abby and Landon completed these fun little plastic canvas projects which they were quite proud of...

Thanks for the fun visit Grandma Julie! Fortunately we won't have to wait too long for another visit since both sets of grandparents will be coming out here in February for Abby's baptism!