December stuff

Here are a few other things we did in December.

We saw cousin Owen dance with the BYU folk dance team in "Christmas Around the World." Ohhh, that brought back so many memories for me. I loved my year on one of the folk dance ensemble teams. So much fun. After we watched him dance at the matinee, he had to go study organic chemistry or something before the evening performance. The life of a university student!

My friend, Barbara, invited me to a Christmas dessert night for her women's group at her church. Her table was beautiful, the food divine and the music and spoken word was awesome. Made me wish we could use drums and electric guitar in some of our church meetings!

This may have been the first snowfall of the year. December 19. Cutest snowman I've ever seen!

This beautiful sunrise finished off my sunrise pictures for the year on Dec. 28th.

Building a sled run

Well, it just kept snowing and snowing, and so the kids kept playing and playing in the snow. They already made a snowman and an igloo, so the day after Christmas, Sterling made a snow-run for the kids. He started at the top of our terraces. That's a pretty tall run! It was so impressive, Rachel even came out without a coat on to watch!

Here are a few more pictures!

Buildling igloos

Christmas morning, after breakfast, and in-between snow flurries, my boys built an igloo, fully enclosed. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

While Ster and Park were busy contructing, Hash and his friends went from pile of snow to pile of snow and ran their sleds down each hill.

Parker was trapped inside the igloo for about 30 minutes until they created a small door near the base.

From the inside, looking out.

Ster and Park looking in through the window.

Great job, boys!

Christmas Day

I'm going to apologize right from the start. I don't know what the deal is with me and Christmas posts anymore. I used to keep such good track and take fun pictures and the last couple of years is, meh. Not so much. 

Christmas traditions that have held over. 

Sibling gifts

Wrap our service chain around the tree

Mr. Kruger's Christmas

Cookies and letter for Santa

After my miserable homemade pajama experience, I decided to give the kids cute socks this year. They used them to lay out for Santa because they were so long!

Christmas morning, the fireplace was lit and kept us warm. Music played from Sterling's ipad. The room started out looking like this.

And got more and more messy as the morning went on.

Parker got a block of wood.

and some carving tools. He's loving it. He even gives up tv and computer games for carving sometimes. 

This is Hash looking at a craft kit that allows him to build and paint a wooden car, truck and airplane.

The girls all got roller blades. Can you tell who is who?

Hash got some superheros. He was in his own world for a long time, playing with those action heroes.

So that was Christmas morning. Several other gifts and a leisurely breakfast. A big snowstorm hit, right on cue and so Ster, Parker and I went out shoveling our driveway and the Herrera's. It was heavy and deep and took a long time. We were all sweating when we finished. We ended up shoveling again, later in the day, because it just kept snowing.

We went to visit my parents in the afternoon. Uncle Geoff, Aunt Margo and their girls were there as well. And Aunt Cheryl. It was very nice to visit with extended family. We don't see them often enough. And Sarah and Dallin came with their boys as well. 

We had good intentions to go to Temple Square on our way home but we decided to just drive around temple square block and continue to our warm home. The weather was crazy and we were all tired so I know we made the right decision, but this makes the second or third year we have missed seeing the lights. I need to change this. 

Overall, it was a nice Christmas, filled mostly with family and whisperings of the Spirit, which is just the way I like it.

The Nativity

I remember re-enacting the Nativity when I was a child. Usually Grandma and Grandpa Dewey would stay overnight on Christmas Eve and my Dad or Grandpa would read out of a special children book, Luke II, which was mostly scripture. My siblings and I dressed up in costumes my mom gathered in all their 1970's fashion. Nothing fancy- towels, scarves, robes, tinfoil crowns. And we did our best to act out our roles. 

We've done the Nativity a few other times when we've had family together, but since we've been doing Christmas Eve on our own, we've never included the Nativity as our own family tradition. Well, this year, we dressed up for the Nativity three times!

Nativity #1

I was in charge of the program for the ward party. I had the Comstocks sing a few songs and they were awesome, as always. Then a video of some of the primary children.

And then some of the youth acted out the Nativity in shadow-box fashion. It was pretty awesome.

Sydney is the angel

Parker is the wiseman.

Nativity #2

We acted out the Nativity with the Brown cousins. Between my costumes and Bryn's costumes, we had a well dressed cast.

Nativity #3

This one we did with the Dewey cousins. Only this wasn't the actual Nativity. It was a story that my told about a sheep meeting baby Jesus. 

It was so nice to be reminded of the birth of Baby Jesus so often this year. Its a story for the ages worth retelling.

Christmas Cookies

One of my greatest Christmas weaknesses is sugar cookies. This year I waited all the way until Christmas Eve to make them. Some for Santa and some for me. Worked out to be a pretty sweet deal. Oh, yeah, and some for the kids. Speaking of kids, they were pretty creative with their decorating this year. Bryce did the gingerbread man. Camille did the snowman and the stocking, I think. They all turned out scrumptious!

They lasted until after dinner on Christmas day!

Sledding

Last year, Christmas morning the only snow we got for most of the winter season. This year, we got a great deal of snow during Christmas week. The perfect way to start the holidays. So we made the most of it and went sledding at the neighborhood park on Christmas Eve.

Parker is getting really good on his snowboard. He can go off small jumps and keeps his balance really well.

After a couple of relatively dry winters, this season has been a lot of fun to go sledding and have snowball fights and play, play, play. It does create a bit of havoc in the house, though. Boots, gloves, hats, snowpants, coats, all seem to be lying around the house in a long line, marking where the children have been. Trying to keep everything dry between trips outside has been tricky. But I love it. I love that the kids are old enough to do most of the dressing and undressing by themselves. That is soooo nice! And I love going out to play with them too. It may create a little havoc, but its a fun havoc and I love it!

Sterling's bday

I needed to slip in this brief post about Sterling's birthday. He leads our family with love and focus. 

He was very particular about what he wanted to eat for his birthday dinner. Tater-tot casserole, of all things. Macaroni salad, no surprise there. And Strawberry shortcake for dessert, in December! I made real shortcake from scratch. The kids were a little unsure at first, but man, you load that thing up with whipping cream and sugared strawberries and you can't go wrong!