CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

Another busy Christmas season just wrapped up at our home! I just wanted to highlight a few of the things we enjoyed this Christmas season:

1. Hands Down - REAGAN
All Christmas season we heard "I am wishing for a Snow White dress!" This was the only thing she wanted. I few days before Christmas, she found out that you can actually ask Santa for more than one thing and her eyes lit up! Then we wanted Snow White dress up shoes too.

During Dan's family Christmas party, Reagan was not shy at all. She was the highlight of the evening. When Santa came in, she was jumping up and down. Santa had one of the cousins come and sit on his lap and ask her what song they should sang and Reagan started shouting out, "I know what we can sing, Rudolph, Rudolph!" She then went right up to his lap to sing the song. When the time came that she was supposed to sat on Santa's lap and receive her present, she was so cute. Her package was a small box and as soon as she sat on my lap, she said "Do you think it is a Snow White dress?" I told her the box was too small for a Snow White dress, so then she thought it was Snow White shoes. Unfortunately for her, it was neither of the two; but she enjoyed her gift any way.

On Christmas morning, Reagan opening up her Snow White dress very first, she just happened to pick out the right package, so off when the pajama's and on went the dress. She received few other dress ups for Christmas as well and each time she opened one, she had to change clothes. She loved getting her princess story book and immediately sat down to start looking it over. She wanted someone to read it to her right away. So a princess Christmas is was for her and I loved every minute of it. It is so fun to have a little girl again.

2. CHRISTMAS EVE
Every other year Dan and I switch off going to different families house for Christmas. It got a little too crazy trying to open presents, load up the kids to grandma's and them load them up again to go to the other grandma's house. I started not enjoying Christmas day because there was simply no time to enjoy it. hence the reason our tradition began. One year is Christmas Eve with one family and the other family gets Christmas Day. Then the next year we switch. This has made such a difference in not only my kids being able to enjoy Christmas, but also myself.

This year was my families turn for Christmas Day and Christmas Eve was supposed to be spent with Dan's family; however Dan's mom forgot about Christmas Eve and no one else in the family could get together that night. So we ended up spending the 23rd with Dan's family instead. This gave us the night off for Christmas Eve. WE thought about going to my dad's family Christmas party; however we decided to bail and just spend the evening with our kids and I am so glad we did!

We ventured up to Park City and went sledding at Gorgoza Park. Being Christmas Eve, the sledding hill was not crowded at all and the weather wasn't bad either. At night they light up the hill with lights; plus they tow you up the mountain, so it is effortless! (My kind of sledding) The hill was moving pretty fast, so they would only allow 3 tubers to connect their tubes at a time. We spent the time training down the mountain with a couple of kids or one of the kids. All we had was smile and laugh, we all had a spectacular time. Reagan loved it too!

After sledding we went out to dinner at the Cheesecake factory (a family favorite) we got right in because it was late and it was Christmas Eve.

After all of our gallivanting around we headed home (it was already 9:30 PM) and we still had to give the kids their presents. It is tradition in our home to give the kids new pajama's to wear on Christmas Eve; plus I give the kids an ornament every year for the Christmas tree. One that represents something in their life for that year. It is one of my favor tie things to shop for each season.

Reagan - Belle ornament (She was Belle for Halloween and has loved dressing up this year. She even makes everyone call her the princess name when she is in the dress up. She gets down right mad if you call her Reagan.)

Jaxson - Baptism ornament (He was baptizes this year and I couldn't think of anything more significant that becoming a member of the Church.

Madi - YW ornament (She turned 12 this year and entered into the Young Women's program at church. To me this is a huge symbol of her growing up and becoming a young lady. I made her ornament by using a colored jewel representing each of the young women value colors. At the bottom of the ornament I attached a YW.)

This was my favorite Christmas Eve ever! We all believe this needs to become a new tradition in our house. We are just going to have to convince my family next year to go sledding with us on Christmas Eve.

3. WHITE ELEPHANT GIFT EXCHANGE
Another family tradition is to exchange white elephant gifts with my parents and siblings, in lieu of exchanging gifts. We start looking for items months before Christmas arrives, just to pick out the perfect gift. This year I had the idea to give the gift of tongues! I had purchased a blow up tongue in Florida at Harry Potter world in Universal islands of adventure, so to add to this, I ordered a cows tongue from the butcher. It was disgusting! I found some articles in a different language and included it in the package. Melissa was the lucky one to open it (She always picks my gifts and knows it's going to be bad, but continues to pick them anyway) Everyone get a huge laugh out of the surprise. Nobody wanted to take home the tongue (I can't imagine why). At the end of the night, my poor grandmother ended up with the tongue.

4. MADI THINKING MY BEST GIFT WAS A TENNIS BALL ON A STRING
A few days after Christmas, Madi was spending some time over at a friends house. Her mother asked her all about Christmas and then asked what I had received. Madi proceeded to tell her that I got the coolest gift ever. (She was completely serious) She told her that I received a ball that looked like a tennis ball, that I hang from the ceiling in the garage to know where to park the car. My friend then asked her again if that was the best gift I had received. She responded back with "Yes!" After this conversation, my friend had to call me to find out if I had received anything else for Christmas (she was a little worried).

5. DINNER FOR THE WOMEN'S SHELTER
My friends decided this year that instead of giving each other gifts that we would do something for someone else in need. JoLynn put together a night where we could all make and serve dinner at a women's shelter / drug rehab facility. Everyone took a portion of the meal to make; in addition we all purchased some items to donate to the shelter. When we arrived at the shelter we set up in the kitchen and served dinner to all of the ladies living there. The women were all so appreciative of our service and it was such a small task to complete. I know we all felt better about ourselves that night and wished we could of done more to help them. I know this will be a new tradition amongst our friends during the holiday season. One I am looking forward to being a part of again.

GINGERBREAD HOUSES

I decided it would be fun to do gingerbread houses this year and let the kids each decorate their own. I have never made gingerbread, so our house were going to be made of graham crackers! I thought it would be brilliant to hot glue the houses together first and then let the kids go to town with the candy and frosting. (It seems that the hardest part of doing gingerbread houses is getting your structure to stand up, so I knew this technique was going to be helpful)

I invited my brother Jared and sister in law Erin over with their daughter Lydia, so she could participate in the fun too. Little did I know Jared had his own creative juices flowing and decided to take part in the building. The kids had a fantastic time adding their own creativity to their houses. Reagan and I worked together, while Madi, Lydia and Jaxson all had their own houses. Reagan was more interested in eating the candy rather than putting it on the house, but her little cottage turned out cute anyway. (It just didn't last long, because she kept picking at the candy)

When the kids had lost interest in decorating and decided they were done, Jared was still constructing his house / fort. It was hilarious! He was cutting and intricately designing every last detail.

Finally after I got everything cleaned up, we invited my parents over to judge the gingerbread houses. My mom being the kind person that she is, decided to give everyone an award. We didn't like that response, so we asked my dad what he thought. I believe he liked Reagan's house the best, but I can't remember (it could have been Madi's too).

Jared was very proud of his design, even though it didn't win, so we decided to make it the center piece of our Christmas dinner table. It was pretty funny!

The kids kept their houses in their rooms for about a week, until they started getting soft and I threw them out. It was a messy project, but worth it!

UGLY SWEATER PARTY

We had such a great time last year having an ugly sweater party with our family for Thanksgiving, that we decided for Christmas to throw another party with our friends.

Everyone got into the spirit of the ugly sweater, It is so fun to see what people come up with and have no problem wearing in public. My favorite was that Craig Bonham wore his cream sweater and green Dickie to church the following morning and was complimented on his attire.

Dan wanted to deep fry a turkey for the party, so for an early Christmas present, he received one from his parents. We had a delicious meal that everyone helped participate with; we had everything from rolls, fruit salad, salad, mashed potatoes and gray and even stuffing. For dessert I made a yummy chocolate bundt cake!

After visiting at dinner we headed downstairs for a white elephant exchange. I laughed pretty hard at some of the gifts that were passed around. WE had everything from the shake weight, to a Robert Pattinson calendar, to a half eaten box of chocolates. There were even romantic coupons from Dan and a night of guilty pleasures (romance novel, records, a picture of Rusty), etc.

We also played our favorite game the "Dollar Game!" Lora went home with the jackpot! My favorite part of the evening was just hanging out with everyone, watching YouTube videos and laughing hysterically. I has introduces to the Flight of the Conchords and "Business Socks," something I will never forget.

It is good times when you have fantastic friends you can share fun memories with enjoy one another's company. This turned out to be one of those nights. (I think next year we will have an old geezers party!)

TEMPLE SQUARE AT CHRISTMAS

For our extended family night this month we loaded up everyone and headed downtown to see the lights at Temple Square. There were several things to be excited about this year with our annual excursion:

1. The weather was beautiful! Especially when comparing it to last year and how bitter the cold was. You could actually stand to walk around and enjoy the lights, family and the Christmas spirit.

2. They opened up the gates to the temple and we were able to have our kids walk right up to the temple. We took family pictures with all of us standing in front of the gold doors. My kids have never been so close to the Salt Lake Temple except during a wedding. This was definitely a special occasion for everyone.

3. We visited grandma English after looking at the lights and took her some Christmas goodies and presents. We all had hot chocolate and cookies for dessert at her home.

4. After wrapping things up with Grandma, we all came back to our house in preparation of delivering the 12 days of Christmas to my parents. We all wanted to deliver the presents since they were from all the kids and we figured this would be the best opportunity we would have getting all of us together during the busy and crazy schedules leading up to Christmas.

My parents stayed at Grandmas a little longer than us kids, so we waited in our cars with the lights off for them to arrive home. (It was 11:00 PM on a school night) Then we quickly got out of our cars with the presents - Reagan was quicker than the rest of us, so we were all chasing her and trying to get up to the porch before mom and dad answered it. We all sang "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" on their porch. We were obviously invited in and we handed over the box of gifts with tags and instructions for each day. Mom cried (it was expected). We were hoping to bring a little Christmas spirit into their home and I think it worked. Everyone left feeling content and happy. It was a great way to start off the holidays.