Oh I love December! I love the holidays! I love every part. I really do. It is so much work, but I really do enjoy the hustle and bustle. I've been reflecting lately on how I have been able to be so much more productive this month than any other, it's a phenomenon. I've still had time to relax by the fire and watch Christmas movies too...I don't get it! Luckily, I can go back to my less productive ways in January. On the 12 days leading up to Christmas we do a countdown of activities and traditions with our boys. These activities make Christmas for me. Here are a few snippets of the season!
One of my favorite traditions is the Johnson Polar Express. This year the boys remembered that the night we watch the movie we also take them on the Polar Express. It told them that wasn't the plan this year to throw them off. After we tucked them in, we made hot chocolate, then crept back to their rooms with the Polar Express song playing on my phone and bells softly jingling. It got really quiet in their room and then the boys came bounding out with big grins on their faces! "We get to ride the Polar Express!" They ran into Quinn's room to get him and we all jumped in the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights.
Another one of my favorite traditions is to take the boys shopping for gifts for each other. We go in groups and sneak around each other at the store to avoid getting caught. Ethan and Caden are so excited for their presents for each other they can't stand it! When my mom asked Ethan his favorite part of the whole Christmas season he says, "I just can't wait for Caden to see what I got him, it will be the best part of the whole Christmas!" I tried to point out that giving is more fun than receiving and Ethan pointed out to me that buying a present for Caden is pretty much like buying a present for himself because they like the same things and he knows he'll get to play it too. Oh well.
 |
| Clark found us the perfect tree this year! |
 |
| I've had so much fun decorating our new house this year! When our realtor first showed us this house I had visions of decorating the stairs for Christmas and a daughter walking down in a prom dress. I got 1 of the 2! And little boys wrestling on what they now call "the magical stairs" is pretty special too! |
 |
| The Nutcracker exhibit at our Children's Museum was amazing! |
 |
| And I got to attend Nutcracker in a Nutshell with the Activity Day Girls, yay for me! |
Ethan wanted to send a Christmas card to his old fist grade teacher. I told him he needed to write a little letter on the back giving an update on his life. I love what he came up with:
Quinn and I got to go to the Kindergarten holiday party. The kids had 20 cents to buy supplies for the gingerbread houses. While I manned the marshmallow store, 3 year old Quinn sold the licorice. He was a tough little salesman. No one got more than 2 pieces of licorice and ONLY after they had correctly counted out their 3 cents. He's 3 going on 30.
 |
| The holiday brings out the love in Caden. Everyday, we find at least 10 loves notes and cards stashed around the house from Caden. Mom Loves Dad...Dad Loves Mom. We all love Caden. |
 |
| Caroling at a nursing home was a very sweet activity for our girls. |
We went to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for their light safari! It was awesome! The zoo is built into the mountain, you take a chair lift to the top. I bought our tickets on Groupon and so we had to go a certain night. Of course that night happened to be the coldest ever! It was 9 degrees, but we wore lots of layers and had a great time.
 |
| I can't put my arms down! |
 |
| The view coming back down from the chairlift. |
We had a fun Christmas party with 12 little friends!
The boys wore their elf suits to deliver neighbor gifts.
We had a sugar cookie party with one of the boys friends one afternoon, and another family joined us that evening to make gingerbread cookies. I don't know what I was thinking?! Sugar overload!!! At 10 pm Ethan was still bouncing around the house.
 |
| BEFORE COOKIE PARTY |
 |
| AFTER COOKIE PARTY |
Fun, fun, fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment