Some Christmas Highlights

Little Man singing with the other primary kids. Our ward Christmas party was so much fun this year. The activities committee did a tremendous job and our family really enjoyed it. The theme was The Polar Express. After eating a breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and parfaits, all of the kids went to a ticket booth and received tickets for the Polar Express train. They all sat down in folding chairs set up in rows and the narrator started reading the Polar Express book. Then there was steam coming out from up on the stage, music from the movie started playing and the teenagers come out dressed up and punching the tickets. Mike, Kiwi (she wanted to sit with us) and I were sitting a couple of rows back from Little Man, who was sitting with the rest of the kids. Up to this point, he had been soaking it all up. When they came out to punch tickets, however, he stood up panic stricken and made a beeline for us. When he reached us he simply said, "I don't want to go!" His little body was actually shaking and I realized that he really thought they were going to take the children away on a train! He enjoyed the rest of the story from Mike's lap. They finished reading the book having the teen-agers come out again and serve hot chocolate and treats when it got to that part in the story. It was a really great activity, especially for all the kids.

Making Christmas treats

The Tuesday after Christmas we took the kids on dates. Mike took Little Man to the Lego store and out to lunch and Kiwi and I went to a store like Build a Bear, but less money and, as we found out, a lot less of an experience (basically Kiwi picked her bear and a teen-age employee stuffed it and only handed Kiwi the blank birth certificate and backpack after I reminded her about them). Oh, well. Kiwi loved her bear. We then split a pretzel and went over to the Carousel inside the mall and she got to choose a horse to ride on. I think his might have been the highlight for her. She named the horse "princess" and was sad when the ride ended. After that I let her wander around the mall showing Pinky, the new teddy bear, things and crawling on all of the little rides (we didn't put money in, but she was happy to just crawl on them). We had a fun morning and it sounds like the boys did. They came home with some new lego men and stomachs full of chicken nuggets.

Mike and I also got to go on two dates over the break which was really nice. Once, my mom took the kids and once we hired a babysitter. It's crazy to think pre-kids we used to go out to dinner and a movie (the dollar theatre of course) or shopping (even if it was mostly window) anytime we wanted. It is such treat now though.

Spending time with friends and family. I was able to get together with two of my freshman year roommates (Kenzie left before we thought to snap this picture). I got to meet Kristin's two kids for the first time and it was fun to get caught up with her. We also got together with some other friends whom we hadn't seen in a while.

And of course we loved spending time with our families. One night we had had my teen-age brothers over to play games. It's so fun to watch them grow up and to have our relationship change from big sister/baby brothers to friends (although I still think of them as my baby brothers).

Little Man's christmas gift to us. He brought it home about two weeks before Christmas from pre-school. At first he wanted us to open it right away and then he changed his mind and told us we needed to wait until Christmas. He couldn't stop talking about it though. Then, one night, we were at Walmart and we let him and Kiwi each choose one new ornament for the tree. He choose a bell. He was ringing it and then said,

"All right Mommy, you guessed it. You guessed what your present is," in a resigned voice.

I hadn't said anything about the ornament.

When he persisted, I said, "You got us a bell?"

"No, Mommy it's an ornament." He just couldn't wait to tell us.

Mike had mentioned he wanted a cookbook for Asian cuisine, so I read some reviews and got him this one for Christmas. Over the break he made us many delicious recipes from this book. It was the gift that gave to everyone. He really enjoys cooking, but his work/school schedule pretty much kept him out of the kitchen from June to December. I was more then happy to let him take over for a couple of weeks.

Games, games, games. The games for Mike and I this year were Bananagrams (sort of like scrabble, but faster) and Pentagrams. We were able to play with family and friends some, but many nights found us putting the kids to bed and facing off with each other. We also played a lot of Candy Land and Go Fish as a family (Kiwi is dressed, it's just in her Tinkerbell costume which was also a regular over vacation...and post vacation).

It was a wonderful two weeks of family and now it's back to real life... which is also wonderful just in a more busy, structured sort of way.