Elves do good work!!

Santa always leaves candy on the table and it stays out for the entire day. The kids love that they can eat candy all day long. This stuff lasted at least 4 days, as I recall. That's longer than ever before. I was really proud of myself this year. I had almost all of the presents wrapped a week before Christmas. I usually wrap most on Christmas Eve once the kids are in bed, but this year I only had to wrap around 5 and we were in bed before 10pm. I was so happy!
Each kid gets one or two presents from Santa and their stockings are usually overflowing. This is David's, mine, Nephi's and Faith's.
Here are Vilate's, Hyrum's, Helaman's and Gloria's. They were so excited in the morning!

We are so blessed to have such good friends and family. Our Christmas this year was phenomenal and would not have been so full of gifts if it were not for our very generous friends and family. Thank you all so much for your kindness, thoughtfulness and generosity. Please forgive the lack of thank-you cards, but writing is becoming increasing difficult with the neuropathy that I am experiencing. We are so grateful to you for your love and support! We had a very Merry Christmas and hope you did as well!!

Traditions

I love traditions and I love that we have created some really fun traditions for Christmas. My ultimate favorite is carried over from when I was a kid. We go Christmas caroling on Christmas Eve to 5 or 6 families and deliver a plate of goodies. This year we started earlier than in years past. As soon as it got dark we headed over to our first stop. We always sing the same songs: "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph," followed by "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." Then we leave a plate of treats. We visited 5 houses and were home around 7pm. A perfect activity. When we got home the kids opened their new pair of jammies - another fantastic tradition. Here is the picture of them together in their new jammies.Following this picture we sent them to bed and Santa's elves got to work!

Christmas Eve

We had beautiful weather on Christmas Eve Day, so we took the kids outside to play on the playground. They spent their time riding bikes, scooters and skateboards, drawing with chalk and playing on the play structure. It was so fun!Faith drawing Santa going down a chimney.
Gloria at the top of the slide.
Hyrum lounging on the slide - he actually kept going down sideways, it was funny!

The Gingerbread House

I am going to confess here that I never have made a gingerbread house - a big one - with the kids. At preschool they have all done the milk carton/graham cracker ones but I have never done one at home - the potential for a mess was holding me back. This year a wonderful friend bought my kids this kit and we put it together. It was a huge mess, but it was a huge blast! Gloria loved sprinkling on the sprinkles and Nephi loved eating all the candy. The big kids were much more particular about where their things went and making patterns, but the little ones just thought it was marvelous to make a mess! Here's the finished project. How'd we do?

Breakfast with Santa

We had a great time at the Ward's Annual Breakfast With Santa. The waffles, pancakes, and sausage were yummy! Santa (actually a good friend of ours) was fantastic. The kids loved dressing up in different costumes for the manger scene. Nephi and I were the kings! It was a blast. The kids also loved the games of tag and chase that they got the other kids to all join in on. It was a good morning.
I am so grateful that we have these kind of activities for our family to go to and participate in. Our kids look forward to this particular activity every year and I love that we get to visit with our friends. Thanks go out to all the people that worked so hard on this activity!!