Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve as a family. We went to Fairytale Town since it was free! It was a nice change from the zoo-we hadn’t been there in a while.

The Wizard of Oz On King Arthur’s throneOn a pirate shipSliding down from Owl’s Treehouse Marco on top of Cinderella’s coachSylvie in “The Little Train that Could”

That evening, Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle B came over for dinner. Julio barbequed a tri-tip and made garlic mashed potatoes. We also had brie en croissant, veggies and dip, water chestnuts with bacon, fruit salad…yummy! I did not get any pictures that night-too tired and busy getting dinner on the table. Then we went to visit Uncle Dan’s grandma at the retirement home. We visited with her and sang to her and played with her dog. Then we went home and played some games with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle B. Then, the kids opened their new jammies, we read from the Bible and the kids sprinkled their reindeer food on the lawn. It took them a long time to settle down and go to bed, so Santa couldn’t come until after midnight. But he did come! It was so exciting!!!

A Sunday in December

It’s the holiday season!

Wow, it seems like a really short Christmas season his year. Thanksgiving was later this year, and with working and all-I have less to time to prepare! I did get the advent calendars from Trader Joe’s this year, before they sold out. Yay! We have been reading scriptures or other Christmas stories, or singing carols each night before bed. The kids have been able to watch a few Christmas movies while sipping on hot chocolate. We’ve attended Christmas parties. I planned the Relief Society dinner this year and it was a big success. I didn’t get any pictures-but we had beautiful navy, silver and white decorations, a big canvas of the Nativity on the wall and sparkling white Christmas lights around the room. We had spinach salad with white beans, red bell pepper and croutons with a tomato basil vinaigrette, rolls, cranberry-orange chicken, herbed roasted red potatoes and glazed carrots for dinner.  Then we had people bring all kinds of cookies for dessert and we served hot chocolate with them. The program was beautiful-we had some amazing musical numbers and my dad did a reading. It was so nice. I’m glad it’s over though! I also got to attend a cookie exchange with ladies from church, and a surprise birthday party for a friend. It’s been a busy month. Here are some pictures of some of the things we’ve done as a family:

Decorating the tree

The Ward Christmas Party-Old Bethlehem style

They had old fashioned games for the kids. A stable backdrop for pictures-our kids didn’t want to use the costumes they had, so it’s kind of a hodgepodge of things. Tessa just wanted to sit by the baby.We ate dinner on the floor. They did the Nativity play and passed out different treats for each part of the play-chocolate coins when the Roman soldier came out, candy canes with the shepherds, white chocolate candy with the angel…An interesting shot of me.Kids all sugared up!

Riding the Train to see the Christmas lights.

Hopefully we can squeeze in a few more fun things before Christmas! So far, it’s been a great season!

November

Wow-I’m really slacking on my blogging lately-one post for the month! I’ve got to get on this again.

Marco finished his soccer season with the Mauraders. He scored 9 goals in 10 games-the highest scorer on his team! He wasn’t too happy with his team this year since they only won 3 games all season. His coach was really nice and so were the parents, so we will see what happens next year.

We got to dog sit Chase during Thanksgiving vacation. Marco put on his Scooby-Doo costume and Chase didn’t quite know what to think of it.

We got a last minute invitation to have Thanksgiving at our friends the Donaldson’s.Julio-post turkey.Mmm, pumpkin pie and persimmons cookies.

The boys playing Legos.

A family pic-couldn’t get everyone (Sylvie and Tessa) to look at the camera.

We walked to the American River to try and work off some of that Thanksgiving meal!Chase was worn out.Didn’t stay too long-too many dead fish floating in the river. I took the kids to see Frozen-it was so cute! (Marco wasn’t thrilled to have his picture taken in public.)

It was a quick month-working, kids had minimum days and parent teacher conferences, a week off for Thanksgiving. The kids all did really well on their report cards. Marco is now at grade level in reading! Sylvia has achieved 4 out of 5 of her kindergarten goals. Lucia got all Oustandings for her classroom behavior. Yay!

And that’s it! Now on to the Christmas season. I will post more in Decemer-hopefully.