Tis the Season

Warning...LONG post with lots of pictures ahead. We had a fun December this year! I was happy to get my Christmas shopping mostly done by Thanksgiving so we could just focus on enjoying the holiday season as a family. The first week of December we got a pretty good snowstorm and had about 8 -10 inches so Lexie wanted to get bundled and play in the snow.

They were out there for an hour and got the bottom 2 layers of a snowman done, but then it got too cold and after that day it started warming up again so the snowman didn't quite get finished.

The Christmas tree was a challenge this year with Hoyt and we could only have decorations on the top half or he would pull them off. I only got this one picture of the kids decorating the tree.

But I did get some video of the kids dancing to Christmas music. It was so cute and we did this several times during December.

I took a few pictures the day after we decorated the tree. The kids were excited about all the Christmas decorations, especially the tree!

Also the first week of December, Lexie wanted to send a letter to Santa. I wrote the letter and she asked for a pink laptop and a candy cane with candy inside for her stocking. She also asked Santa to bring Hoyt a toy he would like. I took a picture of her mailing the letter even though she didn't want me to take a picture of her with the letter. The next pictures are of Lexie singing with the primary at the ward Christmas party. She was so excited they let the older nursery kids going into primary next year sing with the primary.

This shows how huge our primary is and this is not even close to the full primary because not everyone came to the ward party. We have 3 nursery classes with around 20 kids in each!

This is just a random picture from December, but it is so cute! Hoyt loves to climb in the dryer when I am doing laundry and Lexie climbed in with him so I decided to snap a picture. Love these silly kids!

One weekend in December we decided to go to St. George and have some fun. We decided to eat at one of our favorite places...Olive Garden! We all enjoyed a fantastic meal!

Next we went to the St. George Temple to see the Christmas lights. Of course it isn't Temple Square, but it was decent weather and just right for our kids. Lexie wanted to get a picture with Jesus in the visitor's center.

I love this temple and it looked awesome with all the lights!

Here are the kids looking at the nativity. The reason for the season!

Lexie wanted to get a picture with me on the temple steps, and this is the best I could get of Bryan and the kids.

After the temple we went to the mall so I could grab a few things and Lexie got to see Santa. We didn't get pictures because you couldn't take your own, and professional pictures were way too expensive, but it was so fun to watch her meet him and sit on his lap. At first she liked seeing him but said she was too scared to go meet him. Bryan gave her a pep talk and she finally decided to do it, but by that time there was a line so we had to wait for a while. She was so cute talking to Santa and he was one of the best I have seen. So overall it was a fun little outing for our family!

I was determined this year to make to the Melody Miss program in Orderville. This was Mrs. Lamb's 43rd year to do Melody Misses and my mom, Mickell, Jodi, Jen and Pete were all involved so I was determined to make it over! They did not disappoint and it was a really great performance that brought back a lot of memories from the years I spent in Melody Misses.

I love Mrs. Lamb! She is one of the best ladies I have ever known and I'm so grateful for the years she was my teacher and she has been such a great friend to me and my family through the years. She is also my awesome friend Amy's Grandma. I was so glad I was able to talk to her and give her a hug after the performance.

My Mom also put tons of work into making the program a success and Pete helped out on some songs on the keyboard.

Jen did a great job on her solo, and Mickell and Jodi did a pretty duet. I'm glad I got to go!

The Monday before Christmas I needed a quick idea for an activity so we bought a gingerbread house kit to decorate. Hoyt was ready for bed soon after we started so we put him to bed.

Lexie had fun helping put candy on...and eating the candy. Here she is with the finished product.

I'm not much of an artist so this wasn't the best, but Lexie had fun and that's all that mattered.

It was a great month full of fun and hyper kids. We enjoyed watching some of our favorite Christmas movies like Muppet Christmas Carol, The First Christmas, Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer, Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Lexie's favorite this year was Frosty the Snowman. We had fun dancing to Christmas music, looking at Christmas lights, and reading Christmas stories. And Veggie Tales taught Lexie the true meaning of Christmas. In her own words she would say "Christmas isn't about toys, it's about Jesus".