Christmas and New Year's

Christmas was so much fun with these two little munchkins.  Lizzie was so excited to tear off a chain every day for our countdown to Christmas.  We have this great advent calendar from Spencer's mom that covers the story of Christ's birth.  Each night before bed we read another part of the story and remembered what Christmas is all about.  We started the month with a FHE about gifts Christ gives to us.  Then we wrapped a box in white paper and wrote on papers what we were going to give Him this Christmas.  It was fun on Christmas day to remind ourselves of those gifts.  One of the kids' favorite activities was painting Christmas lights with corn syrup.  Of course Daniel just ate the colored corn syrup and laughed as he realized his hands were sticking to his stomach and head.  If you've never done this, it's really cool.  The corn syrup dries, but still looks wet so you get really cool pictures.  Christmas wouldn't be complete in our house without gingerbread.  Daniel felt the need to taste each and every piece of candy before he put it on the house.  I love the look on his face in this picture and Lizzie's frosting chin. :)

I had to include this one too with Lizzie's cute pose. Love that girl!

Here's the first time Lizzie met Santa at her dance party.  She did talk to him which bodes well for Disneyland in a couple months, but didn't want to sit anywhere near his lap.

The next two pictures are Daniel and Lizzie with Santa at her preschool party.  Of course Daniel has attitude and Lizzie still won't sit on his lap, but hey I'm happy with her talking to him and being excited to see him.

The kids have been loving seeing Christmas lights around town.  We picked Spence up from work one night so we could see the Temple Square.  Lizzie is always asking to go see the temples.  That was her highlight of the night.  She loved the lights, but was super excited for the temple. 

This is the face Daniel did all night when he saw the lights.  He'd go running from bush to tree to whatever had lights on it.  It was so fun seeing how excited he got.  On our way out we snagged some warm gingermen from Deseret Book and grabbed dinner at Alberto's, one of our favs!  There used to be one here in Spanish Fork where my family used to get the supreme nachos, mmmm!  It was great to be able to have it again.  Lizzie and Daniel loved the food and Spencer will now have to share his horchata.  Those two kids are addicted to that stuff!

I loved having time off with the kids.  We realized that Daniel's attitude was mostly from me working.  As soon as Christmas break started his attitude completely changed.  The break is definitely what the kids and I needed.  It was made even better because Spencer's boss decided to let him take the week off between Christmas and New Year's and still paid him.  Being out of school meant I could do the things with the kids I always love to do like decorating cookies!  We got together with my sister-in-law MeLisa and her kids David and Caleb.  It was such a great way to spend a morning.  MeLisa brought some great things to decorate with and the kids had a blast.  Of course we all filled up on cookies and candy while decorating.

I love cooking with this girl!

This is my favorite recipe for cookies, thanks to Andrea!

We had two Christmas Eves, one with Spencer's family on Christmas Eve Eve :) and one with my family on Christmas Eve.  Spending time with our families was great.  Talking about the nativity story and singing songs was great.  Lizzie loved the idea of being Mary at the Scanlon's.  Even now she'll put something on her head and pretend to be Mary.   Then at the Jackson's we watch the nativity story and read our favorite Christmas books, Twas the Night Before Christmas and Santa Mouse.  A tradition Spence and I have started is to have the Christmas Eve dinner centered on Christ.  This year we did the loaves and fishes.  My mom made homemade bread while I baked fish and made some green beans and rice.  It's great to think about the amazing miracles Christ has done and still does for us.  One of my favorite parts of the night was when Spencer was telling the story of the loaves and fishes when my nephew David said "so what about the green beans and rice?"  I love the funny things kids say as they try to make sense of what adults say.  Daniel and Lizzie then opened their first presents...pajamas!  Christmas morning was great watching the kids' excitement.  Ok so Spence and I get just as excited too.  Thanks to some awesome deals Thanksgiving weekend we were able to get things the kids needed and wanted.  Lizzie got a bike (so she can ride while I jog with Daniel and the new baby) and a kitchen.  She loves pretending to cook and make any kind of food.  She loves books and got super excited over this princess look and find book.

Daniel of course woke us up bright and early, ok maybe not so bright, but it was definitely early.  He loved playing with the trainset, but candy definitely held his interest all morning.  I mean, come on, candy for breakfast?  Yes please!  Don't worry, Santa brought our favorite cereals so we still got some regular breakfast too.  The night before he loved seeing all the guitars on these pajamas.

Daniel playing with his new favorite big legos.

Lizzie with her favorite toy, a kitchen!  Every time I videotaped her she was just playing, then I'd turn the camera off and she'd go crazy jumping up and down.

I love having Christmas on Sunday.  It's a great reminder of what Christmas is all about.  With our early risers we had plenty of time to relax and play in the morning before getting ready for church by 9.  I love that every Sunday morning when we get them dressed, Lizzie goes around telling Daniel what a handsome boy he is.  The two of them just love playing together, thankfully since they're going to be sharing a room in a few more months.

After church we went by the Jackson's and Scanlon's for more present opening and celebrating.  I always forget to take pictures and remembered at the last minute at both places.  Here are a few pictures with my mom having a tea party with her grandkids.  They were so excited when she opened this gift.  The cups change color with the cold water so it looks like a purple punch. 

Spencer didn't like using my camera and I was busy helping Daniel so this was one of the only pictures on my camera.  Daniel is obsessed with balls so he threw this ball around all day.

It was great to spend so much time with family.  The day after Christmas was just as great.  Since we spent Christmas going at our parents' houses, we told Lizzie we'd spend all Monday doing nothing but playing with toys at home.  It was like a second Christmas all over again at home with our little family.  This started a week of playing with the kids and spending time together.  Best week ever!  We did a dance with Spencer's family.  I loved having an excuse to dance with Spencer, since it's not something he typically would choose to do.  I couldn't stop laughing I was having so much fun.  New Year's Eve was our normal tradition of playing games til all hours of the night.  With my sister's family here we decided to try and put the kids down for bed at my parent's house.  It was fun to not rush home for bed.  The kids played games and then had a movie night while we played games.  One of my new favs is Discombobulation.  It was the perfect party card game.  Though we have a large assortment in our game closet, we're definitely going to add that one to our list.  Can't wait to play it again!