Christmas Preparations

We had so much fun preparing for Christmas this year! This was our first year staying at home for Christmas (it just happened to be my parents home too). We baked tons of cookies, sang lots of carols (especially the Mickey and Friends version), played in the snow, and saw lots of wonderful family! Sean also spent 2 days taking the Step 3 exam. It has been very snowy the last few weeks and Brett went out to play with a neighbor one day. Here he is enjoying the wonder of eating snow =)

Brett made this ornament in preschool.
 
Alana loves pretzels:
 
Papa and Mimi came! Alana snuggled with them like this for a good 45 minutes one day:

Brett gingerbread house from preschool:
 
Per Brett’s request, we made gingerbread houses for family home evening. We had a ton of fun, and mine and Alana’s was the most structurally sound.
 



Brett especially enjoyed licking the frosting from the bag after we were all done decorating.

I am not a huge fan of being in the snow. I love the way it looks, but its so much work to get all ready to go out and then just spend 10 minutes freezing. So one day, we brought some snow inside to play with.
 
One of my favorite family traditions is going to visit some cemeteries where family members are buried. We always go tot Mount Olivet where there are tons of deer, we take bread to leave out for the birds and deer. The snow was so deep which Brett thought was fun and Alana thought was a little scary. We got to share a family prayer and remember all the family that has gone before us. I always appreciate the reminder that our Savior made Eternal Families possible.
 
We decided to throw some snow and build a snowman after visiting the graves.
 
Later that afternoon we came home to some cousin time. These 3 played outside for nearly 2 hours!
 
Brett and Alana colored lots of pictures as thank yous and cards for gifts.
 
The kids thought the daily baking of cookies was a great idea!

We went to N&B’s house on the 23rd to do the nativity and play some games. Sean didn’t have to work on the 24th or the 25th so we spent the night and had a great time with family. Alana was a darling (and hyper) angel.
 
Brett was Joseph, Lexi was Mary, and Kaden was the sheep.

The angel kinda wanted to hold the baby Jesus. She actually told me she wanted to be Jesus and when i told her she was too big she said she wanted to be Mary =)

We rang handbells =)

More cookie making:

Alana likes to steal Grandpa’s hat, she also stuck a macaroni noodle up her nose this week. She told me she had “roni” in her nose and I thought she just meant the cheese, but when I looked there was a little noodle in there. I laid her on the couch and got it out by covering her mouth so she would breath out her nose, then I grabbed it with tweezers. She didn’t like it much but she was really brave and I was so glad it came out without having to go to the clinic.