December

The first weekend in December this year, Sean was on call at work. When you are on call over the weekend you have to work the urgent care from 8-12, so Sean had to miss our fun church Christmas breakfast. The kids and I made it a bit late but just in time for pancakes =) The table were decorated with all kinds of yummy things to decorate your pancake with. Santa even came to say hello! Brett was very excited to see him and couldn't wait to go sit on his lap and tell him what he wants for Christmas.

 On the stage behind Santa there was a candy table where kids could go make a bag of whatever candy they wanted! Brett loved it! Alana and Lizzie were both very scared of Santa and also the sweet young women in charge of the candy table.

 Alana liked the fruit flavored candy canes and Lizzie like the dum dums and chocolate chips.

 Sean got home right after the urgent care and we started getting ready for our annual gingerbread house party. This was our third year and it was so fun to have the new house to host it in! We had a good turn out of residents from St. Marks and their families.

 This next one was my house as I was building it:

 The table set up was pretty fun and having everyone bring candy makes for a huge variety!

 Lizzie was most concerned with eating the entire house rather than decorating it!

 Alana assembled her house twice so that she could lick the frosting off twice, lol!

 Ryan and Jess always come with intricate plans and this year they made a Halloween themed house with a hangman, monster faces, and zombies.

 Sean made a tie fighter:

 All the houses:

 We did a timer to try and get the whole group in a photo.

 On Sunday we had an epically horrible day at church. I am so glad I'm not a single parent (Sean was at the urgent care and Brett was in a HORRIBLE mood)! After talking things through after the meetings and many many tears on Brett's part because he understood how upset I was and that it was his fault, we cheered up and watched some baking videos. We watched one about how to make a cakie. You cut out circles of cake, encase them in chocolate chip cookies, glue it together with frosting and then put on sprinkles. Sean took all three kids out sledding while I stayed home and baked a cake and cookies so we could try out the cakie creation. Everyone came home and we had hot cocoa to warm up and dinner, and then we assembled our cakies with Grandma and Grandpa. The dessert was quite yummy, although way too rich and it was a bad idea to eat a whole cakie!

 I have some of my old doll furniture in the basement for the kids to play with and the girls especially like this table and chairs. Lizzie decided to sit on one of the little chairs while playing her kindle one day.

 Brett and Alana made a Minnie Mouse sculpture for Lizzie one day.

 Twin Elsas!

 We watched Tangled one night and it was Lizzie's first time, she really loved it!

 Sean decided to take Alana skiing on his day off, so the night before he got all his ski stuff ready to go. He was so excited!

Alana had a wonderful adventure with he daddy! She loved going on the bus to get up to the resort and she did great with all the gear (which kinda shocked me since she is so picky about her clothing). They spent a while on thy bunny hill and then they went up the lift and skied down together. I guess Sean just held her in front of him. About a quarter of the way down, Alana realized she needed to go potty, so Sean booked it down the mountain and that made her a bit upset just because it was so fast and scary. I guess after that she was like wow what just happened, I don't want to do that again! But as she processed it on the bus and ride home she decided she really liked it! 

 We made some pizza for dinner that night and then I went to this freezer meal session. My friend Melanie told me about Citrus Pear. We went to this grocery store and they had tables with cutting boards, onions, salt, pepper, all kinds of utensils and ziplock bags. They delivered different ingredients to us and we diced and poured and chatted and ended up with 20 freezer meals in a little under 2 hours. It was a lot of fun and the meals have been really good so far! I just put them in the crockpot and then add some rice or noodles. So far we've had cashew chicken, Korean beef, sweet pork, lime tacos, greek chicken wraps, and probably some others that I can't remember right now.

 We made a quadruple batch of our oreo truffles one night and it was a lot of fun to work all together.

 On the 8th, Brett's friend Ender was baptized. Sean took Brett and Alana while I took Lizzie to the grocery store. We all went to the open house after and enjoyed visiting with our neighbors and eating costco cake.

 After the open house, we went up to Mount Olivet Cemetery to meet up with my parents, Aunt and Uncle, and cousin and all his family. We gathered around the headstone of my grandparents and had a family prayer and then all shared some fun memories of Grandma especially. I wasn't really prepared and the kids didn't have proper boots or coats on, so Sean took them to the car. Sean caught this photo of my mom and I walking back out to the street. I love it because it feels like we have had this same moment of walking together at the cemetery every Christmas season that I've been in Utah.

 After the cemetery, we went to Target so the kids could do some shopping for each other. This year Brett and Sean went together and I took the girls. It was a lot of fun to see the kids so excited to pick out things for each other. After we had been super secretive, we drove up to Aunt Lucilles apartment to see her Christmas decorations and visit. We had fun telling her about our birds and she was pretty horrified that we leave the cage door open.

 This is her dining room, front entrance. I love her decor!

We all walked to the Olive Garden and had a yummy dinner, then Sean and the kids and I headed home so Brett could get to his friend Eli's birthday dinner. 

 Grandpa has a lego advent calendar and he lets the kids help him build it. He saves up all the days and does it with the kids when he sees them.

 We got to watch Elroy while Mom and Dad Z went to Disney World. He is such a sweet dog and makes us really happy!

 Sean's Uncle Brian and his wife Pamela came into town from France for the holidays with her family. They were at Mom and Dad Peterson's house and we got to go enjoy some pizza and fun conversation. Uncle Brian's 2 youngest children were there too, Mary and Daniel. It was neat to talk with them and get to know them. Dad P took the kids downstairs and played with them a ton. Brett and Alana did the exercise bikes and Lizzie found lots of fun books and of course they got to watch some Donald Duck cartoons. Alana has been more and more anxious and that really takes a toll on me, also Lizzie and Alana have started fighting a lot more, so I was just really grateful that night for a good break. Dad P is so sweet!

Every other week Sean works an urgent care shift on Tuesday night. On those days he has the following morning off. It worked out nicely this time that he had our birthday morning off. We took Brett and Alana to school and then took Lizzie to Kneaders with us for a yummy breakfast. 

Our birthday was pretty chill. We ate potato soup and monte cristo sandwiches and then had our neighbors over to share some cake and cupcakes. 

 Brett loves Elroy to sleep with him and he was so sweet reading aloud to him each night.

On the 13th, Sean had his day off so we were thinking we could go to the temple and then spend the day shopping and maybe go out to lunch. Then it came up that Sean needed a root canal and had it done that morning, He was also on baby call at the hospital and had 4 babies to go round on after the dental work. He made it home at about 1. Mom and Dad P were so sweet to come and watch the kids for us. We went to do some Sealings at the Temple and then we went to Target and Ross to finish up some Christmas shopping. We came home and had sweet pork for dinner and then went to the Christmas in Color show with Mom and Dad P.  We all enjoyed the lights and music and I was grateful it wasn't too cold since the kids really wanted the windows down. 

On the 14th, Alana's preschool class put on a little Christmas concert. They sang 3 songs and looked so cute! Alana is a very enthusiastic singer and I love that I can hear her voice above everyone else's. 

 Lizzie loves Elroy, and Elroy tries his best to love Lizzie!

 One of our giving advent calendar activities this year was to buy food for the food bank. We took the kids to a market by our house and Santa and Mrs Clause were right there in the produce section! Brett said hello and Alana and Lizzie were scared. We ended up going through the store and letting the kids pick all the food for the food bank. They bought tuna and shrimp cans, oatmeal, ceareal, chocolate bars, and all kinds of canned things. They had so much fun shopping for "the other people" It was fun for Sean and I when we got to the checkout and told them we wanted to put it in their food bank box. They said which items and we said "all of it". We all loved it and felt the Christmas Spirit of giving!

 One night when Elroy was here, he was feeling a bit home sick and he convinced me to let him sleep in our bed.

 The pile of presents under our tree has been growing...

Alana had a playdate with a friend from tumbling the other day and they got out my American Girl Dolls. They all really loved the roller skates! 

 Grandma and Grandpa came home from Disney World and brought chocolate wands and frogs and legos and princess toddlers. Christmas pretty much came early!!