Christmas festivities

I just had to put this picture in because it was just so darn cute seeing these two out there raking the leaves. They just decided themselves that they would go out there and do it. so funny

Because we had our thanksgiving early we decided to decorate the house before the thanksgiving holiday. Getting out all the decorations is one of my favorite things to do. I love it so much. The other thing I love is when we take them down. I just am ready to have the clutter put away by the end of the season.

It is always fun to decorate the tree with the kids. This year we decided to get a new tree because our old one is so small. So we took it upstairs for the kids and let them decorate it with their decorations and we decorated ours with ours. The crazy thing is that we had plenty of decorations for both trees. which is crazy to think all those were on the small tree last year.

Dad has to always put the angel on top. It's tradition.

I try to have a different activity for the kids to do most nights during the christmas season. I just have such good memories growing up from all the activities we did, and I want to make sure I do the same thing for my kids.I saw this cute idea somewhere to make rice crispy wreaths and the kids could form them and then decorate them with m&ms. Sometimes things don't work out as good as you hope, but oh well. Nellie of course had to put 50m&ms on hers. Memories were made though I guess.

On Thursday Dec. 5th was the Annual Roseville Christmas Tree Lighting. I have always wanted to go to one of those, sometimes I feel like there is so much offered that we can do and we never take advantage of it. Well maybe we should have just stayed home that night. It was during the really cold snap that we had, and us California folk are just not adjusted to that. Especially because it just hadn't gotten cold yet. So 30 degrees for us was soo dang cold! But we decided to go anyway. The traffic and parking were insane and we almost got stuck in the parking garage where there were no spots but a million people trying to park. Luckily because Kevin works down there he knew where there was a hidden parking lot that was actually pretty close to the event. We missed the actual tree lighting but oh well maybe next year. They had a whole bunch of activities but the kids were just too cold to want to do any of them. So we got this picture by the pretty tree. It was really nice of a lady to take our picture of our family for us, but it was funny that Annie's hat was over her eyes and she didn't notice. Annie's hat was a little on the big side, but it was a really warm hat thats why I put it on her.

 

there was a choir there so we stayed and listened to it. After that they gave us some snow. Which was actually just bubbles that looked like snow, but it was fun for the kids. That was pretty much it for us. We just couldn't handle the cold. On the way back to the car we saw a giant possum and we told the girls how we had those all over the place in Kansas and they thought it was pretty cool. They were a little freaked out that it was going to attack us though.

One night we decorated gingerbread men. I decided that what the kids really want to do is eat the treats we decorate, so instead of decorating gingerbread houses that they can't eat, I found a really good recipe for soft gingerbread men and we decorated them. I am not a huge gingerbread fan, but these were good!

Daddy holding the baby girl. She needs to be part of the action too! She is getting so big on us so fast!

We had some friends invite us for family night to go walk around a neighborhood and see all the lights. It was pretty warm and so it was a really nice night to walk around. Russy really enjoyed looking at the lights this year. He is at that really fun age where he is starting to understand and everything is getting so magical!

I took cute little Annie around in the bjorn and she was super good. It was just the prefect size of neighborhood so it didn't take too long to walk around, then we went back to the Waldrons house for donuts and hot cocoa. It was a fun night.

Janie had a couple of programs with her two different preschools that she goes to. She goes to Miss Pattys on Tuesday and Thursdays and then she goes to Miss Wattys (our friends from church) on Fridays while I watch her little boy for a trade. So at Miss Watty's she did a little Nativity and Jane played Mary because she is the only girl. It was really cute.

Then that night Jane had her Miss Patty's program that was so darn cute, but there are so many kids that are there that it was really hard to see and even harder to get any pictures. I did record it and I did get this cute picture of her with Santa. She is such a cute little singer and she does such a good job. I love my little Janie girl.

We had such a good Christmas season this year. I love all the fun memories that we make as a family!