December ADVENTures

 At the start of December I made this Advent calender so Irey had a count down to Christmas plus, something to do each day that was a holiday tradition of ours or just something simple and festive. She was SO excited to draw the tag for each day and it was a lot of fun! I am excited to do it again next year.
Some of the things we did...

Wrote a letter to Santa Clause

 She asked for a doll house and drew a very detailed picture.

 Licking the envelope to send off.

Wrap Christmas presents and put them under the tree.

Make Hot Chocolate.

 Any excuse to put the coco-motion to work AND to use our cute Christmas mugs!

Color a Christmas picture.

 Hallie was over playing this day and got to be in on the fun. I printed off several Christmas themed pictures that the girls got to choose from. I ended up coloring with them... not because they asked, just because I wanted too. haha

Have a Christmas Party.

 We had our play group over for a P.J. Christmas party. We cooked breakfast, played White Elephant, colored pictures, and watched Frosty the Snowman! It was a grand ol' time.

Go see Santa Clause.

 This was the second attempt to see Santa and it went over SO much better then the first try. She was awed by him and very bashfully asked for a Doll House. He made sure to tell her to mind her mom and be extra nice to her sister and he would do his best to get her one. It was so cute!

Go see the Lights.

 We went with our friends up to SLC to see the lights at Temple Square. We made our stop first at the Pie, which has the BEST pizza EVER but is not ideal to take children there. Since there was three couples, 3 babies, and one toddler... it was an adventure. By the time we made it to temple square our friends decided to head home instead of fighting traffic, parking, and the crowds just to see the lights... I can't say I blame them, but we were crazy enough to stick it out. Irey was so excited to see them so it made it all worth it in the end.

Next year I think we will just stick to Riverwoods, their lights were amazing PLUS, they got Santa there... so sorry Temple Square... they got SANTA. PLUS Irey was MAD that she couldn't go in the Temple, she said it wasn't nice to not let people in your house. Haha, that was a fun one to try and explain;)

 Take a family picture in front of the tree.

 This may seem silly... but it's a great way for me to remember to do this. I want a family picture in front of the tree every year dang it!

 Ah, so precious! I love this little babes.

Sing Christmas Songs.

 Irey and Hallie had their Preschool Christmas Program and they had all these cute Christmas songs to preform. Sadly Irey didn't sing AT ALL! She cried and cried. It was a crazy morning and she was having a very bad day so naturally she bawled through the whole program. Poor girl, sometime she just needs a good snuggle from mom.

 Make Gingerbread Houses.

 Traditionally we do this every year with the Blackwells. But this year we did some with the Blackwells as well as our own little village at home. You just can't ever have too many Gingerbread Houses :)

Go Ice Skating.

  Something that I think is so fun to do but never remember to do it is go ice skating! Well now, it's on the Advent calender and is a MUST every year. Irey is a terrible skater, haha I wonder where she gets her clumsiness from? Brandon is still as good on the ice as he was in High School, so lucky for us, he could help us out a bit.

Irey had an absolute blast! It was so funny to watch her attempt to skate, she crawled better as a baby then she can skate as a 3 1/2 year old. The last 20 min we ended up playing tag. Irey was hesitant when you got skating fast but having the motivation of chasing after mom or dad took all her fears away. She is a funny little gal!

 

 Watch a Christmas movie.

 Pretty much Brandon's FAVORITE thing about Christmas is watching Christmas movies. We introduced Irey to Home Alone this year and it is the first non-animated movie that Irey couldn't take her eyes off of. She LOVED it, to her daddy's delight. They probably watched Home Alone at least 4 or 5 times. Tonight while eating dinner Irey quoted the movie, we couldn't stop laughing. This time of year is definitely a BLAST with little kids. Reese was just happy to be apart of whatever is happening!

Build a Snowman.... Make a Snow Angel... Go sledding...

 Yea.... about that...
It was on the Advent Calender to do later in the month, closer to Christmas. BUT we never had ANY DANG SNOW! Still waiting....
I swear I jinxed us because I planned on it! Well, we went up to a cabin for New Years (more on that later) and I was able to get some cute pictures of the girlies and I with snow as a background (thats going to to have to suffice). We will be taking full advantage of the FIRST snow day possible.

Make a Christmas Breakfast.

 I love to make Pumpkin Spiced pancakes this time of year. SO soft and full of flavor. This isn't a actual picture of MY pancakes but you get the idea... there was breakfast, it was tasty.

There were a lot of things on the Calender that I didn't get pics of or we didn't get a chance to do.
Make neighbor's treats (check)
Make sugar cookies (check)
Do a service (check)
Read a Christmas Story (check) it's called I Believe in Santa Clause, awesome Christmas Story that really ties together the symbolism of Santa and the real meaning of Christmas, Jesus.

There are so many fun things about this time of year, it was fun to incorporate it into our count down and get Irey really involved. Although it was a much busier season then in years past, I am glad that we got to do so many fun things to enjoy it while it lasted.