Leading Up to Christmas

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December is all a blur to me. It was so busy! Here's some of the Christmas-ing that went on at our house.

Decorating the tree



Asa loved our tree! I love babies at Christmas. He claimed his own personal branch that he'd go over and shake every once in awhile. He didn't pull off very many decorations, actually. I'm sure we have that to look forward to next year.



Gingerbread cookies

Christmas cards


A visit to the town lights display before it got too cold.

There's music playing by this tree and you can sort of make out the kids dancing around under it.


On the sleigh

This year for my side of the family's Christmas music video extravaganza, we did Feliz Navidad.



Leah was very fond of our nativity this year. I kept catching her taking Baby Jesus out of the manger and putting him in Mary's arms instead.

Lots of Christmas crafts from school

We had Jenna here for a couple days before she headed back to Georgia for good. Then Nate's mom came up for a visit and to unload a giant pile of presents. It was fun having here here. After that, Megan, Sam and Natalie came to spend a few days with us! What a blessing to see so much family!

Addison, Bryn and Leah put on a play telling the story of Jesus' birth.

Santa himself paid us an unexpected visit one evening!

Natalie wasn't so sure about him.

We made lots of tasty treats. Leah's eyes are crossed in this picture.




And Sam dipped the horse plops for me, bless his soul. I hate that part!

The weather was so nice! We spent an afternoon outside playing catch and wall ball and riding bikes and cars and scooters. Bryn decided it was finally time to embrace the two-wheel bike! She's been riding it so much that she has blisters on her thumbs!

We went caroling to some people from the ward. I was a little scared to do it just us, but it went great. It helped to have Megan and Sam there with us. I think the kids really enjoyed it too. They took turns ringing the doorbell, handing treats, and choosing the songs from our vast repertoire. Said repertoire consisted of Jingle Bells, Angels We Have Heard on High, Away in a Manger and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

We decorated gingerbread houses. This is one of my favorite Christmas activities.





Addison really enjoyed working on his with Uncle Sam.




Playing in Natalie's bed

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