We had such a fun Christmas season. Every year, sometime around Halloween, Brandon starts saying we should put the Christmas tree up! I usually try to put it off until at least the week of Thanksgiving. I agreed with putting it up when his Fall break from school started (which was just before Thanksgiving). The boys, especially Lincoln, had so much fun decorating the Christmas tree, helping arrange the Nativity, dancing to Christmas music, and especially loved snitching the candy canes from the tree!
We decided last year to have mostly non-breakable ornaments since we have our little ones and wanted them to be able to have fun with the Christmas tree. We kept the same ornaments this year and both of these boys had fun "re-decorating" the tree several times through out the month and looking at the ornaments!
I especially loved that Lincoln would carry around so gently the Nativity ornaments that we have there is one that is breakable that I thought I placed quite high on the tree, however, when I was putting everything away I realized I couldn't find it. I soon found it on the back side of the tree by itself. I remembered how several times throughout the month I would find Lincoln sitting back there when he needed some quiet time, or when he was possibly "in trouble!" I wonder if that ornament had been back there all month. I'm really not sure when he moved it, but still quite sweet nonetheless.
When it was my turn to teach Lincoln's preschool in December, I decided to have them make little reindeer antlers for one of their little crafts so they could be Rudolphs. It was much more than I anticipated having 5 little ones do this "easy" project (the picture only shows the 3 that were willing to pose for the camera - and the cute little girl did not want a red nose on her cute face). I thought the results of this little project were quite cute.
My favorite thing about this little craft was when they all had their hands, I told them it was time to glue the antlers to the green paper to put it on their heads. I don't know if Lincoln was just being the class clown or if this is really how he understood what i was saying, but the next thing I knew was Lincoln was gluing his antlers directly to his head! Pretty funny, and pretty cute.
Half way through the month it was finally time to go visit Santa! Santa was coming to the story time at the library we often visit so we had to go see him. When I asked Lincoln how excited he was for Christmas and to go see Santa, well, you can see his response below! :)
When the librarian had the kids sing "Here Comes Santa" and then Santa came through the door, Lincoln and Grant was so excited. They were completely mesmerized while Santa read a story to the kids. They were first in line to sit on Santa's lap. However, once they actually got on his lap, Grant had a meltdown. Poor little guy. I got Grant off his lap and Lincoln visited with Santa. I can't remember what he asked for that day (his Christmas wishes changed nearly daily from a dump truck, to a front-end loader, to a fork lift, to a bulldozer, etc). Santa ended up bringing Lincoln a front-end loader. He was so excited! Grant is very much into Elmo ("Mo") right now so Santa ended up bringing him some fun Elmo things. He was excited as well.
In November we found out that Sesame Street Live was coming to UT. We decided to get tickets and have that be a little pre-Christmas getaway for us. We made a weekend out of it and let our fishies go swimming at the hotel, went to the Gateway, and to see the lights on Temple Square. It was a freezing night and Lincoln sure let us know just how cold it was by the end of the night, but some hot chocolate helped out. We had fun walking around seeing the lights and seeing the large Nativity on Temple Square. Little Grant was pretty sleepy, but did pretty good considering.
The next day we got ready and headed to Sesame Street! We didn't tell the boys until we got there and once they knew who they were going to see, they were so excited! Lincoln's favorite character right now is Cookie Monster and Grant's favorite is Elmo so they both got a little stuffed Cookie and Elmo. It was a good show and so much fun to be there with our boys. Lincoln wanted to say "hi" to all the characters and finally Tilly monster came close enough to even shake his hand! That made his day! :)
Last year we found out about a neat local tradition. A nearby community has all the denominations get together to host a live Nativity. Each denomination sets up a different part of the story and then it is narrated and they bring the guests through in a horse drawn wagon. So much fun for these little boys. They loved being in the wagon and being so close to the horses. They liked riding around the park to "find" baby Jesus. It is something I think we will miss next year when we are no longer here.
On the Wednesday before Christmas we finally had our annual Christmas party. Since having our little ones, this "party" has evolved from fondue to making Gingerbread houses! It's a little more kid friendly and fun for all! :) We had some friends from our ward that have 3 little ones come over and had a great time. I think Lincoln may have eaten more candy than went on the house! O-well, I guess that's half the fun of it.
This year we decided to have Christmas Eve/Christmas morning at our house and then afterwards, we headed south to see Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We had a fun and festive Christmas Eve as we acted out the Nativity, had a yummy dinner, had Christmas cupcakes, and opened up Christmas jammies!
It was pretty funny having just our little family acting out the Nativity. Lincoln insisted that he and Grant be little shepherd boys and that Mommy be Mary and Daddy to be Joseph. So that's what we did. "Googie-Bear" was baby Jesus and "Mr. Teddy was the angel. The boys also had their stuffed lamb and dog help them be shepherds. It was fun...and I think they made pretty cute little shepherd boys!
Early in the Christmas season when I was explaining to Lincoln that Christmas was to celebrate baby Jesus' birthday, he thought for a moment and then said, "So we need a cake!" I thought, of course, that makes sense. Why wouldn't we. So for Christmas Eve, we had red velvet cupcakes! :) What a yummy and fun tradition thanks to little Lincoln.
The last thing of the night we had them open one present...their cute Christmas jammies! Before going to bed, we had them leave out the cookies they decorated and milk for Santa and then a carrot for Rudolph.
Lincoln then had a hard time getting to sleep that night and kept wanting to know where Santa was and why he couldn't stay up to see him. Somehow we were finally able to convince him to stay in bed and go to sleep. Bright and early though on Christmas morning, Lincoln was awake and wondering if Santa came. (He said he heard reindeer on the roof and they woke him up!)
Christmas morning and Santa came! Like I said previously, Santa brought Lincoln a front-end loader and Grant Elmo things...they just end up playing with each others toys anyway! We continued such fun celebrations later that day and week with family. I will write more about that in the next post though.
It was a very Merry Christmas (Lincoln is asking when it will be Christmas again!). There are some things that will always make me smile about Christmas '09 and that I will always remember. Things like Lincoln singing his lungs out, "Jingle bells, Jingle bells..." and then his version of the song ends, "in a horse one two and nay." And then he somehow decided (I think because of watching Mr. Kruger's Christmas) that Hark the Harold Angels Sing was his favorite baby Jesus song. Again, he would sing his lungs out with his version, "Hark the Harold angels sing, glory to do the new born king. Christ is born in Bethlehem." This was sung over and over again, loud and clear!I also loved how Grant would say "Ta ta" or "ho ho ho" for Santa or just about any Christmas thing. Especially at night and he would see Christmas lights and say, "oooh! Ho ho ho" When he saw a snowman though he would say "la la la" (Lincoln did this as well. This is because I got lazy and started singing, "Frosty the snowman, la la la la la la la.")
I loved how Lincoln wanted to play with the Nativity's that we have in the house. I loved dancing with these two little ones to Christmas music. I loved how when Lincoln would receive a Christmas present, he would want to know who it was from even before he opened it and then say, "Oh thank you so much."
(This was the best I could get of our two crazy boys together in their Christmas Sunday best!)
Mostly, I loved how excited our little ones were to celebrate baby Jesus' birthday and the time we could all spend together. How grateful we are for our Savior's birth to make it possible that we can be a forever family!
1 comment:
This was a long post, but so good. Shan, you are such a good Mom and your boys are so cute! I miss you guys so much after reading this. Nathan would love Lincoln's front-end loader! Come back to VEGAS!!!
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