Dec- Week 4- Christmas Adam @ Mantua, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Sledding, Children's Museum, New Years!

Christmas Break in full effect!! 

Monday the kids had a play date with the Alexanders.  

Tuesday, we got more snow!  After lunch, the kids had another play date with the Lewises.  

We babysat cousin Ellie that evening.  

Wednesday was Christmas Adam!  Dan played racquetball in the morning with David and Laurie.  Then we packed up, delivered a few more neighbor gifts, then headed up to Mantua!  

We picked up some Keva juice on the way as our lunch.  Anna fell asleep while enjoying hers.  

As soon as we got up to Mantua, I started working on my food assignment for dinner, twice baked potatoes!  So yummy!  Aunt Lara was nice enough to curl McKenna's hair. :)  After lots of playing and a fancy dinner, we had our little talent show.  McKenna played Away in a Manger and had everyone join in the second time she played it.  Ben played Jingle Bells on his tone bells from music class.  He was being a little grouchy before the talent show and it took some convincing to get him to come play (even though he had planned on it for weeks!).  I'm so sad we didn't get him introducing himself on camera.  It was hilarious!  It went something like, "Hi.  You all know, my name is Ben.  And I'm going to play Jingle Bells and it's my first time so I hope you enjoy it"  The three "fashion cookies" also sang a song together.  

 
After the talent show, Grandma gave everyone their Christmas jammies, we ate dessert, and Grandpa read from Luke 2.  

Then we put the kids to bed.  

You'll notice the girls look mostly the same in all three of these group shots. below,  but look at Ben's hands.  They look different every time.  I took about 10 shots and these were the best three because Ben could not sit still!

After the kids went to bed, Gma and Gpa gave the grown-ups their jammies (hoodie footies!) and we did our traditional pyramids!  Adam and Brian were injured so they had to be supports.  We also played reverse charades and Mario Kart.  

Christmas Eve morning, we had another fabulous meal with our traditional Christmas poppers and crowns.  Then we opened up the Webster family gifts!  The girls all got matching Albion leggings!  

After lunch, McKenna, Ben and Dan played out in the snow for a bit.  Then we packed up and headed home by 4ish.  After two fancy back-to-back meals at Mantua, we opted for an "easy" Christmas Eve dinner-- Pizza Hut!! :)  One of our family gifts from the Stewarts was a kids Star Wars tent, so we set that up for the kids to have a "sleepover" in Anna's room.  Next, the kids opened their Christmas pjs from us.  Then we acted out the Nativity complete with peaceful Bethany as baby Jesus, McKenna was Mary, Ben was Joseph, and Anna as a donkey (sort of).  Then we set out treats for Santa and got the kids to bed! Dan and I had thankfully done most of the wrapping days before so we were asleep by 12:30!

Video of our Nativity here.

Christmas morning the kids slept in till 8! We opened presents till about 9:30.  Bethany loved eveything, ;) Anna loved her new purse, McKenna loved her snow globe, and Ben loved his Iron Man.  

Anna also got a plastic tea set so she won't play with McKenna's porcelain one as much.  They loved reading the letter from Santa.  (After a quick comparison, McKenna seemed to think Santa's handwriting looked like Dan's... weird!)  They also got some Daniel Tiger Figures.  

After presents we ate our traditional German Pancakes!!  Then my sister and brother came over to hang out for the day.  We played, chilled, made things, read, and did puzzles all afternoon.  We Skyped with my parents and Dan's parents came by to see what Santa brought us.  Dan and Ben spent 4(!) hours working on this Christmas Lego set from Dan's parents.  Dan had numb bum for sure!  Just as I was starting to get our fancy Christmas dinner ready, Anna decided she had enough fun, was listening to a story on Aunt Pickle's lap, and zonked right out!  

McKenna's first selfie during our Christmas dinner!  

After dinner, my siblings went home for Jonathan to sleep (since he works graveyards), and Mickelle had a pretty nasty cold/ear infection so she needed rest too.  We took the kids driving around Salt Lake to see some great Christmas light displays...like this crazy house in the Avenues.  

Ben fell asleep around 7:30 in the car and we put him straight to bed when we got home.  After all the kids were in bed, we could finally "play" with our grown-up toys-- a Chromecast and Apple TV! :)  It was a wonderful Christmas day filled with excitement, family. and love!

Saturday Dan let me sleep in till 9!  Then after breakfast he took M and B sledding at the Eaglewood golf course  (Anna started having a runny nose and cough).

Ben sledding here.

McKenna sledding here.

 Nice panoramic shot. 

That evening our nephew Reed came to babysit while we took Bethany to the Jazz game with Dan's parents and Sam and Lara (and Hailey).  We had some delicious Mexican food before.  Poor Hailey had been throwing up the night before and they thought she was feeling better, but during the third quarter she threw up again all over Sam.  :(  

Bethany had a little snooze.

Sunday I stayed home from church with Anna since she had a pretty nasty cold.  I went to church for  the third hour only to teach my last primary lesson to my awesome class of 8 year olds (Max, Mae, Tyler, Kimball, Chase and Zach).  I'm gonna miss them!  Dan came home for the third hour to be with Anna and had a tea party.

 Sunday evening we had my sister and one of our best friends, Becca (and her family), over for brownies and ice cream.  It was great to catch up and reconnect!  

 Monday we packed a lunch and headed down to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point.  We were gifted some tickets a year ago and finally used them!  We played for 1.5 hours, ate lunch, then played for about 2 more hours!  It was pretty crowded but I feel like we spent as much time there as we could before the kids were wiped out.  Tons of FUN!

Monday evening we went to another Utah Basketball game! (Don't worry, I'm still a Cougar!)

I posted my top nine Instagram posts from 2015-- obviously mostly about Bethany!  :)

 Tuesday we took McKenna and Ben to the new Star Wars movie!  It was awesome!  

That evening we took dinner to the Winegars to see their NEW house!  Then we ate at Chick-fil-a and attended a Court of Honor for Alton Mortensen (one of Dan's former 11 yr old scouts).  

Wednesday I met up with two of my college roommates and their families!  So fun to be together but it's never long enough!  

That evening we went to Zoo Lights.  It was quite cold and crowded, but I'm glad we could go.  

Thursday (New Year's Eve) Dan was nice enough to let me go (mostly) solo clothes shopping (with a gift card I had) and then out to lunch.  It felt so nice to hear my own thoughts for such an extended period of time! ;)  

After lunch, we miraculously got EVERYONE to take a nap.  Everyone but Bethany and I napped for 2 hours to prepare for staying up late to party! 

 Once Bethany and I woke up from our shorter naps, I gave her a little hair trim and a bath.  I mostly cut the longest hairs that were kind of scraggly.  

Party # 1...to Dan's parents' house! Grandma had many fun things planned for us and David & Laurie's family!  We made mini pizzas, then every hour we popped balloons to find out what the next activity was (it was written on a paper inside the balloon). We played Bingo, made "bug boards" out of pompoms and craft sticks, and decorated notebooks.  

There was also fro-yo which Anna thoroughly enjoyed.  

We left Dan's parents' around 9:30 and spent an hour or so with some neighbors at the Jensen's house.  So many kids!!  They had a pinata and some fireworks for an early countdown around 10:30pm.  

 We headed back to grandma and grandpa's house around 11.  We did puzzles while the kids watched a movie, then we watched the Times Square ball drop (grandma had noise makers and poppers) and called it a night!  Phew!  

Happy 2016!!