Christmas Activities

We have had so much fun doing lots of little Christmas activities throughout this month. We have so many traditions that I like to do, but it seems hard to fit them all in with all the other holiday stuff going on! We managed to get around to most of it though. It has been so fun with the kids being a little older and actually getting excited about things this year. There are A LOT of pictures....sorry! I was going to do these post separately but I decided to just put it all together.

We always love to go see lights during Christmas time. We actually put up outdoor lights at our house this year and were SO excited about it! It wasn't a lot, but it was fun! We didn't go see as many lights this year as we have in the past, but we did go see some really fun ones in Preston. One night, we picked Darren up after work and drove to Preston (about 25 minutes) to see this house we had read about in the paper. It was a HUGE yard and was decorated so neat!
The yard all lit up - The pictures do not really capture how many lights there were and how BIG it was!

The yard was HUGE and was filled with wood cutouts from lots of different Disney movies! There were SO many - Probably close to a hundred! The kids loved seeing all their favorite characters. There were ones from Toy Story, Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Peter Pan, Cars, Monsters, Pinocchio, Shrek, and lots of Mickey and friends. They also had a really large Nativity. They had music playing and lights everywhere! It was so fun we had to drive through twice!

This was Logan's favorite one - The Cars one! It was motorized and the little cars drove by on the top. Logan thought it was so funny!
Here is Logan after licking the beaters one night after I made brownies for a party - He loves helping in the kitchen...especially if it involves licking the beaters!!!We also made a Gingerbread house. It turned into a much bigger project than we expected and was a 2 day thing. After we started it, we learned that the frosting had to set for 2 hours, then add the roof and let it set for a few more hours. By then, Darren had to go to work, so we had to make the kids wait until the next day to decorate it. Ry's favorite part of any project usually involves eating and she sure liked the frosting!!!The next day, we finally got to decorate it and the kids loved this part! The frosting was still the favorite part and both kids kept licking it off the house and eating it! Logan would take a big swipe with his fingers and claim he was "cleaning" it! I am not sure what is going on with this face. I think that she is trying to eat some of the candy and it is really hard....The kids finally got the idea of putting the candy ON the house instead of just eating it and had a lot of fun decorating.Ry even got into it and kept saying "helping" and adding MORE and MORE candy to the house! She liked to dump it on by the handful!Logan and Rylee with the finished house! It is now hiding way up on top of our TV hutch because I knew they would make a mess if it was within reach!Our house! When we started out, I had aspirations of making a house JUST like the one on the box. As you can see.....That did NOT happen! But our house has lots of Character!!! Our frosting was a bit of a mess - It got SO hard after sitting until the second day, so Darren added a little water and then it was so runny. It made good icicles though. You can easily see all of Logan and Rylee's little additions, so that makes it special I guess. I was thinking that it looked pretty ghetto until I saw my friend, Annie's house and then I felt much better! (haha - sorry Annie!!!)Darren will probably not be thrilled that I posted this, but oh well! I am not really Martha Stewart material and don't make a whole lot of home baked goods, even around the holidays. I think he felt bad for himself about that, and he got the itch to make some chocolates one night so he did. All from scratch! They were SO delicious and really got me into the Christmas mood - and added 5 lbs to my waist! He can be quite domestic when he wants to be!

Another day, me and the kids made these fun little snowmen from a little kit of foam pieces. It was fun and they got to put on little pieces like the nose and the eyes and a hat and scarf. They LOVED it and were so proud of their creations and were especially excited about using glitter! I love watching them work on stuff and looking so concentrated!

Here they are with their finished snowmen - They were so excited about them and couldn't wait to show Dad when he got home!

We got a TON of snow right before Christmas and one night went to our good friends, Robb and Carlie's for sledding, pizza and hot chocolate. Robb built a little sledding hill off their deck and it was perfect for the kids. They were not in the outdoors mood though and did not last too long.
Logan wasn't too happy to go down on the sled - He was a little nervous about it and Darren had to forcibly hold him in the sled... kind of funny!
Logan trying to escape!He had fun once they got to the bottom...Rylee lasted all of about 5 minutes! She went down on the sled once and said "fun" but then started saying "House, House" and whined until we finally took her inside!Rylee begging to go in the house! I think she was ready for Pizza.Logan making some snow angels. He lasted longer than Rylee and had fun with Dad, Robb and Olivia. Poor Ethan came in with Rylee since he did a face plant out of the sled and into the snow! These pictures didn't turn out as good as I hoped - I was late for church already and made the kids take a quick picture in their Christmas outfits. You can kind of get the idea, but the lighting is really bad! Rylee's skirt was so cute, but you can't really see it in the picture...

On the 22nd, we went to watch the Aggies Vs the Utes. The Aggies came away with a really exciting last second victory and it was a really fun game! Logan LOVES to do the Scotsman!!! Isn't he the cutest Aggie fan??Nothing says Christmas like Big Blue in a Santa Suit! I was sad that Rylee wouldn't get in the picture, too, but she didn't want anything to do with him! Logan loved it - especially when Big Blue gave him a Candy Cane!

We also made some sugar cookies. Logan was VERY concerned that we have cookies for Santa, so I decided I would let him make some for him. This also turned into a 2 day project. We had a few friends over to make cookies and while I was switching them in and out of the oven, I grabbed the wrong cookie sheet and burned 3 of my fingers. I have burned myself before, but NOTHING like this! It hurt for hours! It was the night we went to the game, and I had to keep my hand in a glass of ice the whole time. Darren made fun of me, but I was in too much pain to care if I looked like a nerd! I was even considering having him shoot me up with some Novocaine!!! The next morning, my hand was fine and we finished by frosting them. The things we do for our kids and cookies for Santa!!!

More frosting definitely made its way to Rylee's mouth than the cookies! I would tell her to put it on the cookies, and she would shake her head and say, "No, eat it!"

Logan actually did pretty good spreading the frosting on and especially LOVED adding the sprinkles to the cookies.

To be honest, the cookies were not that good! I hope Santa didn't mind. Darren wanted to take some to the nieghbors, but I said no way. The kids had licked every one of them and they were pretty gross. The kids had lots of fun making and eating them though. Maybe next year they will work out a little better!