Before Christmas

Bree loves to draw and color.  We have crayon that I can't get off the wall thanks to our little artist.  She's actually prety good.  While I was making dinner one night I caught her tracing her foot.  

I love that she loves to hang out with me.  I spend a lot of time in the kitchen (in the morning it's getting the kids breakfast, packing lunches, doing dishes, etc.) and she will just come in with her blanket and lay down in the middle of the floor.  She is definitely my girl!

If she's not laying on the floor of the kitchen she's helping me.  She cooks with me and she LOVES to do the dishes with me.  

The first weekend in December our stake hosts a creche exhibit (that means nativity display) and live nativity performance complete with horses, sheep, goats, etc.  It's always a beautiful even and so well done.  See Kai in the front of this picture?  and then right above his head is Cesar Augustus mingling with visitors.

It's a bad shot, but here's Kai in front of some of the nativities.

Shhhh.....Don't tell Finn but in the midst of all of the December madness I picked up this bed for him.  I had been looking for a twin bed for Bree so that I would be ready when she was done with her crib, but then I realized that I really just needed any twin bed.  So Finn saw this one and got super excited.  I got it off of a Facebook buy and sell group and it is hiding in our guest room.  When Bree is ready for a big bed she will get Finn's and he will get this one.

Bree and I have started to eat lunch with Kai at school about twice a month or so.  He loves it and so does she and it fits perfectly in our schedule.  Kai has lunch at 1pm and Finn has to be dropped off at 12:45.  Sometimes we sit with him while he eats his packed lunch and sometimes we bring him something special. This month we brought him Freddy's.  There were several drooling kids watching us.  :)

I can't believe this kid is old enough to loose a tooth.  He "lost" his first tooth on December 9th (same day as the picture of Kai above).  It had been lose for a while and he was refusing to eat because it hurt.  We were sitting at dinner and he was ready for it to be out so he let me try to pull it.  Well, I got a good tug and my fingers slipped right as it would have sealed the deal and it hurt Finn.  He clamped up and wouldn't let me touch it again even though it was now super lose.  Kai in the meantime was freaking out and hiding under the table because he didn't want to see what was happening.  I managed to calm everyone down and then told Finn we should play a trick on Kai and pretend to pull out his tooth.  I told him he needed to scream to make it seem real and while he screamed, I pulled, and out it came.  He was MAD at me.  And I felt bad.  But it was out and it was over with.  It needed to come out so he would eat again (he hadn't eaten in about 2 days and he doesn't eat much anyway).  He did bleed a bit which made me feel worse.  But the tooth fairy made it up to him by bringing him $5 ($1 of which was a silver dollar).

Being room mom for both Finn and Kai's class means that I had a lot of party planning to do this month.  Finn's class party was a snow theme and Kai's was a gingerbread theme.  For Finn's party I made this cute water bottles for drinks a couple of days ahead of time and then the rest I had to make the day before.

Finn loved seeing the countdown at Walmart all month!

For Kai's gingerbread class party I pre-made the gingerbread houses.  I have to admit that the thought of doing this stressed me out big time, but once I got started it turned out to not be as big of a deal as I had imagined.  It took me about an hour or so to pre-cut the peaks on the houses.

For Finn's class I made these cute and easy and quick string cheese snowmen.

And here it is the day before the party.  I pre-made 27 gingerbread houses (there are 24 kids in Kai's class and I wanted some extra in case something broke).

For Finn's class I also had to make some snowflake sugar cookies and so once I was done with that the kids helped me use the rest of the dough.  This is Friday the 18th in the morning before the afternoon full of parties.  Finn's party is from 1 to 2pm (so I go to set-up at 12:15) and then Kai's party is 2:30 to 3:30.  I end up being at school for almost 4 hours on party day.

And then after class parties on the 18th, I also had to make my presents for all 75 of my primary kids.  I ended up making a CD for each family (there are 38) with kids in primary.  It actually wasn't as hard as I was worried it would be either.  So, I guess lesson learned this year is that the thought of doing the work is often worse than actually just doing it!

A box full of CDs ready to go to church on Sunday the 20th.

After we made it through the class parties and then I got all of my gifts done for primary it was time to relax.  While waiting for our home teachers it started to snow.  We turned on the Christmas lights, lit a yummy smelling candle, put on Christmas music and decorated the left over gingerbread houses.  There was a wonderful spirit in the house.  One of those perfect moments.

Ok, perfect except for the fact that this kid wouldn't pose for a picture....

and this kid got his church pants covered in frosting.  

With all of the graham crackers in our house I was trying to convince my kids to eat graham crackers with frosting.  Bree was the only taker and she would only eat the frosting straight from a spoon.  No graham cracker needed!  :)

Once the kids were out of school we tried to do some fun "Christmas" types of things.  I had heard that the lights at the Broadmoor were worth the trip and that they had a large gingerbread house.  So, we trekked down there.  Kai loved that we got lost in the hotel and ended up taking the service elevator.  I, on the other hand, was trying real hard not to be embarrassed or feel out of my league at this ritzy hotel.  We finally found the gingerbread house.  It was all real, and super neat.  But the kids weren't exactly impressed.

After seeing the gingerbread house we headed out back for the lights.  I will admit to being disappointed.  I was expecting a lot more.  It was pretty cold, but we decided to walk around the lake to take in some of the lights (hoping there was more somewhere!).

At the other side of the lake there was this fire.  I was worried that it would be smokey (which would really bother Finn) but it wasn't at all.  There was a gas pipe to feed the fire and then some fake charcoal.  Finn noticed that someone had even thrown a snow ball into the side of the fire pit and it wasn't even melting?!

The pretty Christmas tree  After our visit to the Broadmoor the kids and I were disappointed.  So we decided to head into the city to find some more lights.  We went to a neighborhood where 8 houses worked together for a choreographed light show and it was awesome.  We sat and watched the lights for a whole cycle of songs that lasted over half an hour.  And I didn't take a single picture or video!

That night we had pizza for dinner and once again Finn was refusing to eat.  His tooth was SOOO loose, but of course at this point he's never going to let me touch a tooth again.  I took this picture of it hanging there in his mouth and wondered how much longer it would last. 

Well, Reid was working late that night and so I was getting everyone to bed by myself.  I had tucked the boys in and was taking care of Bree when I heard a bit of a startled/upset exclamation come from the boys' room.  I went in to find that Finn had lost his tooth!  He told me that he felt something "icky" in his mouth and tried to spit it out.  He ended up spitting out his tooth.  Yes, it was that loose!!  Reid came home right after that and got to hear the story again.  So, for Christmas this year I had two boys who both needed their two front teeth (Kai is still missing his top teeth and Finn is missing his bottom.)

The next day the kids and I went up Park Meadows (the resort mall on the south of Denver) to do some last minute Christmas shopping.  After spending a couple of hours at the mall we headed to the neighboring Burger King where we had lunch and let the kids loose to play for a bit.

Bree wanted to play with her brothers but needed some help.  I had to ask the boys to help her several times and she eventually ended up melting and so we knew it was time to leave.

In the lead up to Christmas I was eating way too many treats.  I was trying to combat the weight gain with more and more time on the treadmill.  I was proud of myself for working my way up to 4 miles.  I've found that watching a sitcom helps me to stay distracted and run longer.  I've gone through all of the available episodes of Girl Meets World and am going to move on to Boy Meets World.  I've been a slacker this week and I'm looking forward to getting back to it. I'm also looking forward to using my Christmas gift (a gift card to Colorado Running Company) for some new shoes as my feet are starting to hurt.