A visit to Santa

Since Santa did not come to our Ward Christmas Party this year, we needed to go see him! We heard that Santa went to Merrifield Garden Center, so we went to see him there.

However, were not given ample instructions about visiting the North Pole. Seriously, this Santa is big time!! When we walked in, we saw a relatively short line, not realizing that it snaked around and was much longer. We stood there for a while, then realized what we were in for. We heard the ladies behind us talking about this Santa. Apparently he has been coming to this Portable North Pole for over 30 years. One of the moms who was bringing her children went there as a child.

So thus began the wait. And wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. Oh, let's see, let's just wait some more. Do you get it, we waited a long time!!!

The good thing is that the place was really cool. There were little booths that the kids sat in. There was a huge advent calendar on the wall that was amazing. It was the letters of the alphabet and it was religious in nature!! Apparently Santa is quite religious, which I'll get to later.


Here are the children sitting in one of the little booths. There was a family in front of us with a cute little girl who followed the kids around. At one point they gave up and left, which was good news to us since it made our wait a bit less. As I mentioned, Santa is quite religious. He makes a really cool advent calendar, and I heard it changes each year. This year it was an alphabet theme with something spiritual mentioned for each day. You may not be able to see it clearly, but it was really cool. I was excited when they gave us a copy of it when we went home.



Here are a few of the ones I really liked.
This was on the wall when you first entered in. I really liked it..



On the ceiling were little clouds with "Merry Christmas" spelled out in lots of different languages. It was really neat. There were lots of displays and a big nativity.

The boys loved the nativity, but they kept moving it around. Landon would cover the baby Jesus up with straw. Guess he felt he wasn't warm enough.

When we were about to be in the room with Santa, he needed a break and came out into the waiting area to sing some Christmas Carols.

Have you ever seen Santa kneel down at a nativity and worship Baby Jesus?

Santa adores baby Jesus
Here's the sleigh Santa sits in.

After Santa's singing break, he had to give us a lesson in how to become an elf. Cute, but we get the show on the road!!

So here's the scoop on Santa. Every child must fill out a paper with their list. They have to present it to Santa when they walk up. (and don't make the mistake of letting they youngest go first because she will cry and Santa will chastise you for not letting the oldest go first because "that is the way it goes.") Oops.

So each child stands facing Santa. He says their name, age and grade. He makes a little small talk then has them sit on his lap. They go through the list and he glances at mom or dad for each item. According to a signal he gets, he would say "yes, I can bring you that" or "ah, no, I have something better for you." He then does more small talk, we take pictures and he give each child a set of specific instructions and puts a ribbon around their head and says "place this ribbon high on the tree for my eyes to see."

Here are each of the kids instructions:

Jordan: put a plate of chocolate chip cookies inside the shirt she is wearing under the tree for Mr. Clause and in the morning there will be something beautiful for her to wear.

Spencer: put a potatoe inside the shirt he is wearing for the reindeer. In the morning, there will be something special inside the shirt.

Landon: put 3 cookies on a plate, with 2 carrots and a small glass of milk. In the morning there will be something special for him.

If I had sat in his sleigh, I would have had instructions, as well. It was funny to listen to him talk to the teenagers and moms who went before us.

Here are each of the kids with Santa



And a nice shot, of course:)



And the 3 kiddos with their ribbons.
Thanks Santa for the great visit. I do believe!!

a cute sheep, a sweet angel, and a little stinker.

We had our ward nativity a couple weekends ago. It was really great. I wasn't so sure how it would turn out given the chaos at the practice, but everyone did really well during the performance, and the people watching loved it. And thanks for taking pics, Darin, I was back stage during the whole performance.

Spencer was not thrilled at all to be a sheep again. "I don't like being a sheep. It's boring. They don't do anything." He will be much happier to be a barnyard animal next year.

Here he shows his feelings for being a sheep.

Spencer and his friend James. Not so sure what's going on here.


Jordan, on the other hand, was thrilled to be an angel.
Here's our angel singing her heart out. She now LOVES the song "Angels We Have Heard on High" and belts it out whenever it she sings it.




And last but not least, Landon. Here's how he spent some of the program-hiding under the stage right by the music leader. That is when he was not in the middle of the floor pushing a chair around. Yeah, Darin wanted to crawl under his chair. In tithing settlement, Bishop Stowers told us he enjoyed watching Landon's antics. Nice. Next year he will be a sheep...we'll see how that goes.

a lucky duck!

I found this note on the table the other day.

I have such a sweet little girl and I love her sooo much. She never ceases to amaze me. What a great heart!!!

Finally......SUCCESS!!

So I have a history of total and complete failures when it comes to making gingerbread houses. And I'm talking the easy kit ones. I wouldn't even dare to make my own gingerbread to make a house.

The first year I tried it would not stay together so I gave up and threw it away. I skipped a year and tried again, with the same results. We did one last year that stayed together for a little bit, but then fell apart. I tried a Halloween house once again with quite lackluster results.

So I was bound and determined to make it work this year. The kids got out of school 2 hours early the other day, so figured we had the time.

Drum roll please......

I DID IT!! I actually did it!!!

I cannot express my excitement with my accomplishment!! I couldn't believe it actually worked. The kids helped me hold up the sides and it stayed together-and it's strong too:) Woo Hoo!!!!


Yeah-it stayed together!! Let's get ready to decorate now:)

Here we are all working together. I would put the frosting, then the kids would put the candy. And man that stuff is like cement. After the first bit in the bag ran out, it was really tricky to put more in the bag. I would be piping it on, and it was leaking out the top. The boys loved eating it, but it is gross to me-like eating pure sugar. They ate lots of the candy, too, but we had lots of fun!

Yeah!! Our finished product!!!


Another view...just because I'm so dang excited it worked!!



Some of the details. If you know my children well, you know who did this....ok, I'll tell you. Spencer obsessed with orange, so this this is his handy work. So colorful and bright-just makes me happy. We never did them as kids, so it's so fun for me:)




Here's Spencer's final contribution: When I wasn't looking he thought he would label the house. It is pretty cute because he is starting to write more around the house like Jordan did at that age.



I am already excited to do one next year. I CAN do it!! We may have to do a Halloween house, too. Woo Hoo!!!!

a fun activity

Trader Joe's has the coolest stuff. I found this fun Gingerbread man and thought it would be easy for the kids. We did it one night for family night and the kids had a blast.

Here we are starting. Oh yeah-I'm sorry that a couple of my pics are upside down-I was on the wrong side of the table.

So we had a bit of a debate when we started as to the gender of our little friend. I think Landon and Spencer won out-this is a little "fella".

Jordan did a lot of the work on the icing, meanwhile the boys felt that they needed to be eating the candy.

Oh, does anyone else have children who insist that they have to be ON the table for any sort of project you do?

Poor guy doesn't last too long...everyone has to have a taste:)



yummm.....
well....I think I'll be nice and just say that he is more for looks, folks. But it was a fun family activity:)

Temple lights

One Christmas tradition we look forward to every year is going to the temple for the Festival of Lights. It is so beautiful and we never get bored with it. It seems like they have new lights each year, so it is fun to see.

I loved these trees. I can't imagine the job of putting all the lights on....yikes. But I am grateful for the volunteers who do it so my family can enjoy it!
I get such a happy feeling inside each time I drive into the temple parking lot. So many memories and happy times. First baptism trip, endowments, wedding....ahhhh, such a special place to me.
The kiddos were so busy! They could not keep still for any amount of time-just wanted to run and run, so getting this slightly ok picture was quite a feat.
Daddy and his little girl:)I meant it when I said the kids were running around like crazy. Here's proof.

Darin and the kids....who did not want to pose for any pictures. Little stinkers. But I can't complain too much-they did excellent during the concert. Here's Landon wandering down a path he should probably not be on...oops.

And lest we forget, the beloved camel. We have to sit on this guy every year, or our visit would not be the same.
Another shot of the temple just because it is so beautiful!
Whew...now I feel like I'm getting my Christmas posts finally started....now to do the gingerbread house, our first snow, nativity, making a gingerbread man, and a visit to Santa! Stay tuned:)

Our Christmas Tree, 2010 Edition

A couple Mondays ago we made our yearly trek to Home Depot to get our Christmas tree. It was just our luck that a wonderful Alberta Clipper descended upon us that weekend so it was bitter, bitter cold. The goal was get in, get it and get out fast. Well, we accomplished our goal in record time. I decided that I was not going to be overly picky this year-I wanted to get back home and get in my warm pjs and under covers.

The selection wasn't huge, so that helped a lot. We found one that met our standards and went to put it on the car. Our fingers were ice, and we couldn't find any string long enough, so much to Jordan's chagrin, we put it IN our van.

Yes, you read that right-we folded down one of the captain's chairs and shoved it in. Well, I should say Darin shoved it in because I was looking for string and by the time I got back to the car, he had it in. It was an interesting ride home. The boys thought it was great, Jordan wasn't too happy.

It took a few tries to get it on the stand the way we wanted and it required some additional trimming. It's a funky tree, but we love it:)

Landon checking out an ornament.
Jordan and Spencer were so excited to decorate the tree. But I made one bad decision. We had been watching a Christmas movie, so we kept the TV on, and they ended up being more interested in that than helping decorate the tree. Well, Spencer liked to play with the ornaments instead of putting them on the tree.

On a side note, they have been introduced to some Christmas classics this year. Elf, (a HUGE hit) Home Alone (took a while to get going, but once the action started there was lots of laughing. Beware of a couple swear words in this one that I forgot about! Luckily Jordan asked what a "jerk" was instead of picking up the alternate word for a donkey:) Frost, etc. They like to see what is on ABC Family each night because they have a family Christmas movie every night.
We got out some candy canes and they were a huge hit. We let the kids put them where ever they wanted. I looked a bit later and found this grouping. So cute.
For the last few years, I have told Darin that I would love a White House Ornament. Well, he listened and sure delivered!! He brought me home the 2009 one, then he got one for every year since we were married and had the kids give them to me each night leading up to Christmas. IT was so awesome-I felt so loved. They are really beautiful ornaments and are on the top third of the tree!
Another White House favorite.





Here's another favorite. It is a Waterford Crystal ornament from our honeymoon in Ireland.
I love this one from Auntie Marion and Auntie Karin. I always say I want to stop at one of the kiosks in the mall for a family one, but I never do. I was so excited to get this last year:)




All done!
And the Christmas Village is up! It's Santa's village. I was so excited when Darin and I were newlyweds and he told me he had a Christmas village that he hadn't ever put up. I look forward to it every year.
I love having the tree up. It is so festive and reminds me every day why we celebrate Christmas. It looks different every day-Spencer and Landon I think are worse than a toddler as far as playing with the ornaments. They won't leave them alone! There's a pile under the tree with hooks missing,etc. I gave up putting them back on. Ah well, it's still beautiful!!

they're still around!!

Some things really last forever. Case in point:

Fortune tellers, "cootie catchers" or whatever you call them-they are still around. I remember making these in school, now my child is making them!!! Crazy! Well, I'm not sure that the second graders are making them because Jordan learned to make them from Regan, a 6th grader that I watch, but I'm sure they know now!

She grabbed tons of paper and started folding away. She would get a bit frustrated because sometimes her folding wasn't just right. She even had Darin sit down with her and make one.
Here is one of the first ones Jordan made after Regan taught here how to make them.

And the numbers. They have advanced-we put very small numbers when I was in school.

Jordan started to make her own "fortunes in hers" They are sooo funny!

And then she made one that you had to ask "yes" "no" questions. I love the bottom one...phonetic spelling is awesome.

Here are more of my favorite ones.
I remember we used to see how small we could make them, and if we could open and close them with one hand. Ah the good 'ole days!!

Now I'll sit back and wait for her to learn the m.a.s.h. game. Oh it will come, eventually:)