The Holidays

Christmastime was off to a good start when we received an awesome package from one of our dear friends, Betsey.  She sent some nice things for Tanner, as well as Christmas pajamas for each of the kids!  The kids LOVED them.  Ridge still requests to wear his Santa Claus jammies every night.

At the beginning of December, our ward hosted the Christmas Crèche at our church building.  Creche = nativity (for those who have not heard the term before).  The event featured over 150 nativity displays from around the world, musical performances, and live nativity presentations.  It was quite the event!

The birth of Tanner was perfectly timed prior to Christmas, so he was asked to be Baby Jesus with us accompanying him as Mary and Joseph during the live nativity.  It was extra special because Ridge was Baby Jesus the year he was born as well.  What an honor to have both my boys play the role of Jesus! 

The Crèche event was organized as an open house, so the live nativity was performed three times one evening and two times the next.  When we arrived the first night, Jade was asked if she wanted to join as one of the angels.  Of course, she was elated!  She is the second one from the right.

The performance (if you could call it that) was a short five minutes where an audio was played and we simply sat on stage, sort of like a live display.  It was kind of awkward just sitting there with all those people staring at us!  We didn’t really know what to do, so we just stared at the cute babe the whole time. 

There is something about your new baby playing the part of Jesus that is very sweet and spiritual.  I definitely teared up a couple times.

In between showings we all hung out in the Relief Society room where the kids watched movies and ate snacks.  I thought the kids were pretty cute, so a snapped a couple pictures of them. 

 

One of my favorite Christmas decorations this year was the nativity we bought at the Jade Market in Hong Kong.  The pieces are carved from Tagua nuts and hung on a Chinese paintbrush stand.  I wish I would have been more on top of things to have it displayed during the Crèche, but I was kind of out of it when they were having people sign up right after Tanner was born! 

Our ward Christmas party looked extra fancy, because it was held the next weekend and benefited from all the Crèche décor!  We had a yummy ham dinner followed by a nice program. 

 

Jade lost her first two teeth in November and December!  We joked all she wanted for Christmas was her two front teeth.  She was quick to make sure we knew that was just a joke and she actually wanted something else.

Jade loves to craft and draw, so all of December she drew pictures of Santa Claus, snowmen, etc.  Here are some of my favorites.

A drawing of Santa Claus, with her caption of “San Kos,” after sounding it out.

A few weeks after I had been home with Tanner, Jade made me this card and said it was from her and Ridge.  It reads, “Jadyn to mom I love you Ridge wants to tell you something I love you you can rest we can do the work for you.”

Then she made a letter to Santa Claus.  It reads: “Dear Santa Claus and Mrs. Santa Claus I want two tell you what I really want best.  Rainbow looms.  Love Jade.”  Jade is really sweet and only asked for one thing, because she didn’t want to be too greedy.   

She drew a picture on the other side of the letter.  She told me it is of her and Santa in the snow, under the mistletoe.  Santa is sad because she is laughing because she is scared to kiss him.

  

One last one: a reindeer building a snowman at night.  I love her creativity!  At school the teacher has the kids draw smiley faces on the worksheets they do together as a class.  Jade now draws smiley reindeer heads.  It is adorable.

The Friday before Christmas, Cody had a minor knee surgery.  He had a small piece of bone from some previous injury floating around that needed to be removed.  We opted to do it during Christmas break as Cody was already planning to take time off work and could use that time to recover as well.

   

He was in bed for a day, on crutches for a couple days, and is now doing physical therapy twice a week for six weeks.  Nothing major.  I told him I hated seeing him like this though, so nothing worse can ever happen to him!!

 

On Saturday we had fun using our leftover Halloween candy to decorate gingerbread houses. 

Ridge mostly just ate the candy and sucked the frosting out of the bag. 

 

Jade, on the other hand, sat there and decorated every square inch for over an hour!  That girl likes a project!

 

Maybe she takes after me, because I wanted in on the fun too!

 

On Christmas Eve we made and decorated sugar cookies.  Yum, my favorite!  Ridge liked the frosting.

  

Santa Claus had a little bit of a hard time choking down the cookies Jade left out. I don’t think a cookie has ever had so many sprinkles!  

For once all three kids looked at the camera for a picture!  I deemed it a Christmas miracle!

Santa and Mrs. Claus were running behind this year and had to stay up until wee hours in the morning wrapping presents and putting a new play kitchen together!  I think we made it through four Christmas movies that night. 

Christmas with kids is an absolute joy.  When I was little, I worried about my parents receiving enough gifts.  Now I’ve realized the best present for a parent is seeing the kids’ excitement! 

A few cute pictures from the morning:

    

My dad drew a super fun coloring book for each of the grandkids.  It is extra sentimental because it has a drawing of each person in our family in it. 

On the Sunday after Christmas, I made everyone wear their new Christmas outfits.  Wouldn’t you know, we were late to church and didn’t have time to get pictures beforehand!  We had to wait around for tithing settlement after church, so I tried to snap a few photos to kill time.  This is the best we got! 

 

Cody was off work for about 10 days.  It was heavenly to have some much needed down time with the whole family!  I’m pretty sure there were multiple days where we didn’t get out of our pajamas.  On New Year’s Eve day, we finally decided to venture out of the house.  We went to Bear Mountain State Park in New York.  We weren’t sure if there would be snow, so we prepared for it regardless.  When we arrived, we were disappointed with no snow, but we dressed in our snow gear anyway.  It was a cold day, but we kept warm with all the layers on.  We strolled down the walking trail through the zoo and museums and ended the day with a ride on the carousel.  It was a fun way to end our holiday break!