Its Christmas Time!

The cold weather has arrived.

This girl loves her daddy.

Footy jamies are the rage for these two. They look like twins here.

We read the book "The Spirit of Christmas" which talks about a little boy filling up a bag with his stuff that he could give to others.  The book came with this big bag.  Before I was even done reading the kids started finding things they could fill the bag with to give away.  It was really sweet.  I put an ad on the buy, sell, trade site and a teacher with some students in need came and picked up the treasures.  They even put a wallet in there with some of their money in it.

Preschool is ready for Christmas

I love Andrew's imaginext in the Christmas tree play that he is passing on to Ethan.

Nice and cozy.



A super cute santa.

This morning they were kicking each other and yelling because they both wanted the same spot on the couch...but usually they are very loving.

She looks so grown up here.

I love her watching baby jesus.

Let the RACKing begin! (Random Acts of Christmas Kindness). It has tapered off but they were really into it for a while.  These three did the dishes, the laundry, and cleaned a messy playroom to surprise us.

Grandpa came to town!! We loved having grandpa come stay.  Thank you Mic!

Ethan made this Christmas countdown at school (it even says CHRISTMAS countdown on it...I love it!). Anyway he is very diligent about taking off a ring first thing each morning.

We went to Nauvoo for a Christmas night of activities.  I wish I'd taken more pictures... We watched a live nativity show after the tree lighting ceremony and before heading off to the other festivities.



Nauvoo has everything set up as it would have looked when Joseph Smith and the early Latter-day Saints lived there.  It is fun to know that we had ancestors who lived there during that time period.  Some of the shops were open and they would tell a little history of different Christmas songs and then we would sing the song.  The best part was taking the horse drawn sleigh ride and singing Christmas songs.  Ethan was so excited when we started that he couldn't stop giggling.  He has been excited about Christmas songs. He had fun yelling out which song to sing next.

Grandpa came with us to our ward Christmas party.



Making another Thanksgiving dinner. 

Yum!

I love this picture!

The cutest baby reindeer.

Very excited to go on a Christmas train ride.



Looking out at the "north pole"...the one that is located 15 minutes from Saint Louis :)

Eliza still wants nothing to do with santa.  Even when he comes on the train and gives her a cool north pole coin.





All fun until you eat so much frosting that you throw up...Eliza, not Ethan.

A Christmas song run through with the cub scouts and activity day girls before heading to the nursing home to put on a show.

A much better wrapper than I gave her credit for.

She went to a birthday party at a kids salon and got her nails, hair, and even make-up done.

The Santa parade...santa's from different times and countries along with different Christmas characters.

It was a freezing day so after the parade we went with our friends the Anconetani's to a soda shop to warm up.  I think this will be a fun tradition to keep doing.

This is our dinner on the floor of the dollar tree last night after we got stuck in the parking lot during an ice storm.  We are grateful to Aunt Martie and Uncle Ken who braved the roads to come pick us up and bring us home.  (Daniel was stuck trying to get home from Kansas City which is 3 1/2 hours away.  He left at 11:30 in the morning and got home after midnight.). It was scary but now we can look back on it as an adventure.