New Year's Eve

Did you get dressed up? Did you comb your hair? Did you put on makeup? Did you even brush your teeth?

Well, we didn't.

My sugar, Afton, and Jack have had the flu for the last 5 days. They've felt gross, and we're ALL exhausted.

To ring in the New Year, we had to really take it easy.

This was a fun way to practice telling time, recognizing two digit numbers, and reading. We got to do these fun activities, as we counted down to 8 pm.

You can't expect me to keep my babies up until midnight when they're sick. Plus, they don't quite know what midnight is anyway yet, so... 8 pm worked just fine!

I adjusted one of the activities from Dance party to watching home videos! It was the best part of the night.

Drink hot cocoa

Play Guess Who

GABLOON (balloon) Volleyball

Reflections and Resolutions

Jammies and Jackets

Sparklers

Happy New Year everyone!

Picture a Christmas

Oh Christmas Tree, OOOOH CHRISTMAS TREE

Let me begin by saying that I have been known to exaggerate. I may be able to make a story a bit more interesting, so that it's going to invoke some sort of emotion, reaction, or outcome from those hearing the story I tell.

But, I tell the truth. Always the truth.

A few weeks ago, I told the truth, but exaggerated a tad.

I was teaching singing time in primary, which I am terrible at singing. Truth. I told the kids that, and they agreed that I was quite bad. REALLY bad. Truth. I told the kids that our family was no longer living in our home. Truth. I said we were living in a hotel. Truth. I told them our house exploded. Mild exaggeration. Some kids gasped. One kid's face (a cousin visiting our ward so he's never heard me tell stories before) looked so genuinely sad. (I ran with it, but there was a valid reason. Just keep reading. I'm NOT the devil.) Truth. I told them that our family wouldn't be able to put up a big Christmas tree in our hotel, but instead we would use these 2 little fake trees. Truth. I asked for their help by singing amazing, (to mask my voice), but I would choose the best singer that I saw during that verse, to add an ornament to our simple trees. This was all truth. I just needed them to buy into my sob story, so they would REALLY sing well. And that they did! Buy in and sing well.

Now that I've explained myself, imagine how I felt when my sugar called me later that night from helping with tithing settlement. He said, "Sooooo, Sister Williams is here with a LARGE 'Decorate a Tree Kit,' because her kids came home from primary so sad that we wouldn't have a CHRISTMAS tree this year. They just wanted to help out."

Ummm........

How freaking sweet are her kids? REALLY? Props to you Sister and Brother Williams! Those adorable kids bought my exaggerated sob story, they sang REALLY well, and THEN got their mom to put together a giant bag of arts and crafts stuff so we could make our own special Christmas tree.

I told you. I tell the truth. I just can create some sort emotion, reaction, or outcome from those who are hearing my stories. But always, the truth!

Tonight we finally made our tree. I cut 5 strips into all different sizes and had my babies put them in order from shortest in length to longest. (Good measurement activity & vocabulary builder)

On the back of the strips, I wrote the numbers 1-10, so they could check their work when they were done. Jack kept cheating and looking. Then measuring.

After we got them in the correct order, my babies then had to draw the number of ornaments that was written on the strips.

They had fun choosing the right strip to put their letters of their name on an ornament.

Jack - 4
Afton - 5
Westra - 6
Jocelyn - 7

"Mom, we can't do one for you and dad, because they both take 3 letters and I can't fit you both on there. Hope that's okay," explained Afton.

We made our Christmas tree with the simplest and cleanest supplies in this "Decorate a Tree Kit." Supplies we did NOT use were paint, real cranberries (I didn't see these when we first got the bag a few weeks ago - oops),  and glitter. Seriously glitter? Sister Williams is sweet, but a bit crazy if she thinks I'm going to bust out glitter in a hotel room. Ha, no way!

In ALL truth, this was a good activity for my babies to work on together. We talked about what Christmas is really about. About how it's okay that we don't have our giant real Christmas tree up this year. It's okay that we aren't in our home this year. It's okay because we will be together celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ and that's what's most important, this year and every year.

To be completely honest, I had this idea in my head a few weeks ago, but I kept secretly hoping that we would be back in our real home, by now and we could have our real tree up instead of an arts and craft one. Tonight I realized it didn't matter. This tree would be just as fabulous, and the kindness shown by the Williams family needed to be acknowledged and put to good use. Thank you for believing OUR sob story, and being so Christlike, showing love and compassion towards our family.

This Christmas tree is perfect! Truth. No exaggeration.

Gingerbread Train and Caroling

Last year, we did our first gingerbread house as a family. One of our Secret Santa families dropped it off on our doorstep. (Thank you and you know who you are!) The babies had so much fun working on it, and I loved the memories from it.

I remember my OCD was on high alert, because we had to try and stay clean, while following the directions, and making it look like an actual house.

Well, we didn't stay clean. We tried to follow the directions. And it looked like a gingerbread house, enough.

This year, when Jack saw it in the store, he decided that "We need to get one for Micah (a friend from church) and one for us. It was so easy to do. I'm REALLY good at them."

I was touched by his sweet little heart, and super amazing confidence, so I bought it. (This kid knows how to work me over, bad.)

Tonight for FHE, we busted out the gingerbread train. I told the babies the same thing - we need to stay clean and follow the directions.

Two minutes into "following the directions" I gave up. Their cute little faces didn't care if it looked like a train. They didn't want to wait while things dried. They just wanted to be creative and have fun. So, they did. They got dirty. They were creative. They had fun.

While they were perfecting their creations, they were saying such kind things to each other. They were sharing. They were trying to sneak candy, thinking I couldn't hear them whispering.

Jocelyn and I just sat back listening, enjoying every minute. It was quite cute.

After we finished our supposed "gingerbread trains," we decided to go caroling. If you know our family, you know that NONE of us can sing. At ALL!

In a hotel, I didn't want to disrupt the guests in their rooms, because I couldn't be sure that they even celebrate Christmas, or were even occupied. We chose to sing to the concierge. (They ALL love my babies!)

While singing Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, they joined in, and so did a few guests from the dining hall. It was very fun, and funny.

We screwed up the words and were completely out of tune, but oh well. We followed Buddy the Elf's words of wisdom, "The best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear."

Tonight's FHE was much needed. We finished the evening watching clips on lds.org and mormonchannel.org that remind us what Christmas is truly about, our Savior's birth.