Christmas '14

December is always such a full month.
Pictures and memories from our happy month.

Community Christmas party at our beach, mailing letters to Santa, Christmas caroling with the Girl Scouts, decorating cookies, ward Christmas party, we did it all! 

 

 

This years Christmas lights.  My "lollypop" was a new feature. 

Finally it was Christmas Eve!
My aunt sent us a Christmas play-doh set years ago.  We still pull it out every year.

The girls came up with the snowman mashed potatoes idea themselves. 

Shortcake was so excited to get to sleep in the big girl room for Christmas Eve.

It was a happy month.  And thanks to modern technology, in the days following Christmas, we were able to skype with our families.  We talked to Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Texas and even Ukraine!  We've ended 2014 as usual, feeling happy and blessed.

BONUS photos:
Since real snow is a rare treat for us, Santa left some fake snow.  Interesting stuff.

Hit 1,000 miles on my running shoes!  Still in good condition!  And still very grateful for such a generous gift. 

Thanksgiving '14

I wish I could have gotten around to blogging these memories sooner.  But between sick kiddos and holiday busyness, Its just been hard to set aside the time! 

Getting to see family is always a blessing.  And our Thanksgiving this year was blessed.  My love's parents came for the holiday.  I'm grateful that our families are always so willing to travel to come make memories with their grand-kids. 

Finished product:

This was my "first" Thanksgiving.  First one in my own home, cooking for others.  Cooking is not one of my strengths, so I felt a little unsure of myself.  But I think things turned out just fine.  I didn't ruin the turkey, and everything else was definitely eatable.  Not gourmet, but not bad either.  I was quite happy with how it turned out.  I was grateful for helping hands in the kitchen.  Especially my turkey carvers. :)

But our fun memories didn't stop at yummy food!  We had lots more in store this holiday weekend.  We had tickets for a VERY special activity.  An activity that you needed to wear pajamas for.  I had been on the look out for special pajamas for several weeks.  But I just couldn't find the perfect ones.  So less than a week before, I got the crazy notion to make the perfect pajamas myself!  But I wanted them to be a surprise.  So that meant burning the midnight oil several nights in a row.  Miss EMae's especially took extra thought, time, and work.  I couldn't find fabric so I had to get creative.  I was quite happy with how they turned out though. :)

Their smiles made all the sleep deprivation totally worth while. :)  :)  :)
(That and they've worn them almost every day since!)

 So, on to those special tickets.  We got tickets for The Polar Express.  (My love and I learned about this on our murder-mystery-dinner-train-ride we went on for our anniversary this year.)  But before boarding the train, we had one more present.  (These kids are spoiled.  I totally admit it.)  Perfect hats to match their perfect pajamas.  :)  (I actually bought these hats back in September and have been saving them.)

The train!

It was fun.  But . . . not gonna lie.  A few tears just seem to always be part of life.  Can't quite put my finger on why that is, but it is what it is, and part of the memory. 
Shortcake was QUITE upset when the conductor came a long and punched a hole in her ticket!  (The nerve of some people!)  ;)

But it wasn't just her.  All three of my children seem to be very in tune with their emotions.  Big sisters each had a few tears of their own.  One felt embarrassed that she didn't know what she was going to ask Santa for.  The other was quite sad that her hot chocolate was too hot to drink.  But as always, we work though it.

Part of the train ride included story time, and they read the original Polar Express.  The movie is cute and all, but if you haven't already, you really gotta see the book it came from.  (Those hats make the girls easy to find in a crowd.)

  

Just like in the book, the train went to "the North Pole."  It was cute and all.  But . . . thanks to the incredible visuals the film industry is able to create . . . (and an unavoidable lack of snow) to older and wiser children, it was obvious we just hadn't quite really made it all the way north.  :)  No one complained or anything.  Just an observation to note. 

"Santa" boarded the train and gave each of the children, "the first gift of Christmas."  It was a beautiful silver bell just like in the story.  It even had "Polar Express 2014" engraved on it!  But I'm not one for sugar coating it so I'm not gonna lie here either.  One of my girls commented to me on the quality of his beard.  And I'm afraid I had to agree with her.  Thanks to my own family's connection to Christmas, my personal santa standards are pretty high.  Oh how I wish my girls could see "my" Santa. 

Tears and beard aside, it was still a fun memory.  Riding a night time Christmas train in our pajamas with Grandma and Grandpa. 

But much to our surprise, this holiday still had another fun surprise in store.  

SNOW!  

We don't get a whole lot of snow where we live.  Once a winter usually.  And it doesn't stay very long.  But we woke up Saturday morning to not just a dusting, but 3 inches!  I was so happy for my kids.  Any opportunity to play in the snow is a special treat. 

Finished off a fun day with a cozy story time with Grandma and Grandpa.

 

Unfortunately, fun visits always mean goodbyes.   Just before they had to leave, we took pictures of the girls in the beautiful new Christmas dresses Grandma and Grandpa gave them. 

So grateful for family.  Grateful for such a nice visit.  And I know Grandma and Grandpa would join me in saying, I'm grateful for the JOY these 3 little girls bring to life. 

Halloween '14

I decided that I would love to have a whole inflatable pumpkin patch!  But inflatable pumpkins aren't cheap.  So I realize this is something I will have to build up gradually.  But some kind wonderful friend of mine, helped give my humble patch a little boost, and left this on my porch!  Such a great fun surprise.  THANK YOU whoever you are.

 

I love the challenge of creating awesome  Halloween costumes.  I totally feel like I cheated this year though.  Bought mine brand new and complete.  A first for me! But I shouldn't feel too guilty.  My love's costume was no small project.  Spent well over an hour cutting 3 queen size bedsheets into strips.  Then I spent an hour wrapping him during our practice run.  An hour unwrapping him afterwords.  Then another hour wrapping him up the actual night of our party.  (NOT exaggerating on the time folks.)  Fortunately/unfortunately, I didn't spend hardly any time at all unwrapping him after the party.  The entire bottom half of his costume fell off throughout the course of the party.  :(  Kind of a bummer.  So I wouldn't consider this our best year.  Thinking maybe we should pull out one of our old classics next year. 

 Our spread from our Halloween party we throw every year. 

Our Halloween celebrations this year were extra fun.  My folks and my sisters came to see our primary program.  Which was great timing cause we got to do all sorts of fun Halloween stuff with them. 

All ready to go to Trick or Treat Street at the local school!

This year we had Ruffnut,

Perry the Platypus,

 And Belle.

During our visit we also go to take everyone on the ferry.

 

And carve pumpkins!  So much messy fun.

Shortcake was SO determined to do EVERY-SINGLE-DOT herself.  She refused multiple offers of help.  She worked for over an hour!

EVERYONE got in on the fun.  Even my love and Aunt Lou.  (Yes, they are using a power tool.)

Getting serious now.

Finished products:

Their last night here we played glow-in-the-dark ring toss.

So many fun memories!  So grateful that my family was willing to drive 15 hours to see me!