Trickster toilet-papered our Christmas Tree

And the kids thought it was HILARIOUS!  Also, Ashlyn (who once refused to drink the green milk that the Elf made) now only wants to drink green milk.  So fun!

More holiday baking

Field Trip wish Ashlyn

Ashlyn LOVES it when I come on field trips with her.  I am so glad.  It is so much fun.  My favorite, as well as hers, is the Planetarium.  The instructor is AMAZING and so fun with the kids.  He has them sing songs about the planet and teaches them cool rhymes to help them remember what they've learned.  I know everything by memory because I've been to this same field trip at least 4 other times since each kid has gone at least once.  I love it when the lights go off, and the dome lights up with stars while Pachelbel's Canon plays in the background.  It makes the universe feel that much more peaceful and mysterious.  AND!  The instructor even played an ENYA song!!!  My favorite!  It was called Sail Away. 

The funniest part was when we walked into the Planetarium and Ashlyn pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, "See that boy?  He's REALLY cute."  Haha!!  

Don't worry, she knows she's not allowed to date until she's 100-years-old.

Dear Santa from Lake Farm park...

Thanks so much for promising my 8-year-old son an IPod Touch for Christmas.  That was so helpful.

Santa's Workshop at Lake Farm Park--so much fun!

 Wagon Ride to see the Christmas Lights

 

Forgot about these pictures...

I took these at the end of the summer.  They were meant to be Easter pictures...but I tend to take my kids pictures after the fact because the holiday is usually too full of other things.  

More wedgits

This was the mega-wedgit creation of all creations.  I think it is still up because it took so long to build and the kids do not want to destroy it....

These building toys have been really great.  They go through spurts of playing with them (but they do that with every toy).  It is creative and fun. Can buy on Amazon.

More creations:
Here
Here
Here

Movies Galore

Favorite Christmas movies to watch:

White Christmas

 

It's a Wonderful Life

 

Miracle on 34th St.

 

A Christmas Carol

 (I haven't decided which version I like yet...favorites?)

Home Alone
(my kids LOVE slap-stick humor, they laugh so hard at this movie...watch it on clearplay)

 

Elf

 

   

5 piano guys

My good friend is related to one of the guys in this group.  Such talent!  The kids love to watch these youtube videos.  

Rockelbel's canon

What makes you Beautiful

 Cello Wars

I like it

This is a paraphrased version of an op-ed piece written by Charles J. Sykes (author of Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves, but Can't Read, Write, or Add...which I want to read).  I like the following information because it isn't sugar-coated.  (I DO NOT like it when people sugar-coat things)

RULE 1......Life is not fair; get used to it.
RULE 2......The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3......You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
RULE 4......If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
RULE 5......Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
RULE 6......If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
RULE 7......Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try "delousing" the closet in your own room.
RULE 8......Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9......Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summer off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10.....Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
RULE 11.....Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Have I ever mentioned...

That Corbin is basically OCD? :)  Probably not really to the fullest extent but this is what he does:

• He flips out if he doesn't brush his teeth before he goes to bed
• He actually sets a timer to make sure he brushes his teeth for 2 minutes
• He changes his underwear twice DAILY.  Once before bedtime, and once in the morning before school (TMI? sorry.)
• He washes his own apples before he eats them--he won't eat them unless they are washed
• We have charts with things for the kids to do every day and he HAS TO mark the chart every day religiously. 
• If I forget to read scriptures with him he reminds me, every night.

Ok, I was at first joking but after writing and reading this, maybe he really is OCD!!!!

Traditions

I feel that nothing ties a family closer together than traditions.  They are rooted on a value or principle or event we believe in and they bring unity and stability in our lives while we live in a crazy world.  I did not have many traditions in my home growing up and perhaps I go a little overboard with them now to compensate.


I LOVE traditions.  I love Christmas traditions especially.  

Christmas~

Focus on Christ:

• We read a scripture about Christ every night.  The idea came to me while I was thinking about Christ and then I found this Ensign article that confirmed the importance and gave me ideas for Scriptures.  By Elder Uchtdorf
  "Getting Ready for Christmas" 
  " While celebrating the Advent of Christmas is not part of all cultures around the globe, there is something we can learn from this widespread Christian tradition. Perhaps even this year we might carve from our busy schedules some time to study and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas—personally and as families.
      When we prepare for Christmas by pondering its real meaning, we prepare to experience the Christ and His message. May I suggest three things we may want to study, ponder, and apply in this season of preparation.

1. First, rejoice in the birth of our Savior.
2. Second, ponder His influence in our lives today.
3. Third, look steadfastly for His coming.

I pray that each and every one of you will have a wonderful and merry Christmas season.

The word Advent means “the coming of Christ.” In Germany, where President Uchtdorf grew up, many families celebrate Advent for four weeks before Christmas."

•  Manger: We put a manger by the Christmas tree and then put a vase full of straw next to it. When the kids do acts of service throughout the day, they can put some straw into the manger so that it will be filled by the time Christmas Eve comes and we have a place to put baby Jesus when we act out the nativity.
  

 Food:

• I get together with a group of girls to make holiday goodies--this started a few years ago with Terri Holman (she has secret recipes from a candy shop).  Now Andrea shares all of her recipes with us that are so good!

• Austrian Dinner for Christmas Eve
• Mini-boxed cereal tucked in Christmas stockings for Christmas breakfast (Dave's family tradition)
•  We make Christmas cookies for Santa, they are similar to this
•  We leave candy for the elves and apples for the reindeer (the elves have a habit of leavin wrappers behind)

Advent Calendars:

•  Chocolate calendar for each kid (49 cents at Michaels)
  
•  The scriptures we read every night about Christ are tucked in an advent calendar with a starlight mint for the kids to eat.  

(the picture is from last year's Church Christmas play--Corbin is the sheep and Ashlyn is the angel holding the star)

Literature:

• A Christmas book to read every night.  I used to wrap them in Christmas paper but think it's just a huge waste of paper now (to each his own though!)

This is one of my favorite fun Christmas-time stories: 

SNOWMEN AT NIGHT

SO CUTE!

• We always read the Night Before Christmas after the kids get into bed on Christmas Eve.  The kids all sleep in one room (usually Ashlyn's) on the floor.

Activities:

• Christmas Lights at Stan Hywet
  
• Botanical Garden-gingerbread house exhibit
• Life-sized Christmas board game at Nature Center
• Nativity exhibit in Kirtland
• Santa's workshop
• Polar Express

Decorating:

• We always decorate the Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving while listening to music and drinking Wassail.  We like to have Wassail on the stove just to make the house smell good.

Matching Christmas Jammies:  

• I hope this tradition lasts until they leave the house and that they don't outgrow it :)

Elf on a Shelf


***Ok, after listing out all of our traditions I have realized that I am officially overboard.  To the max.  Now that I've started them all, I can't stop though!  



What traditions do you have with your family?!!  Do share.

Tricky Trickster

My sister-in-law, Ashlee, gave me the awesome idea to have our elf on the shelf do pranks.  We really need step it up a notch with the elf.  We've hidden him in every creative place we could possibly think of these past 3 years, now the elf is starting to lose some of it's excitement to the kids.  Santa has delivered messages to the kids from the Elf.  He's eaten candy and been caught sitting on our porcelain chicken in our kitchen.  I needed to up the standard a little and having our Elf do pranks and the fact that the kids named him Trickster because he is tricky, works out PERFECT!!! 

Here is what Trickster did last night while the kids were asleep...

 He turned the milk green and left a little tag that said, "Hehehe!  You've been tricked!"  Corbin found the milk this morning and was freaking out---he was so excited.  Trevor looked very skeptical and Ashlyn would not even drink the milk. HA!!  All three of my kids are so different.  I love it.

Here is the tag I made: (p.s. the picture of the elf came from the front cover of the elf on the shelf book)

**I must add a disclaimer as I watched this unfold this morning.  This prank kind of back-fired because my oldest is 9-years-old.  There were just too many questions.  How did he get into the fridge?  How did he turn the milk green?  How did he make the little note that he left.  THEN!!! THEN!!! I accidentally left the document open on my computer with the elf tags that I MADE. YIKES!!  Not smooth.  I just told the kids that Trickster must have used our computer to make his own tags.  Oh man.  My younger kids were totally buying that....but Trevor....not so much.  He didn't say anything but I could just SEE IT on his face!  I think that he thinks the idea of Santa and Elves is too outlandish now, but he really, really wants to believe it still.  We might have to promote him to INSIDER (to all of santa's secrets) this year. 

Tonight while the kids sleep Trickster the elf will be toilet-papering our Christmas tree...we'll see how that goes!

Decorating for Christmas

I forgot to mention that we decorated for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving and right before we went on the Polar Express.  Our elf, Trickster, also made his appearance.  We decided this year to have 2 trees. One that was for the kids and one for me. :)  I like it that way.  We can put all the homemade and fun ornaments on one tree with the colorful Christmas lights and then I can decorate the other tree with my more elegant ornaments and lights. 

 

Dave had Trevor help bring up all of the Christmas decorations while I was out running errands.  It was so thoughtful!!  Carrying the decorations up from the basement is the worse part!!

We listened to Christmas music while kids ate candy canes and drank homemade Wassail that Dave made.

Ashlyn loves to help me set out my Snow Babies. I've been collecting them since high school.  They are pricey!

My boys

I've done it

I have almost completed my one book a week goal for the year 2012.  Only a couple more weeks to go and I never fell behind.  I thought I did when I got back from my trip out West this summer, but I hadn't!  Anyway, I've decided to dedicate this last month on books about Christ.  More specifically, on His atonement.   

Polar Express

This tradition will never get old for me.  My kids adore it!  Ok, the truth is, I adore it and I just bring my kids along for the ride. :)  They really go ALL OUT for this Polar Express.

 

Starts with:

Purchasing Golden tickets 

Walking to our train entrance #6

 

Getting Aboard

 

Getting their initials punched into their golden tickets as they board

Writing letters to Santa

I would like some Pokemon, Star Wars squinkies...

 

 

Then the Elves, who are all dressed up, read the Polar Express as the train moves

Then they pass out chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate

 

 

Then they arrive at Santa's workshop and you can see all the buildings decorated with lights and the Elves working and also dancing around.  Then Santa Claus comes out in his sleigh that is being pulled by a train.  

Then the train starts moving back to where we came from and the kids do a pajama parade-an Elf announces each one of them by name and they go down the aisle showing off their pjs.  

 

 

Then we sing tons and tons of Christmas Carols, my favorite being the 12 days of Christmas.

Doing the Reindeer Pokey! 

  

More reindeer pokey!

Then the train stops and Santa comes on board and sits with each child and asks them what they want for Christmas.

Then they pass out a silver Polar Express bell to each kid. 

 

It is positively magical!!

Trevor bonded with this elf.  The whole time during the train ride this elf would say really cute but corny Christmas jokes.  My kids loved this.  Trevor kept telling him his jokes too!