Christmas

Christmas was wonderful this year, and it is every year. We started off with a busy Christmas Eve. I had choir practice in the morning and then got the food ready for the our big dinner. I wanted to have our main meal on Christmas Eve, so I could take it easy on Christmas day. I got the turkey in the oven around 11, and it was a good thing too, it took 6 1/2 hours to cook at 325. We were glad when the thermometer popped up. We did some Face Time with my parents around 11:30 and let the boys open their presents from Grandma and Grandpa Datwyler. Damon and Tyler got Star Wars figures, and Christoper got a wooden car carrier. They all loved them and played with them all day, it was great. Thank you.

I helped a friend with her 'Santa' present for her kids. That took up most of my afternoon, I was glad I had all of my side dishes ready and the rolls already rolled out. We had a very nice dinner (at least for Doug and I - we were begging Tyler to have one bite of practically everything on his plate, and Chris didn't eat much either - roll and jello). I made a cheese cake for dessert that is my favorite recipe. It is so creamy and not as dry and rich as some baked cheese cakes - worth every calorie.

Doug read bits from the Christmas story and we placed our Little People Nativity Figures into place as he read.

The boys went to bed fairly well. It took Damon awhile to fall asleep. I took care of the turkey while we watched War of the Worlds that was on TV. Then we finally got things ready for Christmas and went to bed pretty late.

I woke up around 5:00 thinking I had heard someone, it took awhile to me to fall back asleep, then Damon woke up at 6:00. Damon was cute and came into our room very excited and said "I got General Grevious." It was by his stocking. We had the boys look in their stockings and then we opened presents at 6:30 when Chris got up.
We started a new tradition of having a new family ornament to represent a present for our Savior and we are going to write down something that we can work on to be more Christ-like throughout the year and then we will open the box next year and see how we do. I thought is was good to not just jump into the presents so fast, but take a minute to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

All the presents were a hit this year. Christopher liked the Finn McMissile that Tyler got the most. He wasn't as excited about his presents, but Tyler was very good at sharing thankfully.

Damon could tell it was Legos by shaking it.
Chris basically walked around all morning with as many cars as he could fit in his hand/arm.

For my benefit here is a record of what everyone got:
Damon:
Santa: Cars 2 playset, General Grevious, Professor Z car, Mom and Dad: General Grevious Lego Set and clothes, G & G Petersen: Klutz Lego Contraptions, G & G Datwyler: Star Wars figures and church outfit, Tyler: Star Wars puzzle.Tyler:
Santa: Finn McMissile, Mace Windu, Acer car, Mom and Dad: Bounty Hunter Pursuit Lego Set and clothes, G & G Petersen: Klutz Paper Airplane book, G & G Datwyler: Star Wars figures and clothes, Damon: pull-back car.
Christoper:
Santa: Ride on car, Wicket, Francesco Bernoulli car, Mom and Dad: Weeble Tree house, G & G Petersen: Children's songs DVDs, G & G Datwyler: wooden car transporter, Damon: motorcycle, Tyler: cars.
Mom:
Digital thermometer, flirty apron, bedspread (from my parents), the rest of the Harry Potter DVDs that we didn't have, Tangled, Avon stuff, and Down East shirts - see previous blog.
I love my new bedding!
Dad:
Shoes, vacuum cleaner, drill set (from my parents), David Archuleta and Mormon Tab CD, Star Trek DVD, and Old Spice Men's scented body wash :)
For the family my Grandpa Fish got us some Living Scriptures DVDs, and we bought Cars 2 and a math game.

We had Church at 11:00, we were a little late because we were trying to get some family pictures, you can laugh at the shots of the boys, no one wanted to cooperate.

Chris was bad from the beginning,

Now Damon was acting like a 2 year old.
Then it was Tyler's turn:
a sucker helped Christopher and silly faces for the boys:


This might be the best we got, sigh.
Church was nice that we only had Sacrament Meeting. I was up on the stand for Choir and poor Doug had to be with the kids on his own. Christopher did not want to be good from the beginning. Doug had to take him out twice. Our friend that sat in front of us said he would keep an eye on Damon and Tyler, but he more played with them than watched them. Tyler was tickling Damon and bugging him. Damon was trying to be good. I was trying to give Tyler the "be good" look from the stand, but he wasn't looking at me. That whole side of the Chapel was pretty entertained with our little side show. Oh well, we won't have a two year old forever, thank goodness.

The rest of the day was great. Doug let me take a nap. We built Legos and had leftovers for lunch and turkey noodle soup for dinner. It was a great Christmas, I was glad that we didn't have to go anywhere or feel rushed. Yes, it would have been fun to see more family, but we'll see them next week. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas.

12 days of Christmas

So I wanted to do something to help my boys think about giving at Christmas time, so we did the 12 days of Christmas. They each picked a friend, so we did two sets. I forgot to take pictures of most of the them, but here is what we did. I found the ideas online with the tags to print out. They were fun because they followed the song, but were easy and not too expensive.

1- a fresh pear
2- two chocolate turtles, and an origami dove.
3- three french hens - notice the berets.4- fours sticky note pads with messages the calling birds left.
5- five golden pineapple rings.
6- six red and green hard boiled eggs that the geese left.
7- bubble bath, that the swans swam in.
8- milk that we got from the maids - it was a hot cocoa mix in a baby food jar9- nine candy canes that the ladies dancing used when they were done.
10- frogs "They might not be Lords, but they can leap."
11- bubbles, I couldn't find the pipe kind to be like the pipers piping.
12- a drum, one is plenty - who needs twelve?
We had fun. The boys helped me deliver some of the time. We tried to be sneaky, but got caught pretty early. The boys that we gave to thought it was fun though. Merry Christmas.

Petersen Christmas Party

We made a quick trip up to Logan for the Petersen Christmas Party. We left Saturday morning at 10, then left to go back to Vernal Sunday at 10 am. But we had a lot of fun in between.

We got to Karen's house at 2:30, I left at 2:50 to go pick up some chips and dip and drinks at Lee's. Then I stopped by DownEast because they were having a great sale on their layering tee's. Anyway, after some super fast shopping and trying on I got 8 layering tees for $30, quite the steal. Then after waiting in line for 15 minutes I hurried back to Karen's. Doug had called and said that Chris needed a new outfit, but I had the clothes in the van. So he was going around half dressed when I got there.

We finished getting ready then left for Millville for the party. We had a great set up that Wendy provided. She did an all you can eat pasta bar. The chicken alfredo was my favorite. Everyone played Dodge Ball while the food was getting ready, girls verses boys was pretty entertaining. Chris tried to not get hit.


The girls who got out. (I think they each won once. )

The grown-up table conversing after the meal.

The boys checking on the Aggie game on Doug's phone. It was so funny, they were at a crucial part of the game and Doug's phone lost the signal for a second and they all say no at the same time, and then react as it comes back on and the Aggie's got scored on, or something. They ended up losing after having the lead. Sounds too familiar.
Fun game of unwrap the chocolate bar with two knives while wearing gloves.
Chris didn't like Uncle Eric as Santa, giving him back his sippy that we had left at their house, it was empty Santa - jeez.
Chris's best friend was Emily at the party. She did a great job of leading him around and playing with him. Here they are playing pic-a-boo with the chair. Thanks Emily.
The food was great, the company fun, thanks for the fun time Petersens.

We did do the cousin exchange of gifts. We went around in a circle, chanting the name of the person opening their presents. Damon got a Mater Tales Wii game (we were going to buy it from the Zollinger's but then they decided to just give it to Damon as his present, worked out great). Tyler got a fun airplane that shoots missiles. And Chris got 4 die cast cars from Cars 2. All the boys wanted those and have been fighting, I mean playing with them ever since. Thanks for the fun presents cousins.

Damson slept in the living room with Nick, Tyler had to be moved to our room, he still likes to be by mom and dad. It was pretty late for our kids, they didn't want to go to bed though, they really like playing with Nick and Micheal's toys. Then we got ready Sunday morning and headed back to good old Vernal so I could help with our Stake Christmas Music Program. I was leading the children's choir and our ward choir. It went well. It was was very busy weekend, but filled with fun, and lots of driving. They boys do pretty well, and they don't fight as much in the mini-van.

School Christmas Programs

On Friday Tyler had his Pre-School Christmas Program. It was very short, which was a good thing. They had it at the gym of a smaller size church but it was packed. I think every grandma and grandpa, aunt, uncle and cousin was there supporting each child. Tyler needed a bit of persuading to go with his teacher to get lined up, but he seemed ok on stage while singing. In between songs he had quite the grumpy face. Then when it was all over he comes up to us, starts crying, and says "I don't want to sing." Obviously it was all over by this point, but he was very upset for 10-15 minutes after. I don't know if he gets nervous performing, but he does just fine in practice, but really doesn't like being up front. He didn't sing at our ward Christmas Party that we went to after either. Oh well, hopefully he'll grow out of it. Damon had his program today. The whole 1st grade was together. They did a good job. Some had speaking parts, the rest just sang all of the songs. Damon was very entertaining during "Santa Claus is coming to Town." During the part of: "He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake," he points his finger right at us and gives us a great look of you better behave. It was funny. (top left)

Gingerbread Creation

So if you know my family we have the tradition of making gingerbread things. Last year we did the traditional house. This year Damon wanted to do a jet. So I break out the graph paper and ruler and become an engineer for a few moments to create the patterns for the pieces we will need. Then we carefully cut out the dough, bake and assemble. The boys don't help through much of this process, but Damon did help put the candy on this year. Tyler and Chris enjoyed eating it. Chris did not want me doing any of this, as you can see by his picture, even though it is blurry.





For our Relief Society activity this month we made this manger scene. It was a lot of fun.