Advent

Lots of pictures in this one :) This is how I kind of try to plan the advent activities. This was the first year Harvey could easily read everything and they seemed more concerned about what the activity was - so I couldn't ditch out as easily as last year. There's still always some change and variation. Some more fun that others.  

Letters to Santa...

Laura planned a super fun Minecraft birthday party for Logan. And we all took lots of pictures :)

I took the kids to the pool and it was SO fun. We had a great time together. I loved it. They had a big fun blow up obstacle thing that Harvey LOVED. I took a video of him on it but no pics. We raced across it a couple of times. I fell off once on accident and it was pretty funny. 

My mom was here for this too and she helped decorate some I just didn't photograph her. You can see her in the back folding my laundry like a saint. She is a saint. 

Hot chocolate and scones at Sill's and then wandered around the Layton Park lights. We love this one. 

Decorating food bank boxes. Crew and Harvey colored one or two but then were out. 

One of the docs I work with gave us a Costa Vida gift card. So we had dinner here and then went to the mall to do our family gift exchange shopping. It was kind of disaster for me. Tanner was with Greta. I had Harvey and Lottie. Lottie was a PILL and they just wanted to look at stuff for themselves and it just was less than fun and not focused on others. Oh well...

Tanner won tickets to Hale Theater and so we got tickets to Tarzan and took the older kids to see it. They loved it. Especially Greta. She was mesmerized the whole time. She was worried that intermission was the end. It was a pretty great show! We loved it too and it was fun going with them. 

We spent the night at my mom's that night and celebrated her birthday with her the next day. 

And squeezed in our gingerbread house decorating :)

Crafts!

Wreath pizzas!

Delivering neighbor gifts.

Pomegranate tree pancakes.

More crafts :) And with cousins is always more fun. 

We kind of celebrated our birthdays together. And I didn't do a good job taking pictures. Tanner and I spent Friday night at Little America. We went out to eat at the Current Fish and Oyster restaurant but the wait was so long we went to the bar side of things. A bit different menu and we would have liked the other place but we liked not waiting over an hour. 

The next morning we went out to eat at Pig and  Jelly Jar. So yummy! Then we drove up to North Ogden to look at houses. Ha. We are probably moving - just don't know where yet. Anyway. That took a good chunk of the day. On the way home we picked up the kids and took them for the next night so they could be with us. We got Setabello but apparently that's not their style of pizza. We swam and played at the hotel. Tanner let them get stuff animals :)

(oh, and a trip to Gourmandize after dinner for treats!)

He ordered room service for my birthday breakfast. Soooo yummy! Super flattering pictures too!

Then we headed to my parents for our Christmas party. I didn't really take any pictures. Except of our birthday cake I made!

And I taught the kids how to play Duck Duck Goose. We hung out and had yummy food. And for our service project we collected donations for the YCC up in Ogden. A safe house for families escaping domestic abuse, etc. 

The first day of break we just played some Christmas games and did a puzzle. Candy cane hunt...

Christmas character guessing game...

Marshmellow toss...

Nativity and family gift exchange...

Christmas Eve Legos (before Niederhauser party...which I put pics in the Christmas blog cause this one is long enough!)

A great month of fun things with kiddos! I do love this tradition! Hope they do too! Even if they don't fully appreciate the work and effort it is. Haha. I do now...in regards to my mama!