Playing with baby Logan

Whitney playing with Logan.  We saved a few of our baby toys and she got them out for him to play with.

On Saturday, December 15th, my brother and his wife Mandy and their baby Logan flew into Portland from Ohio.  We hadn't seen them in 2 1/2 years, so we were excited to see them again.  They spent their first couple of days here at my sister's, so we didn't see them until Sunday when we went to Vancouver to my nephew's priesthood ordination.  It was lots of fun to spend the afternoon with some of my family.  

Whitney and Logan

Monday morning my parents, my brother, his wife and Logan all came over to our house.  We just spent the day hanging out at our house visiting.  The girls loved playing and holding baby Logan.  He was happy to let everybody hold him.  He is a good baby and I hardly ever heard him even cry.  

Lauren holding Logan

Shannon holding Logan

The Ward Christmas Party

The week of the ward Christmas party was a super busy week for me.  The Relief Society presidency was in charge of the party, so I was involved in a lot of prep for that.  Also we had my parents at our house for the first part of the week.  I had fun going Christmas shopping with them and we also went out to dinner with the whole family.  They left to go spend a few days at my sister's house on Wednesday morning.  That afternoon Lauren, Whitney and I went to an assisted living facility to carol with the activity day girls and the cub scouts.  Thursday was our Relief Society activity night.  We had a cookie exchange and hot chocolate bar.  We kept it pretty easy and low key and it was a lot of fun.  We also practiced our song for the party the next night.  After the activity we set up for the ward party the next night. 

Friday, I started the day helping in Whitney's kinder class.  I watched Josie for a while after Whitney got out of school.  Then in the afternoon I helped with the final prep for the party that night.  The party was lots of fun.  We had lasagna, salad, rolls and corn for dinner.  After dinner we had a program.  Each auxiliary in the ward had to do something for the program.  The program turned out great.  We had a great mix of things with lots of participation from a variety of people.  My kids loved the Elder's Quorum's dance to "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas".  The R.S. played chimes and sang, the youth reenacted the nativity, the High Priests told a story with lots of fun props and the primary sang "Once there was a snowman".  The primary's song was really cute with the props that they used.   

 

The youth doing the nativity.  Shannon was a donkey.

Tyler on the right was one of the wise men.

 

For the primary song Lauren held the middle section of the snowman.

 

After the primary sang, Santa Claus came out.  It was a fun memorable evening.

Lauren and Whitney were the only kids in our family that wanted to sit on Santa's lap.  My kids are just getting to grown up.

Lauren with Santa

 

Whitney didn't want to sit on Santa's lap.  She just wanted to stand by him and tell him what she wanted.  She was much braver this year than last year.  

 

My week was so tiring that I went to bed that night and didn't wake up until 8:45 am.  I couldn't believe what time it was when I woke up.  I don't ever sleep that late.  It felt great and was such a relief to have my busy week over with.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

After we brought our tree home we had to let it dry out for a little while before we could decorate it.  We waited until after dinner to decorate.  We had a yummy dinner of homemade pizza with Grandma & Grandpa and then we decorated the tree.  Evan helped me put the lights on and then the kids put the ornaments on.  I let them do all the decorating and didn't even do any rearranging this year.  I figure I can have the picture perfect Christmas tree when my kids are all grown.  For now all let them have fun decorating the tree with all their homemade ornaments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the tree was all done we watched a Christmas movie (The Santa Clause) together.  It was a fun family evening.

Our Christmas Tree Search

Poor Whitney with her too small coat.  I bought her a new one today.

On December 8th we headed out to a Christmas tree farm to find a Christmas tree for our home.  My parents were in town visiting and got to come with us on our Christmas tree hunt.  The little kids were excited to finally get a tree.  We headed there after lunch in between rainstorms.  It has been a very rainy month, to say the least.  Luckily we didn't get rained on while we were there.  We wandered around for awhile looking for the tree we wanted to take home.  We finally found one we all agreed on.  It wasn't very tall, but it was very nicely shaped.

Shannon and Lauren

Walking through the tree farm.

Looking around - so many choices

Tyler and Grandma all bundled up - it was chilly

Most of the kids standing next to our tree.

 After finding the tree and taking a picture we started the process of cutting the tree down.  Evan was the first one to try, then Lauren and then Whitney.  Kirk. of course, was the one who finally cut it down and he hauled it out of the farm.  While we waited for them to shake the tree and wrap it in netting, we enjoyed some hot chocolate and candy canes.  It was fun to have my parents here with us for this Christmas tradition.

Evan trying to cut the tree down

Lauren taking a turn

Another view of Lauren

Tyler visiting with Grandma & Grandpa

Finally Whitney's turn

 

Kirk cutting the tree down

 

 

Hauling the tree out.

Decorating for Christmas

Since there was over a week of November left after Thanksgiving we decided to wait until Saturday, December 1st to start decorating for Christmas.  We spent about an hour and a half that morning cleaning the church and then we came home and did some cleaning to prepare for our Christmas decorating.  Kirk and Evan worked on putting up the outside lights, while the rest of us worked inside.  Lauren went to her friends birthday party for a couple of hours that afternoon and Kirk and Tyler went to work on the lights on the house of a single lady in our ward.  We didn't put up the Christmas tree this day we just put up most of the other decorations.  We didn't do the bannister until a couple of days later.   Putting up all the decorations is a big undertaking, but the kids get excited about doing it and had been begging me for a couple of days before. 

 

Some pictures of the kids unwrapping a setting up one of our nativity sets.  This is one Kirk's Dad made.

 

 

 

In the picture above, Whitney wanted me to take a picture showing that she set up the Fisher Price nativity just the same as it is on the box.