More Christmas Fun

We always give the kids an ornament every year at Christmas, and these two ornaments are ones I made for Benjamin (exchange student) and Westley.  I ordered the Texas cutouts from a company that does that and then painted the Texas flag for Benjamin and That Wylie Band symbol for Westley.

Caleb's school had an ugly Christmas sweater day.  Since he didn't have one, he made his own!  He used a plain sweatshirt and cut out a felt tree and pinned ornaments from our Christmas advent calendar all over the tree.  It was very clever and fun!

I drove around the old neighborhood in Richardson where I spent several years of my childhood one night just because.  I took a picture of our old house adorned with Christmas lights, something we never did with it when we lived in it.  It looked good and I still miss living in that house.

Annmarie wrote an adorable letter to Santa.  "Deer Santa, I love Christmas Eve and Christmas and I love you."  I truly treasure these types of things as my children are getting older because this precious time is so fleeting. 

Ward Christmas Party and Christmas Village

 We had our ward Christmas party.  I was released as primary secretary and called as Relief Society activity coordinator at the beginning of December and had to take over doing the ward Christmas party.  I am NOT a party planner; it does not suit my personality at all, so in taking over, I really just took what the previous person had already planned and followed through with it.  I hope I don't have to plan it next year because I have NO IDEA how to do that!  But the dinner looked good.

A local church does a Christmas village in December that was another free event to help bring the Christmas spirit so I took the kids over.  Corey was working.  But we had a good time there doing a Bible scavenger hunt and singing Christmas carols.

Busy Christmas Season

December 9th was Dad's birthday as well as the Feast of Carols AND the In-N-Out Christmas Party.  We celebrated Dad's birthday on the 10th and also went to Westley's high school Christmas band concert that night.  Feast of Carols is a concert that our stake music puts on every year for Christmas.  We have an adult choir that performs along with a children's choir and a full symphony orchestra.  This year, Westley was in the orchestra and I did the choir while Eliza did the children's choir.  We had to get out of there quickly though because the In-N-Out Christmas party was on the same night.  It has been a busy month so far!

Christmas Choir Concert

I love the Christmas concerts that the high school band does as well as the choir concert that the intermediate school choir Travis is in did last night.  It was at the local Baptist church because our schools do not have big enough auditoriums to accommodate all the people.  The Baptist church always has a fun photo op set up in the main foyer so I got a picture of the girls while waiting for the concert to start.

Some Cuteness Here

Lately Nathan has enjoyed looking at books.  He will spend a long time looking through some of our books.  I love catching him at it!

Annmarie helped make cinnamon rolls for Light the World and gave some to the crossing guards at Groves.

Groves Santa Night 2018

Groves Elementary has Santa Night the first week of December every year.  They have all sorts of activities going on and a chance to visit with Santa.  The line for Santa is usually quite long, but we were able to go over early this year and get in line.  I stood in line while the kids walked around.  I can't believe so  many of my kids are starting to be too old for these things.  I remember going to the Riverton city visit from Santa after Thanksgiving a couple of times when we lived in Utah and how I miss when my kids were all little and liked doing things like that together as a family!

Creche Festival in Allen

One of our favorite Christmas traditions here in Texas is going to the Allen Creche Festival every year.  It usually runs the first week of December.  The Allen stake puts it together and it is free.  We love looking at the nativity scenes from all over the world and listening to the beautiful music as we walk through.  It is a great way to start off our Christmas season every year!