Sibling Exchange and Nana Shirts

Since 2014, we have done a sibling gift exchange with the requirement that the gift has to be homemade. We have loved this tradition.

Travis made Eliza a pencil jar out of a can that she can keep on her dresser or nightstand.

Jonah made Travis a name sign with different football symbols.

Caleb made Nathan a sword out of cardboard and Nathan helped me paint a name sign for Caleb.

Annmarie made Jonah an Avengers activity book with word puzzles and coloring pages.

Westley drew a picture of Annmarie for Annmarie.

Eliza designed a trumpet baseball cap for Westley.

And here are the kids in their shirts that Nana made them for their birthdays.  They love the shirts that Nana gives them.  Westley's had a trumpet, Caleb's had the In-N-Out palm trees, Travis' had a football, Eliza's had the Deathly Hallows on it (from Harry Potter), Jonah's had Steve from Minecraft, Annmarie's had Ariel, the Little Mermaid and Nathan's had a transformer. 

Christmas Day

The kids always line up by age to come down the stairs on Christmas morning.  They open their stockings first and eat the cereal from the stockings.  Then we do our presents.  After presents, we have a big breakfast and usually invite Austin and Paige over.  They had a baby in September, Lacey, and Westley is holding her. 

Christmas Eve

This year we brought back the Fowles tradition of doing a talent show on Christmas Eve.  Annmarie danced for us (she had found Eliza's old dance costumes in the closet and some of them fit  her).  Caleb played his trombone and Eliza played the violin.  Travis showed off his skateboard that he's been working on.  Nathan sang for us, but I didn't take a photo, only a video.  Westley did not participate.  Jonah played the piano.

And these are the cookies with the card that Annmarie made for Santa.

Fun Leading Up to Christmas

For my birthday, Corey made me chicken cordon bleu for dinner and angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert.  Yum!

When the older kids were little, we used to read a Christmas book to them every night and sing a Christmas song by the Christmas tree.  I'm not sure how it happened, but this year it worked out that we did that almost every night after not doing it for several years.  I'm glad we revived that tradition.

We ended up buying two sets of these Gingerbread houses, one was for our Secret Santa family so we used the other one for ourselves.  It was a fun activity for the kids to do before Christmas.  Corey and Westley were both working.

Nathan was super sleepy apparently.  We also did our chicken nugget and applesauce lunch on Christmas Eve day.  The tradition is that on Christmas Day, after coming home from the hospital, the only thing they found to eat was chicken nuggets and applesauce.  So that became a tradition for the King family. Only it happened while Corey was on his mission so he wasn't really part of the tradition. The rest of the family does it for the Christmas Eve dinner.  But I didn't want to change my tradition of a nice Christmas Eve dinner, which we always have ham and scalloped potatoes and chocolate cream pie, so we do this for lunch.

We found an eggnog recipe online that turned out pretty good!

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

I got to take my boys to see this movie for free! A realtor couple team in our ward often has these giveaways and free events and since we referred someone to them once, we are on their list. So we took the opportunity to go see this movie. Corey had to work and Eliza didn't want to go, so she stayed home to babysit Annmarie and Nathan. We got to sit in the nice new seats in the theater that had been redone. It was a lot of fun!

Fun in Preschool

We had a fun Christmas party in preschool.  We made gingerbread men and I also took a picture of each of the kids for a Christmas ornament we made for the parents.  Nathan loves preschool and I love having him!

Choir and Band Christmas Concerts

Eliza and Travis had their school choir Christmas concerts at the same time, one after the other.  That was nice, not having to try and make two separate events the same night, or even on separate nights.  I love Christmas concerts!

Westley and Caleb had their Christmas band concert a few nights later.  They all hold the school concerts at the First Baptist church in town because it's a bigger venue that the high school auditorium.  Westley played in a small ensemble as well as in the jazz band and his concert band, Wind Ensemble.  Caleb was in Symphonic Band.