'Twas the Weeks Before Christmas . . .

 Before Christmas comes, I thought I'd let you know what this crazy family has 

been up to the past few weeks!

Kayla was in a musical called the "Modern Christmas Carol" - an updated version of the Chrismas Carol classic.  She was a Cratchit child and loved being part of the production despite the endless practices.  Here she is after her first performance. . .

Here she is after her second performance.  

She was supposed to look very poor and cold, but the gray hat was just a little too dreary!

Luke was in a couple smaller productions - his preschool Thanksgiving and Christmas programs.  But he actually got a small singing solo in the Christmas production!  

 (Indian for Thanksgiving Show)

(Shepard for Christmas program)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Since we weren't having any out-of-town guests this year, we invited a couple families over and had a great time.  Great company and delicious food.  

I think the dessert round was our favorite!

Our Elf on the Shelf, Jingles, flew back to our home just after Thanksgiving and Kayla and Luke wake up each morning searching for Jingles and can't wait to run upstairs and wake me up to tell me where he is hiding!  Wish I could say I was as thrilled as they were ;-) 

 

Shortly after Thanksgiving was my birthday. . .you know we love celebrating birthdays and mine seemed to last for a few days!   Here are pics from from grammy's house . . . where we ate a delicious steak dinner and birthday cake before opening presents.

 Hunter made this decadent chocolate cake!

 Love receiving homemade cards and gifts from my kiddos!

 

December has been an incredibly busy month!  Between keeping up with the kids, my church calling and preparing for Christmas. . . it has been a fun, but exhausting month!

 

And even though Lauren is only 13 months old, she is definitely keeping me busy.  First of all, she hasn't been feeling well so she has needed a lot of extra attention.  Secondly, she doesn't like to play with toys.  She ONLY likes to play with everything she shouldn't. . . 

here are a couple examples:

All my kids are just so energetic and busy all the time, which I love.  But I also love it when they finally crash at night.  But Luke just can't stand being away from his big sister, so he often sneaks into Kayla's bed in the middle of the night.. . which I just think is so cute.  I just love how these two are definitely best of friends.

Anyway, back to what the family has been up to...

We've participated in a few charitable activities. The kids favorite was Operation Shoebox.  They went to grammy's house and painted the shoeboxes and then we headed to the dollar store where they picked out things to fill the shoeboxes.

   Last week, we celebrated grammy's birthday at the Melting Pot.  

We let Kayla join the adults this time and we all had a great time!  

Nothing better than eating fondue for three straight hours!

 We also celebrated one of our favorite traditions - Santa Lucia Day - which is a Swedish holiday.  Since the candle wreath that was supposed to adorn Kayla's head, in honor of Santa Lucia, was totally broken . . . we improvised with a Santa hat and Luke's homemade Christmas paper wreath :-)   Pretty tacky, eh?

As always, we ate a ton of swedish oven pancakes. . . 

but the spray whip cream was the biggest hit of the morning!

In the past few days, we have made some of our favorite treats . . .which I swore we wouldn't do this year.  I told Hunter we weren't going to make any "sweat treats" for family or friends, but I gave in.  I was craving Grammy Cathy's caramels.  So the kids and I made some caramels, turtles, and cookies.. . but I promise that we did share some of them!

We've all attended lots of fun Christmas parties, which has definitely gotten us into the Christmas spirit.  Here are some pictures from Luke's and Kayla's school Christmas parties where they made crafts, played games, and ate lots of Christmas treats!

So let's just say that everyone is more than excited around here for Christmas to come.  I put the kids to bed an hour ago, but they are still upstairs wide awake as they just can't wait for Santa to arrive. . .Just hope we survive the excitement . . . and the flu. .. I almost forgot to mention that Hunter is upstairs sick as can be with the flu. . . I  hope he recovers quickly and the rest of us don't get it!

Merry Christmas Everyone!