Christmas Eve

First off, I love the fact that we can spend Christmas together as a family and can create traditions that the girls look forward to every year.  Thanks to our parents for realizing how important that is.  I love finding coordinating outfits for our whole family.  Usually I choose one outfit as my inspiration and build from there.  It is however getting harder because some of my daughters are becoming quite picky and don't want to wear dresses or certain colors.  I'm just happy that I don't forget anyone, because sometimes I don't count too well. :)  This year we went with Lauren's dress.  Can't go wrong with traditional Christmas colors!  Plus I found this adorable dress for Natalie she just had to wear.  I think we all cleaned up pretty well!

At mass Emily and Rachel sang in the choir, Lauren almost puked and Natalie fell asleep and was snoring very loud.  Everyone around us had to have gotten nothing out of mass.  But it makes for good memories!

After mass, we headed home to make homemade pizzas.  Yummo!  The girls always love creating their own special pizza.  Everyone doesn't have a problem with cleaning up afterward because their presents await them.  Kind of wish they'd get excited every night when I ask them to clear the table.

Yes...for those of you who thought Brian looked crabby on our Christmas card, he wasn't.  From the picture above you will see that most of the time I don't have much to choose from.  This is what I see everyday people!!!!!!!

On to the presents....PJS!  Brand new PJS!  We get so excited for this every year!  Why?  The girls have been accustomed to me making this a theme so to speak.  Seriously, what have I done to myself???  The stress!!!!!!!  Well, it was obvious that this year had to be based on "Frozen".  Who doesn't like Elsa and Anna????  I think they were a hit for everyone.  I was even able to find Olaf pants for Brian.  And my new motto for the year is on my PJ shirt....yes, "Let it go"

Things got a little crazy after getting our pjs.  Brian was reading the kids their new book and none of them were listening.  And he was reading very slow and articulate.  And then there's his outfit..who is really going to take him seriously anyway?

Not exactly sure what Natalie was doing but she gave us a good belly laugh.  The snow boots really make the outfit!

Then the girls were excited to give Dad a present.  He always acts over the top excited and curious which they all love.  He was VERY VERY excited for some new work dress shoes!

I think Lauren is ready to go to school.  She's so nice to raise her hand to open one of the family presents.  What a good kid!  For our family presents we received the game Scattergories, 2 Christmas DVD's, a kids Christmas song CD, a puzzle of Mackinaw Island, a snowman story book and nativity play set (for natalie and lauren while we play scattergories)

Advent

I really did enjoy Advent this year-the days leading up to Christmas.  Last year we did a countdown and the girls thought we should do it again.  It did take me a while to come up with a few different activities for the kids.  Some of them they thought were lame and others they thought they were super fun.  Win some, lose some, right?  Here are a few I captured in photo that were our favorites:

1.) A surprise Friday Family Fun Night adventure which took us to Springfield to have dinner with Father Phil and then catch the live Nativity show that the community puts on.  Brian and I both went as kids so it was fun to bring our kids.  And Father Phil will always have a place in our heart-miss seeing him everyday!

2.) Find a project on Pinterest that you want to make for someone.  Go to the store and purchase your items and then craft day on a lazy Saturday to put them all together.  Rachel chose to give gifts to all her classmates-Candy Sleds.  They turned out pretty cute.  Natalie also liked the idea so she too put some together for her classmates.

Emily painted the Nativity canvas for Grandpa and Grandma Salfer

Caitlin made "snowman poop" for her friends

Lauren, Natalie and Rachel helped me make ornaments of all the Moore grandkids for Gpa & Gma Moore

I made wood ornaments to hang outside on our garland.

3.) The girls and I had alot of fun searching out their teacher's "favorite things" and putting them in cute gift baskets.  We forgot to take a picture but we made ice cream sundae baskets for friends which were super cute and i made homemade hot fudge and caramel sauce which was so yummy!!!!

4.) We had a full day of baking treats for our friends.  Its always alot of fun but does take some work in getting everyone organized and when 4 people are vying for your attention it can get quite chaotic.  We did start out a little bumpy but once we got Lauren settled in we could focus a whole lot better.  Caitlin was super helpful and kept the baking going all day when the other girls finally got sick of it.

5.) I think the highlight for me as a mom was when my friend Jen and her kids joined us and went to our local nursing home to play piano for some of the residents.  It was something new and a little out of their comfort zone for all the kids.  To me its heartwarming to watch the residents eyes light up at the sight of young people.  We hope to go back for a spring concert!!

6.) New this year was a family competition/scavenger hunt for christmas lights around town.  We broke into teams (i thought i had the advantage-no lauren or natalie) went out around St. Peter and took a picture with the item that we were checking off the list.  It was a rule that everyone had at least one picture of themselves with an item.  Then it wasn't just Brian and I shoving the girls out while we were ready to take off in the car.

The winners were Brian, Caitlin Natalie and Lauren!!  Even though they didn't catch the 2nd rule-you can't knock off more than one item at one place!  Didn't matter though, it was sooooo much fun and we can't wait to do it again next year.  Only one person came out of their house wondering what was going on! 

7.) Sibley Park Kiwanis Christmas Lights- It was warm and misting the whole time we looked at the lights.  Santa was sick so Natalie was super bummed not to be able to see him and tell him what she wanted for Christmas.  She was very concerned that he wouldn't know.  Made Brian and I sad for her!  After the lights we went to Dickies BBQ and had some super yummy food.  I think we may have found a new favorite restaurant!!

mini christmas

A few fun little mini Christmas gatherings:

Lauren opened up a cute gift from JoAnna and kids-it was a singing snowman/snowboy singing about cutting down their christmas tree.  It was very cute and the kids got a huge kick out of it.  Even memorized the song!

The Frey family gave us a Jelly Belly game- Beanboozled.  It was were you would spin to see what jelly bean to choose-the catch was one might taste really good or it may be really gross.  For example:  the black jelly bean tasted either like skunk or black licorice.  

We had the Gilbertsons over to play the game with us and all the kids had fun.  Levi (our godson) and Lauren (their goddaughter) opened their presents.  

Miss Lydia, our other goddaughter came over one afternoon to give Brian and I a hand made ornament and open up her present we gave to her.  I'm not convinced she was super excited about the present this year.  Oh well.....isn't she super cute!!

Programs

We also had lots of entertainment from the girls leading up to Christmas.  They all did a fabulous job!

8th grade choir-hard to find caitlin but she's in the back row right off the directors left shoulder 

8th grade band-bad photo-caitlin is 3rd in from right

Emily and Grace duet

the kindergarten class-9 of them!

the 3rd grade-8 of them!

the 6th grade-the big class of 17

Natalie dressed as an angel for "Toyland" song

Emily has many musical talents!

The whole John Ireland school!

Christmas Tree Hunt

Not sure exactly, but I think it's 15 years now cutting down our Christmas tree!  And every year we do it we always have a story/memory to go along with it.  This year didn't fail us.  When we get to the tree farm it usually takes about an hour to find the "perfect" tree.  Of course we're not just looking the whole time, we're also fooling around, having a snow fights, hiding from each other, fighting, crying etc... Well this year all of us, except one, decided upon a tree, in which we named "Gnarly", because of his unique top.  Natalie did NOT want this tree at all!  She threw one of her biggest tantrums to date.  5 years old with such a stubbornness about her!  She cried, fussed, screamed at us...what were we to do?  Give in?  NO WAY!!  Why would we award such behavior?  So we chose Gnarly and were excited about it!  Natalie did finally come around and even helped cut "him" down, telling us repeatedly she did not want this tree.  After hauling him back to pay for him we decided to experience a local favorite, Hobbers Bar.  Its kind of a biker/snowmobile bar on the outskirt of St. Peter.  When we walked in we knew we were outsiders as everyone stared at us.  Usually when people stare they're counting all the kids and wondering if they're all ours!  We did enjoy the good "bar" food and didn't even mind when they charged us twice for our bill.  They did fix it and even gave us our drinks for free!  We went home after to decorate Gnarly.  Brian got him in the tree stand only to find out he had cracked it when the water started coming out!  So off to the local dollar stores and Shopko.  NO one had tree bases in stock.  So Brian trucked over to Mankato to Menards around 7:30pm.  When he got back and put the tree up we got the lights out and before Brian started putting them on thought we should check them.  Well wouldn't you know, they didn't all work!  Luckily one of the dollar stores in town was still open and had lights so off I went to grab them.  By the time Gnarly was all decorated it was almost 10:00pm.  Bed time for all!  I didn't help decorate at all this year.  The girls did a fabulous job and I didn't even tweak it once!!!!