December Happenings

It's hard to believe we are already into the new year, December seemed to just fly on by. We did have some fun stuff happen around here though.

William our Elf returned to Santa on Christmas Eve, but we sure enjoyed finding him every morning. This was one of his better hiding spots.

My girls are always so sad to see him go, but they wrote him a nice letter and drew plenty of pictures for him to take with him. 

We were also able to see Santa a couple of times. First at Bass Pro Shop. Emery loved visiting with the reindeer there. And then he also showed up at our neighborhood park one morning.

We also helped deliver toys. The younger kids school collected over 400 toys for a local event. It was such a great thing to participate in and really helped all of us feel the true spirit of Christmas.

The younger kids also had a holiday spirit week and got to dress up in something different each day. Their favorite day is always pajama day, but they also had an ugly sweater day. I had a little too much fun making those for them to wear. They also had a twin day, they picked and planned someone in their class to match with. Emery is the only I got a picture of, but she and her friend Madison sure looked cute. 

December also means sugar cookies around here. I make them every year to hand out to friends and neighbors. In the past years, I have had to make several double batches, but since moving we didn't hand quite as many out and it made things a little faster. (Although double ovens helped too, not sure how I will ever live without those now??) I love these sugar cookies with fresh homemade frosting, but they are so time consuming I only end up making them a couple times a year. I guess that just makes them more special around Christmas time.

Emery is always my helper, and is pretty good at it. She even stuck it out with all the decorating too.

 We handed out almost all that we made so on Christmas Eve we made our own fresh batch for us and Santa. Corey got a little creative with the decorating of those.

I also love getting the kids new clothes for church to wear the Sunday before Christmas.

A pretty good looking bunch when they are all dressed up. 

(Even if Brendan's new shirt and tie didn't arrive until the next day!!)