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We started our Christmas decorating the day after Thanksgiving.  This is a picture of the kids watching Zach put the lights on the tree. He was a little over ambitious with the lights and we ended up with too few lights for the tree.

I tried to match the same kind at the store, but decided they were too expensive when you have to pay full price (we bought them at an after Christmas sale a few years ago) so we just took off the bottom row of branches and spread some of the lights out.
Our Neighbor, McKell came over to play.  Nicole was really excited to see McKell.  Despite not seeing her much in awhile, Nicole has decided that McKell is her best friend.  Nicole was a little over eager to play with McKell.  She put on Charlotte’s shoes because they matched McKell’s and got mad when the other kids tried to play with McKell too. Charlotte pretending to be Santa with a sack of presents. Our outdoor decorations:Isaac suggested we go on a walk to look at Christmas lights.  Along the way we met this cat.  The cat followed us up and down streets and all the way home.  Isaac thought that maybe it was his “turkey farts” that attracted the cat (he had been eating nothing but turkey leftovers for days).  The cat stayed outside of our house all night and all day the next day.  Charlotte fell in love with the cat and called him “Treasure.”  I made some phone calls and found the owner of the cat, whose name is actually “Titan.”
We took the kids up to Temple square to see the lights. We got up there early so we walked around and looked at all the Nativities before the lights turned on. Notice Isaac’s feet in the picture below–the picture was taken mid-jump.
We didn’t take many pictures that showed all the lights, but you can see the density of lights on this picture and for those of you who have never seen Temple Square at Chistmas time, check out this Google image search.We toured the inside of the Confrence center with the kids.

Charlotte decided it was time to cut her hair.  I think her motivation came from the fact that her best friend had just gotten a haircut.  I love her long hair, but getting her to brush all the tangles out had become such a chore. We took the Webelos to the Bean Museum for a reptile show. Isaac was a little wary, he didn’t want to touch the snake or really any of the reptiles.

Thomas was mad and didn’t want a diaper on.  He fell asleep like this.  I took the picture thinking, how can I get a diaper on this boy without waking him up.  In the end he did wake up when I put the diaper on, but I decided that was better than having him wake up soaking wet.  Isaac joined the Robotic’s club with his best friend.  They had to build and then program this Lego creation.  He was excited to find out that he’s been accepted into the next level of Robotic’s club.

Charlotte was so into her newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book that she even read it in line for the bus to school.  I really love seeing my kids enjoy reading. We had a short visit from my parents and sisters for Charlotte’s birthday.  I shared a few more picture from their visit on the blog I wrote for Charlotte’s birthday, but I really took very few pictures. We made a bunch of Buckeyes together for the neighbors:

Charlotte and her friend, Lucie building their Legos together.  Their birthdays are two days apart and they both got girl Legos. Isaac still loves to build with Legos.Nicole got a bag of treats from her Reading Buddy and promptly came home and opened them all.

We haven’t had much snow this year.  Until Christmas day, we didn’t have snow that stayed for an entire day.  This was one of the days all the snow melted before the day was done.
We made sugar cookies as a family. On Christmas Eve we continued our tradition of doing a live Nativity with the kids.  Charlotte really wanted to be the angel.  As soon as we started dressing up the kids, Thomas insisted that he should be a lion.  He even wanted me to paint his face like I did on Halloween, but I didn’t get a chance and he forgot about it.  Nicole was happy to be a “Grill shepard”  (Grill =Girl).  Ila was Mary and she was very happy that she got to hold the baby.
After the Nativity, we let the kids open a few gifts from Grandma Bunny.  I told her that I liked the tradition of giving my kids PJs every year and a new book.   My girls love nightgowns, we call them “pajama dresses” they all got matching Frozen nightgowns.  They also love to match each other so this was perfect. Thomas took awhile to be ready to change into PJs, I was starting to wonder if he’d go to bed dressed as a lion.

Isaac really enjoyed his book.  Grandpa Bird picked out a book about the thousand greatest events in history.   Here are all the children in their new PJs.

Thomas kept insisting I take another picture of him.

 

This year we decided to take some of the focus off of Santa.  We decided that most of the gifts we picked out for the kids should come from us, but Santa could fill the stockings and give the kids a few group gifts.  This idea also allowed us to wrap presents early and put them under the tree which made our tree look less wierd (remember how we took out the bottom row of branches).
I love the girl’s faces in this picture.  Isaac placed himself by the fire so that he could pass wrapping paper to Zach to burn. Charlotte was underwhelmed by her main gift.  Somehow, we always manage to pick a gift we think she’ll really like, but she doesn’t end up loving the gifts as much as we expect.  Hopefully this one will grow on her. My big sister spoiled us this year with a TV for our bedroom which is good because all I bought for Zach was a can of cheese.We got our first big snow of the year on Christmas morning.  Isaac wanted to go out and shovel as soon as the presents were opened.
Then they shoveled the neighbor’s driveway and sidewalk. Nicole spent half the day walking around with this microphone singing.  Her songs were about how boys shouldn’t go to school because they’re not good enough and how you should put all your pee in the potty and help your mom and your dad. All of the kids enjoyed the Micro Chargers sets that Santa gave them.