Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve with the Low Family!

 Cousin Ashley and Bryce scored cool points with winners like nerf guns and guitars, my boys thought they were in Heaven!

 Owen got this bear in a box and everyone of my kids loved it!  Kevin informed us that he had ALWAYS wanted one of these...Owen loves it too!

 One of my favorite things we do at this Christmas party is the gift exchange for the adults.  I love to see what everyone brings.  Some standouts this year were "Fifty Shades Darker" with a Barnes and Noble gift card, an awesome scarf that was hard to figure out, and the calendar that Ellen made! We made out like bandits this year.  Bryan got a Low Family Calendar created by Aunt Ellen it is awesome and includes birthdays and anniversaries and pics of the family, so neat!!  I got MOVIE TICKETS!  Yes that is one of my favorite gifts ever!  We made our gifts this year which I will include in my homemade Christmas post that I will do maybe next week :D!

 

 

 

 I wish I had a picture of the Turban version of this scarf!

 The boys (Bryan included) scored big time with a super awesome Telescope!  It works!! we saw mountains on the moon and haven't even tried the big lens!  Isaac got what he has been asking for all year, a SKATEBOARD!  He was so excited!( I know pictures were taken of it, so if you have them please send them)

 

We loved our second Annual Christmas Eve Party with the Low Family!  It is so fun to see our cousins that we don't get to see very often and spend a day with family.  The boys had a blast as all their cousins here in California on the Low side are boys (except one, Alex, but she didn't come this year) So there were 7 boys they had a blast!  Good thing someone else was on the ball (Thank you, Ellen) otherwise I would have 3 pictures of the whole day...

Deck the Halls

This year I stunk at taking pictures of all the kiddos and my hubby pitching in to make our home my idea of a Christmas wonderland but here are a couple from the day we set up the tree








This year Isaac changed our nativity daily. One day he lined everyone up with baby Jesus at the front and told me they were all waiting their turn to see Baby Jesus! I love it!

More Christmas Fun!

December 7th and 8th was like a two day party in our world! On Friday we headed down to Laguna Beach for Hospitality Night. This is a night for Laguna Beach to celebrate Christmas their way. There is a little parade with Santa and you can see him and get pictures with him for FREE! And all of the shops are giving out free drinks and hot chocolate and apple cider and also treats! Also there is a lot of live music! We always have fun when we go.





"That's a lot of boys!" Said Santa as they piled around him :)

Before dark we took our Christmas card pics by ourselves with a timer and a tripod. Here are some cute pics I took of the boys after we were done.











I'll post more pics from that later.

The next morning was Breakfast with Santa for our Ward (church) Christmas Party! We wore our pajamas!


Christmas time is my most favorite time of year! I've got to get back to "It's a Wonderful Life" now!

Ice Skating

This month we have been doing a new activity every day and on the 1st of December the Advent Calendar said, " go ice skating" with the groupons I bought several months ago :) ! We were able to get the best babysitter for little Owen, sweet Karen Mangham! And we headed out after dinner. The boys had so much fun and Isaac thought it was so awesome to stay up so late! It was after 9:00 before we got to bed :)

















It has been years since I have been ice skating it was pretty fun and hilarious with Isaac! We learned a very important lesson...how to fall properly. He is now a pro at falling!

Trimming the Trees!

With a little frosting, sprinkles, m&m's, and sugar cones!

The Minivan Express

Last night our advent calendar activity was a super surprise! We were going in our Jammie's after dinner to go look at Christmas lights. Here is how it went down for us. I made dinner, we ate it, then I sent the boys to get their Pajamas on. In their drawer they found their tickets to THE MINIVAN EXPRESS! They were excited to find "golden tickets in their drawer. I found the tickets here . While they got dressed I made some of that awesome hot chocolate from my previous post and then we headed out with our hot chocolate in hand! In the minivan we blared some Christmas music and went in search of a "candy cane lane". We found a perfectly awesome neighborhood in Brea near Kraemer and Birch! We had a super fun evening that ended when Adam had to go pee. My favorite thing of the evening though was Adam saying to all the crazy decorated homes, " woah, that took a lot of work" he repeated that sentence at every house. He came to that conclusion on his own. Hilarious!











I love looking at Christmas lights!

The Polar Express

Today we had classes at the site all morning but since naps were non existent for some reason we decided to do a little more "fun school" stuff. We decided to watch The Polar Express. I decided that since the advent calendar said we were going to make hot cocoa with hot cocoa stirrers maybe we could just make it an all afternoon activity. So we watched the movie and I made hot cocoa using this recipe. It was so yummy! And I made some marshmallow candy cane stirrers to make it Christmas like! I decided I could probably find some writing work online for this movie and was excited to find some freebies that were perfect. Here is our afternoon in pictures!








Watching the movie with their giant pillow pets!
















The boys did awesome on their work!





Isaac actually put the glue on and outlined the bell himself on this. I have to say I was shocked at how well he did at this!