Remembering Decembering!

I need to catch up on December so you get the whole month in one post!

Let's start with a visit to Santa! Care Bear asked for a guitar which is what (surprise surprise), La La asked for too! Jaco asked for a nerf gun!

Nothing says Christmas like elementary school music programs! I was so happy that La-La's school did not ban the holiday and the kids sang songs about Christmas! Jaco & La-La's school opted to be a little more "politically" correct and just had a holiday program but it was still fun and the director put together an amazing play!

Grandma & Grandpa Finch arrived Friday December 10th for La-La's baptism. We were so excited to finally get them here and even more grateful that Grandma's cancer was taken care of so they could come!

La-La's big day was Saturday December 11th at 11:am. I let her plan her program. She had me sing "Baptism", Grandma Finch spoke on The Holy Ghost, Jaco spoke on Baptism, Care Bear said the opening prayer, Jamie Webster (friend from church) said the closing prayer, Jaco played his violin in between the baptism and confirmation, Daddy baptized her and Grandpa Finch confirmed her. It was a beautiful program and La-La was so excited for all of it. Aunt Michelle made her the beautiful white dress. The day was perfect and I am so proud of La-La for making such an important and good choice!

After La-La's baptism and confirmation, we braved the slick slushy wet roads to go cut down a Christmas tree. We had actually set up our fake tree right after Thanksgiving but it is old and has seen better days. It kept falling over and just did not look too great so we thought it would be fun to pick out a tree with Grandma & Grandpa! We heard about a place that sold trees for $10. The trees were perfect and gorgeous! I have to say, we chose our tree faster than any other year because it was pouring down rain and we were soaking wet and freezing! Thankfully there was not a bad tree to be seen!

After we dried off, had some warm cocoa, and shook the water from the tree, it was time to decorate it! The tree was so perfect it looked almost fake! We will definitely go there again next year! Inexpensive and perfect; hard to find in this economy! That evening, I had a choir concert for the community choir I have been singing with. It worked out so well that my parents came that weekend because they were able to come to my concert and I had a big solo! It went well even if Care Bear fell asleep. Then Sunday morning, Jaco and I performed "Silent Night" in sacrament meeting and my parents were able to hear that performance too! My mom has always been my biggest supporter and fan and it has been a very long time since she has been able to hear me sing in full voice. It was so fun to have her and Dad here! They had to leave right after sacrament meeting to beat the bad weather and it was sad to see them go.

The last two years we have done the 12 Days of Christmas for one of our neighbors. This year the kids really wanted to do it again and I wanted to do it without spending a lot of money. Someone told me that they have seen people do it by giving a piece to a Nativity set each night and since I love Nativities, I thought it was a perfect idea! I searched for an inexpensive 12 piece set and did not succeed. I decided we would make our Nativity! Each night, I printed off a coloring page Nativity piece, had the kids color it, I laminated it, and we delivered it to an older couple that lived up the street from us. We could not have chosen a harder house to be sneaky at! They had a million windows, security lights, a security camera, and a loud barking dog! We got busted the first night but we kept it up anyways! The kids were thrilled when they saw their artwork hanging on the front door. Since we knew we were already caught, we revealed ourselves Christmas Eve when we hand delivered baby Jesus and sang them Silent Night. We had the missionaries over that night so they came with us and helped us sing. It was really fun and my favorite 12 Days of Christmas so far!

On Monday December 20th, we were invited to go caroling with 3 other families from our ward. Jaco has asked to go caroling for years and we all had a ball sharing Christmas music and goodies! We had a lot of snow that day so at each house there was some sort of snowball fight. Justin just happened to instigate most of them! After caroling we went back to the Webster's house and enjoyed each others company and more tasty treats!

On Christmas Eve, I had to work so Justin took the kids sledding with several other families from our ward. I know, not fair but such is life! It actually wasn't so bad to not have to listen to the kids asking when they could open presents all day long! Notice Care Bear's outfit in this picture. That is what happens when Dad is on charge! She had 3-4 pairs of pants on and as many shirts so she wouldn't get cold sledding!

As I mentioned earlier, we had the missionaries over for dinner that night. Justin has been on call several times since we moved here but has never actually been called in...until that night! Of course! He had to go into the ER so we killed time by watching Emmit Otter's Jug Band Christmas. Once he got home, we ate dinner, gave each elder a Nativity ornament, watched The Nativity while listening to "Breath of Heaven", read Luke II, and said family prayer. It was a great Christmas Eve! After the elders left, the girls wrote letters to Santa and the kids opened new jammies and slippers. Care Bear wanted to know what Santa does if he has to pee while out delivering presents. She answered her own question when she decided he just held on tight to the side of his sled and peed over the edge!

We told the kids they could not get up Christmas morning until at least 7:am. About 6:am, I started hearing excited little voices and by 6:30, they could not wait any longer. We let them go see what Santa brought and they were so happy. Cody loved his new purple murple and being allowed in the house! Jaco was quite disappointed when his main gift from us was just an old toy I wrapped. I had ordered several things online all on the same day, but the Nerf swords he wanted did not make it in time. Note to self, don't order from the Hasbro website! SLOW delivery! The rest of the morning was spent playing, eating, and napping for me! We went to Christmas dinner at the same house we had Thanksgiving. If you remember, we had to hike up to their house in the snow that day but for Christmas, the roads were clear with no snow! We had fun with them and the kids especially liked their Wii karaoke game!

New Year's Eve was spent at a party at the church! There was lots of yummy food, games, and good company. Jaco loved playing Guitar Hero in the gym and playing ping pong and the girls had a ball taking care of this cute little girl who thought it was pretty cool to hang out with "big" girls! It was the first year that all 5 of us stayed up until midnight! Guaranteed if we had of stayed home, Care Bear and Daddy would have crashed way before the clock struck midnight!

Whew! December 2010 is now officially done...if you made it all the way though this post that is!