Wednesday, December 17, 2008

December Family Fun

Our whole family in front of the lights and the Salt Lake Temple on Sunday night.
We got to go into the Tabernacle for the first time since they renovated it. The building was beautiful inside and out, especially with the Christmas decorations. The acoustics in this building are incredible. You can hear a pin drop and a someone talking at the front, even if you are all the way in the back of the building.

The kids up at Temple Square in front of some of the lights. Evan has a snowball ready for fun.





Here are the kids with the Salt Lake Temple behind them. It was extremely cold outside, but Evan kept picking up the snow to play with it. The problem was he only had cloth mittens on, burrr! He also was picking up the snow to eat it. We had to explain that it wasn't clean enough anymore and you only eat white snow, not brown or any other color.


While we were waiting for the lights to come on, we went on a Temple Square tour. The kids love to go to Temple Square to see the statue of Jesus. We started a tradition of going to Temple Square at Christmas time to help the kids remember why Christmas is so special.



Saturday night was the ward Christmas party. The primary kids sang "When Joseph Went To Bethlehem" and some of the kids dressed up in costumes. Evan is a wise man and Jonathan is the donkey. Originally Evan was supposed to be the donkey, but he didn't want to do it, so we asked Jonathan and he agreed. The whole theme of the Christmas party was A Night in Bethlehem. While we were walking around to the little booths displaying parts of Bethlehem life, Jonathan kept getting down on all fours to be a "donkey." He was really getting into character.




Jonathan is about to tell Santa what he wants for Christmas when Lindsay pops up to help him with what to say.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Decorating For Christmas

I guess I might be called a humbug, but I like to wait until the day after Thanksgiving to start Christmas decorating. I love Thanksgiving. The air has a different feel, the sunlight slants differently, and I love to cook a delicious meal and enjoy it with the people that I love. So on Sunday night we started decorating with the help of Uncle Ryan. The kids absolutely love to decorate for any holiday, but especially Christmas. I am so glad Michael was willing to put the lights on the tree. It is definitely not my favorite part.
Evan, Lindsay, Jonathan, and Laurel pose in front of the tree they decorated. They were so excited to decorate, so chaos was everywhere.



Lindsay helped to decorate the stairs. She loves to help out. What a sweet face. She could be the angel for our tree!