Shakespear Shuffle

Last week of Adventing

Day 16: Shepherd's Night is one of my favorites.  Love any chance to dress up!  We eat shepherd's pie on the floor in our shepherd's garb & talk about shepherd's & how Jesus is our Shepherd & we are His sheep & just like a shepherd would protect his sheep from wolves Jesus helps protect us from evil etc.  Daddy was the wolf-yikes!  The kids all protected their paper sheep pretty well.  And that shepherd's pie recipe was dang good!

 

 Day 17:  We found a giving tree at Fred Meyer & the kids helped us pick out the presents.  I didn't take any pictures that day so here's one of Dallen saying 'Cheeeeeeese'

Day 18:  School Winter Concert for the big boys.  They both did a great job.  The music teacher has a very difficult job let's just say that.  He didn't just have the kids sing but each class took turns doing a dance & playing instruments & singing.  They sang Hanukkah, Christmas & Kwaanza songs too. 

Half the school performed at 6:30 & the other half was at 7:30 & Hyrum & Hunter were at different times so we were there all evening.  This is how Justy felt by the second performance.  Dallen spent the evening with his best friend instead (luckily for us!)

Day 19:  Polar Express Night was a hit.  We invited some friends over -decorated trains, ate pizza & chugged hot chocolate

Day 20:  Caroling Party!  We headed up to Washington to go with my parents to their annual Christmas caroling party.  When my family moved to WA state we started this tradition with two other families in our ward.  Now all the kids are grown with their own families so there are a lot more people attending now. It has always been one of my favorite things to do this time of year. Pa with the kids by the tree :)

Day 21:  Children's Museum (Bazoonium)  Before heading home we went to the brand new Children's museum in Olympia.  It was amazing!  Seriously & Pa & Darlin' bought an annual grandparents pass so we'll be able to go often this next year.  Here's Dallen in his favorite spot-snuggled up to Daddy.

 

Day 22:  Christmas Lights - we found a couple of neighborhoods in Seaside that were pretty well decked out with lights & other decorations.

Hunter wrote the card on the left on Sunday in his class & the one on the right at the Children' Museum.  Lucky Mom award right here! So sweet.

 

Day 23:  Family Sleepover - we hadn't really watched any Christmas movies with the kids yet so we watched all the tradition ones -Rudolph, Grinch & Frosty.  We bought 'Elf' this year so maybe we'll throw that in the mix next year.  Everyone but Dallen slept out in the living room after.  We have had sooooooo many late nights this month! That's going to change really fast come January!  I just noticed looking at this picture that we still have one Halloween decoration still up - hahahaha

Day 24:  Christmas Eve!!!!  It has been so sunny & beautiful really since we moved here.  It rained one week in November (of course while Nana was here) & a few other random days but other than that it's just been gorgeous.  We went for a long walk around the neighborhood.

One of my mission companions Tammy, her sister & parents came to visit us for a couple of hours.  It was so fun to see them & catch up - they are the nicest people & once the kids warmed up they had them laughing & running & giggling like crazy.  I had forgotten how great Tammy is with kids.

We had our traditional breakfast taco's for dinner, made cookies for Santa (Jeremy), & then read & acted out the Nativity.  We have Mary & Joseph & baby Jesus (played by Hedwig) on the left.  As you can tell Emma is not a doll person she is most definitely a stuffed animal person.  We have a shepherd & his sheep on the right.

 

Here's our angel & Wise Man

And of course we can't forget the donkey.

The Wise Man imparting his special gift.  I'm not sure what the shepherd was doing??

We watched the church's 'Joy to the World' DVD, got the kids to bed & then made our over night Christmas cinnamon rolls & watched 'Elf'.  I didn't used to think this movie was at all funny but I think I'm changing my mind.  

It's been a wonderful month full of fun traditions.  And now I'm ready to get back to eating less sugar & the kids going to bed at 7:30 again!