Dec. 24 - Christmas Eve to Dec. 31 - New Year's Eve

Merry Christmas!

Dec. 24 - Christmas Eve - For our advent calendar this year we did something different.  I hope I wrote on it last year, but just in case, our calendar last year contained small gifts for the kids but also each envelope had an act of service in it - like bake cookies and take them to the neighbors, etc.  This year I wasn't as on top of it. Nor could I find the envelopes (until I was putting all my Christmas decor away).  So, I only had the round ornaments.  Max and Elise had asked for Lego advent calendars this year.  They are $40 a piece, so both kids would have been $80!  I kept putting it off and putting it off until after the 15th when we have a little more wiggle room financially.  Well, as it happened, Nate and I could not find it anywhere; everywhere it was sold out!  Even Legoland, and the Lego store and Lego.com.  So, luckily Nate and I had been saving a set from last year that we got after Christmas.  We decided to place pieces of the set into each bulb ornament.  The set has 9 bags of Legos so all of those Legos wouldn't fit into the small ornaments.  So, on Christmas Eve I left only a note in an ornament for each of them and sent them on a scavenger hunt.  It was super fun to watch them work together and find the bags.

Yeah....so...I still haven't finished numbering this.  :-)

Then as a family we started to put the Lego set together. - that was even more super fun! (Above. The picture below is actually a set Elise got that we put together on Christmas Day.)

We also were invited by our friends, the Nylands and Cramers, to go to the movies in our pajamas.  So, we took them up on that and saw "Frozen" (our second time, except Elise - her third).  It's a fun family film.

December 25 - we had a nice quiet and relaxing Christmas Day.  And it was fun to open and see each other open gifts; but I finally fulfilled a dream - to sled on Christmas Day!  I think the other three could have waited until the next day, but I was afraid that the snow wouldn't last another day (and it didn't), so they all consented to come with me.  I LOVE sledding!  None of my videos worked though.  :-(  But I did run over a small tree and give myself a pretty good bruise on my hip.  Still...it was fun!

Dec. 27 - Temple Trip for my ancestor

 I don't have a picture for this, but this was the first time I've ever gotten to do work for my own ancestor and it was a wonderful time.  The woman was born in 1713, had all her other work done, as well as her siblings, in 1913.  Unfortunately, somehow, she had not been sealed to her parents at that time, or at least there was not a record of it.  I actually found her name in 2012, but only as a Mrs.  After some work this past year, I found her actual name and was able to get her work done exactly 300 years after her birth and 100 after all her other work was done!  It was special.

 Dec. 27 - Because Mandy and Trevor were able to watch Max and Elise while we were at the temple, we did a kid swap.  So Reed and Will came over to spend the night and Elise spent the night with Emmy and Abby.  

And Family Pictures at the Lake near our house (Wyandotte County Lake Park).

Had New Year's Eve party at the Nylands:

 

And drank a good amount of hot chocolate with mini chocolate chips at the bottom and whipped cream on the top!