Christmas Cards

We love sending Christmas cards every year.  With 2020 being so crazy, we sent the most cards ever, 205!  We're always grateful to those who send us cards back.  Here is our small collection when I first taped them up on our wall (we always keep one of our own cards, photos, and newsletters too).

Here is how the collection had grown by Christmas day.

It grew even more by the day we took down all the Christmas decorations.

And it still grew to what it is today.  With February coming tomorrow, part of me feels like I should take them down.  However, another part thinks I should keep them up until we get Christmas cards for 2021!  It brings me joy to be remembered by others at Christmas!

We got a couple of cards in February and even one in May, way to go Canada Post!

Christmas Goodies

We were spoiled with sugary goodness this Christmas season!  Is it any wonder I gained 3 pounds and I haven't been able to lose it yet.  Teague, Hiram, Ali, and Macy received these lovely goodies from the Primary Presidency and they sweetly shared with all of us.  We also got sweets from our Bishopric, Relief Society, Young Men's, and Primary teachers.

Kaleb got this cute chocolate gingerbread man from his boss.

The Cameron family made each of us our own beautiful and delicious cinnamon roll wreath.

The Wildes made us one of Jackie's famous turtle cheesecakes.

And I grabbed a quick pic of Jackie and her girls when they made their delivery.

We also got a delivery from FedEx.

What was in this 30 pound box?

Homemade treats from Gramma and Grampa!

Nine huge containers of treats for our family of 9.

Homemade caramels, peanut butter balls, peanut butter chip cookies, chocolate-caramel pretzels (from our Bishopric), candied walnuts, potato pioneer pinwheels, chocolate chip cookies, and the best cinnamon bun popcorn!

The goodies didn't end here though.  I made some Neiman-Marcus chocolate chip cookies for a couple of ladies from church and my family as well.  We gave treats to all 36 of our neighbors and 6 of them gave treats back to us.  We also got treats from 5 other friends from church, I just didn't get pics.  And of course, we made cookies for Santa, but those will be shared in a different post!

Christmas Traditions

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is reading our 24 Days of Christmas book.  Every day has a scripture to read, carol to sing, and story to read.  I made a title page for each day with pictures of our "ornament of the year" on them.  This year we filled the book as Len and I celebrated our 24th Christmas married.  Starting next year I'll add pages in the back with all the remaining ornaments to come!

This year I also made Carol books for each family member (black for parents, green for boys, and red for girls).  The books were in 3 sections- all the songs from our 24 days book, our favorite contemporary Christmas songs that we sing on Christmas Eve, and all of our favorite classic Christmas songs that we sing on Christmas Day.  The kids were so excited to have all the words to all our favorite songs!

This year I wrapped up 7 of our favorite Christmas books and put them under the tree a week before Christmas.

Each night, one of the kids took turns choosing the book to unwrap and read.  We will do this again next year, but we have so many Christmas books we'll start on December 1st and have a couple of books to read each day!

Another favorite tradition we continued this year was playing Secret Santas.  We also participated in Light the World again, and this year I completed all 26 tasks!  Another tradition that sprang from Light the World was that one day we all sat down with 9 pretty pieces of paper in front of us.  We each wrote a love note to every family member and to ourselves.  It was so heartwarming!  I've saved them to re-read next Christmas, then we'll do it again.  A new tradition I started this year in my personal scripture study was to read one chapter of Luke each day for the 24 days of Christmas.

Our Christmas season wasn't as hectic as years' past, but it was just as enjoyable- if not, more so!

Gavin's #14

Our Santa Baby turned 14!

Someone in his class tested positive for Covid-19, so his class had online school for the last week before holiday break.  Since he was home for his birthday, we decided to keep all the kids home from school so we could celebrate all day!

Gavin chose the menu for the day.

Breakfast- chocolate chip pancakes

Lunch- biscuits and gravy

Dinner- double decker tacos

Yum!

He got cards from all of his grandparents and 3 gifts from us.

He opened his new watch.

But, he had to wait a while for his newest training wand to arrive in the mail.  He has 4 now!  He also got Among Us installed on all of our family's laptops and desktop computer, so everyone can all play together.

He asked for a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting.  I added a few sprinkles and Mike & Ike's to dress it up a bit.

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday dear Gavin!

Make a wish!

Besides enjoying cake and ice cream, we also enjoyed peanut butter M&Ms playing dreidel (his birthday was the last night of Hanukkah).  Len also took them to the park while I was baking his cake earlier in the day.  We ended the day watching his movie of choice, Fantastic Beasts- The Crimes of Grindelwald.

Happy Birthday Gavin!  Have a wonderful new year!

Ali's Lost Tooth

At 6 1/2 years old, Ali finally lost her first tooth!

Unfortunately, her adult tooth for that spot and the one next to it already popped through.  Fortunately, she lost her second tooth pretty quickly after her first.  I hope those adult teeth now have some room to get in the right place!

The Tooth Fairy visited her and left her some Rolos!

I love these jack-o-lantern smiles!

Another silly picture of Ali getting stuck in her backpack while leaving the school bus!

Christmas Arts and Crafts

I love Christmas, I love arts & crafts, I love kids arts & crafts, so when the Primary Presidency stopped by with these gifts for our kiddos I was as excited as them!

Look at the cute ornaments they made!

Can you spy the button snowman?  Hiram also made that ornament at school.

The Relief Society gave us this beautiful star ornament too.

Teague's snowman, Flake.

And his reindeer, Tuck.

I love his Inukshuk at sunset the most!

Hiram's darling snowman.

Ali drew this Santa delivering gifts and eating cookies scene, then asked me to trace it in marker and copy it for our whole family.

Most of us had fun coloring it together!  Kaleb was too busy talking and Hiram was getting his exercise climbing the stairs, but all the rest of us were artists for an hour!

Another day, Ali asked me to draw with her.  Our theme was Christmas.

I love all the details she added to hers.

I had fun being a kid again with her.

"Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." ~Picasso