'Tis the Season

Our Christmas prep began on Sunday morning, when an antsy Ethan brought up all the bins from the basement.  Son number one is my project boy, and putting the tree together and setting up the decorations kept him nice and busy all morning long. Grace contributed to the Christmas cheer by setting up her OWN decorations in her room, complete with a snowman door and Christmas cards from 3 years ago up on her wall.  

Aside from the decor, other Christmas preparations are in full swing, as we've finally pinpointed a date for our kid ornament exchange, I've spent the past week working on a Bethlehem city scene for the ward Christmas party tomorrow night, and Santa and his elves have been busily completing their work.  ;)  Scott's parents have also  helped to jump start the festivities by setting up a "12 Days of Christmas" surprise for the kids.  Needless to say, they are super stoked to be receiving a package from Amazon every day for the next 11 days.

 "O Little Town of Bethlehem" -- I sketched out the silhouette on 15 feet of white muslin, and then painted in the night sky and star over the city.

 My attempt to get the kids involved in a "fun Christmas activity" this afternoon was only semi-successful.  They all jumped at the chance to work on it, but it may have created more contention than I was trying to negate, and Isaac kept ripping it off the wall when they were done.  

Gift for Day One

Tonight we kicked off our December advent with a family service project in the form of some "random acts of kindness."  I am loving the idea of celebrating the birth of the Savior -- the light of the world -- by helping to make the world a brighter place.  The kids (minus Ethan) each chose two friends to "ding dong ditch" with a jar of Christmas goodies.  My little elves helped assemble the jars after school, and once Scott got home from work, we drove around the neighborhood, leaving treats on doorsteps and hopefully helping to brighten someone's day.

To close I'll leave you with one completely non-Christmas-related anecdote that I discovered just this evening as I was driving to the church with Ethan and Grace to help set up for the party.  Apparently Ethan "allows" himself to have one day each week where he doesn't have to make his sandwich for lunch because he's just too exhausted in the mornings.  And apparently today was the day for THIS week.  Which explains SO MUCH about his behavior and mood after school today.  Hahahaha.  I guess a bag of pretzels and some Oreos just don't have what it takes to get him through the day.  Go figure.  Hahahaha.  Maybe one of these days he'll learn.

{This "note" was shoved under my bedroom door on Sunday morning while I was getting ready for church.  Grace helped Alex write a letter to Santa...

"Dear Santa, Hi, it's Alex.  I want a Mario action figure for Christmas.  I also want a Mario Robe.  one more thing is some type of Mario book.  Love, Alex"

Are you sensing a theme here?  Hahaha.}