Happiness and Cheer

Who would have thought, way back in 2012, that the Kid Ornament Exchange Party we held would be the start of a new tradition??  I can hardly believe it's been that long!  It seems like only yesterday that Ethan, Grace, and Sophie were in the mix for making ornaments and exchanging them with friends.  They may have grown up and moved on, but the tradition is alive and well for Jane, Alex, and Isaac.  Hahaha.

I'm pretty sure this was the most low-key, stress-free Christmas party we've ever held and as a result, it was a delight!  In the lead up to the big day, our younger half worked on their own ornaments in fairly typical fashion, with Jane carefully culling Pinterest to find her bright idea, Alex leaving it to me do pretty much everything except the painting, and Isaac happily going along with all of my ideas.  Hahahaha.  What we ended up with was a snow globe, a sled, and a reindeer respectively.  :)

 After tracing the bottoms of her snow globes, Jane hot glued the little Santa Claus and Christmas tree that we found at Hobby Lobby.

 We ended up using some plastic goblets that were the perfect shape and size for her vision.  Hot gluing the card stock bottom to the goblet rim seemed a little too dangerous for Jane to attempt, so I took over the task to finish things off after Jane filled them with "snow."

 They turned out really cute!

Our last minute touch was to wrap the stem with some red ribbon and then hot glue a jump ring for the ornament's hook.

 {I don't have any pictures of Alex working on his ornament, but he DID paint all the popsicle sticks in the making of it.}

 Plan A were these little bead wreaths from a kit I found at Hobby Lobby.  

 I was worried he wouldn't be able to do them at all, but he surprised me and worked away at making his first little wreath.

After realizing how long it would take for him to string 10 of these, and knowing the likelihood that he'd be done before they were, I decided to switch him to a Plan B.

 I hot glued these three little popsicle sticks and then let Isaac take it away with painting.

 I love the concentration!  Hahaha.

 Googly eyes...

Plus a sparkly red pom pom nose completed the look!

Ready to party!

Saturday afternoon was our designated party time, and after whipping up some cookies (the refrigerated dough kind from the grocery store -- because I was keeping everything as easy peasy as possible) and setting out the hot cocoa, we were ready for our guests to arrive.  Sophie was gone all day at a yearbook work day and Ethan was winning that bread at Sonic, but Grace was home and kind enough to help out with throwing the party with me.  {If you ask me, I think she misses participating as well.  Hahaha.}   It was fun to have some of the same crowd from last year plus some new faces this year!  It's always been amazing to me that every year we've done the ornament exchange, we've had unique ornaments from each kid and no duplicates.  Pretty impressive, if you ask me!

The hour passed in the blink of an eye, and at its end, everyone had 10 adorable new ornaments to take home.  I know it's still a few years away, but I'm really going to miss this tradition when all the kids have outgrown it!  I'll just have to enjoy it while it lasts.   :)

Variety -- The Spice of Christmas

One day, when the kids are all grown and looking back on their lives (that have been so meticulously preserved on this blog), I hope they can fully appreciate the wit it took to craft over a thousand blog post titles.  Hahahaha.  As of tonight, I have created 1,017 titles almost without repeat.  That's a lot of thinking to come up with something that will perfectly encapsulate what the post is about while also being entertaining and clever.  Hahahahaha.  

Tonight's post is all about our ward Christmas Party last Friday that was in the form of a variety show.  {Get it??  "Variety" -- the Spice of Christmas?  Because the saying actually goes "variety is the spice of life," but there's also a lot of spices at Christmas time AND it was a Variety Show??  Do you see what I did there?  THIS is the wit I'm talking about!!  Hahahahahahaha.  (I really only live to make myself laugh).}  Friday night's party was made extra fun by the fact that almost everyone in our family was participating!  Thanks in part to youth and activity day leaders, Ethan through Jane were each able to join in the fun of performing.  And thanks to Sophie, I was also able to participate.  (In a duet with Sophie.)  :)

Jane was EASILY the most excited about the evening thanks to landing the lead role of Santa in the "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" skit that the activity days girls put on.  She looked adorable with her pillow stuffed costume belly and her rosy red cheeks.  And the rest of the cast was equally adorable outfitted as the reindeer, a sugar plum fairy, and Mama and Papa.  The skit itself was really so cute and it was made even cuter to see how excited all the girls were to be on stage.  

As for the young men and young women, both camps went the musical route for their productions.  Ethan and the rest of the boys played a couple of Christmas songs on chimes while Grace and Sophie acted out a parody of the "12 Days of Christmas" (with the lyrics changed to be about our ward/the Church) with the other young women from our congregation.  Unfortunately, I don't seem to have a single picture of the girls' performance and only a grainy and distant one of the boys.  :(

And finally, Sophie and my duet-ing debut was with a beautiful little song called "Star Bright."  I remember singing this YEARS ago in church with a friend's mom in sacrament meeting, but I've never really heard it very often since then.  Well, Scott's grandma made a binder for all of her grandchildren with a collection of Christmas music and "Star Bright" just so happens to be in the mix!  Because it's kind of tricky to play (LOTs of syncopation), we've never really sung it all that much at home because it was WAY too hard for me to try and sight read plus sing at the same time.  This year, however,  I decided I was finally going to figure out how to play it!  And I did.  And between me, Sophie, and Ethan, it's been sung a LOT.  So when Sophie kept bugging me to get us into the ward Variety Show singing it as a duet, I finally caved and talked to the right people to make it happen.  ;)  Hahahahaha.  I was certainly more nervous than Sophie was, but at the end of the day it's a beautiful song and I do love to sing -- especially harmony.  And Sophie was more than happy to shine in the melody.  :)

(Pre-performance selfie.)

And that was that!  At the end of the night, we all had a lot of fun and it was nice to do something different from the usual Christmas party stuff.  

It's the Holiday Season

Guys!  I'm so excited for the holidays!!!!  For whatever reason, we've been feeling extra festive this year and have been waiting FOREVER to finally haul out the holly as soon as Thanksgiving was officially laid to rest.  In a family first, we attempted a little late night Black "Friday" shopping on Thursday night and I think I can safely say that we're good for the rest of our lives.  Or at least Ethan is.  Hahaha.  Scott stayed at home with the two little ones and the dog, while Ethan, Grace, Sophie, and Jane joined my mom, Amy, and myself for a Target run.   It was chaotic and crowded and everything you'd expect from Black Friday, except for any real deals. At least on the stuff we got.  {Which was a whole bunch of lights for decorating the front of our house.  And a whole bunch of Christmas stuff that Grace, Sophie, and Jane begged me to buy.  My mom was also kind enough to get each of them -- Alex and Isaac included -- a little something special to kick of the Christmas season.}

(Check out this Ghost of Christmas Ornaments Past.  Is it just me, or is he an Isaac doppelgänger??)

Ethan pulled out all the bins of Christmas decorations on Friday morning and was my only source of kid help for the majority of our decorating.  (The girls were too busy decorating their own rooms and watching Disney + to be of much help to us.)  It was all good, though, because Ethan actually really quite enjoys putting everything up and he was ESPECIALLY fine helping me hang up all those lights.  {He's always been my lights boy.}

 (The Alex method of helping.)

 (The Isaac method of helping.)

 (And the Grace method of helping.)

 Her room is probably the most decked out portion of the house.

 Alex was really excited for me to text a picture to Granny Nanny of his finished LEGO creation!

 (Isaac ran some races with one of his imaginary friends while Ethan and I were lighting the world.)

 Matching Christmas jammies at Target were one of my Black Friday concessions.

We finished off the evening with everyone helping to decorate the tree and then, after much coercion from Grace, we let the kids pick names for their Secret Santa Stocking Stuffers.  All in all, it was a magical and enjoyable night.  Now the countdown is REALLY on for Christmas!  {3 more weeks until our break.}

 (Every time I looked over at Sophie, she was snapping a picture of one of her ornaments to show her friends on a group chat.  Hahaha.)

I love finding these gems.

Merry Christmas!!!