December Activities

Yes, I know I'm a little late, but better late than never, right?
Our holidays get so crazy since Jay has to work so much, but we still manage to find time to go out and do some fun things. We have made it a tradition to go to the Zoo Lights at Hogle Zoo. There usually aren't too many animals out, but the tigers are always up and about. Unfortunately for us this year, it was super cold. I think it was in the teens on the night we went, but we decided to bundle up and brave it anyway. Even with the hot chocolate, the kids were still freezing. We went straight to see the big cats, then had to warm up in the reptile house. We made it to the carousel and actually didn't get too cold going for a ride there. We stopped in the gift shop, and finally made it back to the truck with all 50 fingers and 50 toes unfrozen! Once the kids stopped complaining, I think they enjoyed the night! Throughout the month, I did 25 Days of Christmas for the kids. Each day they got a small gift, went out for a fun night, or did a special activity. We made gingerbread cookies this year, and it actually took us two nights to get them done. The kids always love cooking in the kitchen with me and had a blast making their gingerbread man look special. You can tell how thrilled Jay is that I took a picture of him with his cookie! We frosted them with white chocolate, and they were super yummy!

The Holt Family Christmas Party is always held the Saturday before Christmas. Steph and Jim were able to come up from St. George to party with us. Each family planned an activity to do. Steph played "Don't Eat Santa" with everyone and Alanna brought stuff for the kids to make visors. I had the kids make reindeer cookies and they played Bingo while waiting for the cookies to get done. We had tons of finger foods for dinner, opened presents, and had a great time together.

I never seem to get pictures of the Willes party. I think it's because there are so many people crammed into the house and it is just chaos! We always have a great dinner, and end with presents galore. It's amazing that we even get out of there with the stuff that we're supposed to!

After the Willes party, we go home to have our own Christmas traditions. My camera was not working very well, so a lot of my pictures didn't work out. But, the kids opened their Christmas jammies and we read the story of the birth of Christ from the scriptures. The kids had written their letters to Santa the night before, so we made sure they were in the mailbox and that we set out cookies and milk. Then it was off to bed!

Christmas morning came and of course, I was the first one up. Jax was next. He walked into our room and then headed out the door to "see if Santa came." We had to explain to him that he had to wait for his sisters. Brooke woke up about 15 mintues later and like usual, we had to wake Sierra up to get her out of bed. After lining up on the stairs, they all walked calmly down to the living room to see what was there. We spent the morning opening presents, movies, cd's, games, and more.

Jenn and Kyle came over for dinner that night. We had the traditional ham, cheesy potatoes, rolls, green salad, and juice with Sprite. We had plans to visit Temple Square, but those got forgotten when we started playing the new Super Mario Bros. Wii game that I got from Jax. The next four hours we traded off playing, eating, screaming, and laughing. To quote Kyle and Jenn, "Good times!"

Our Christmas was awesome and Brooke is still going around telling everyone they are going to be on the naughty list and not get any presents!