Merry Christmas!

Last of the Christmas Activities

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! Just a few more things that we have been doing to celebrate Christmas this year:

We went to a living Nativity at a nearby church. They had a series of dramatized scenes about the Nativity story that you walked through. It was a little long for us I think, but a nice way to remember what the Christmas season is all about. Here is Julia at the end with the living Nativity scene. Baby Jesus was a doll though!

Micah stole my phone during the King Harod and the Wise Men scene and took a bunch of selfies.

We made orange chocolate Christmas tree suckers. Orange because it was on sale after Halloween. Micah learned a new word because of it, "Sucker." He would walk into the kitchen where we had them displayed until they were gone and yell, "Sucker Sucker Sucker!"

Not really Christmasy, but Micah decided one morning that he was going to make us pancakes.

In reality, we had already eaten our pancakes and the griddle was already cold. These leftover pancakes were sitting in a tupperware next to the griddle. So after Micah finished his breakfast he saw everything still sitting out and dragged over the stool, took the leftovers out of the tupperware, put them on the griddle, and started flipping them like he sees me do. He always wants to be "helping" and he keeps a close eye on everything we do so he can imitate. He is very much his father's son in that he always needs to be doing something productive.

Camden's catching up to Micah! Camden is in his 6 mo. clothes, and Micah still wears some 12 mo. clothes (although mostly he wears 18 mos.)

The the Winnie The Pooh outfit that the other two wore at 6 months old.

Making gingerbread houses. Again, Micah watched Julia and followed right along decorating.

And last, for FHE last night we drove around and saw the lights in Claremont, while eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate. This house has music to go along with the light display, so we let the kids out of their car seats and they joined us in the front seat to watch the show.

Camden Baby Stats

Camden had his two month appointment last week, and although I don't have the actual stats in front of me, we can just say that he is very big. He was 15 lbs. (95 per), 22 in. (somewhere around 35 per.) I believe and had a 95 per head circumference as well. He is the biggest baby so far, but he is growing at the same pace the other two did, he just had a head start being 8 lbs 13 oz when he was born.

He was the best so far with his two months shots. He gave me the surprised, why did you let them hurt me cry when he got his shots and then was just extra sleepy all day.

He is a great sleeper at night, usually falls asleep around 10:00 and just wakes up once around 4:00 a.m. He is getting better at having one big nap during the day, but usually he just takes little 20 minute naps and wakes up again. He loves it when someone pays attention to him and gets all smiley when you talk to him.

The other two at two months:

Micah's stats

Julia's stats

Julia's Preschool Program

Wherein we learned Julia's pretty short, and loves being in the limelight.

Ward Christmas Party

Some pictures from our ward Christmas party last Saturday. We had a great time. The best part was they started it at 5:00 p.m. so we got home in time to put the kids to bed before their bedtime!

Pretty typical these days, one on each arm.

They both really liked, or at least did not dislike, sitting on Santa's lap.

I just had to throw this in because one day he is going to be embarrassed that he always had his finger in his nose. Well, he is a boy, maybe not.

Julia refused to sit on Santa's lap and ran away and hid behind a Christmas tree. She said Santa is scary. I told her she needed to come tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas. She said she already did (at the Mar Vista Ward party the week before). So I told her, "okay, let's go make crafts then" to which Julia replied, "NO, I don't want to sit on Santa's lap! Wait, what did you say?"

Micah enjoyed his candy cane that Santa gave him. Micah is crazy about candy.

 Robert helped Julia with all her crafts while I held Camden and followed Micah around as he explored the gym. Here are Robert and Julia in deep concentration making a gingerbread house.

Julia also did not want to go up and sing with all the primary kids, but I convinced her to go up by telling her I would go with her. We stood on the end and I slowly backed away as they started to sing.

It's Begining to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Yay, the Christmas season is upon us. Some of the fun things we have done so far:

Robert spent the day after Thanksgiving installing electrical outlets outside so we could have a place to plug in our Christmas lights. We have never put up lights before because we have never been home for Christmas, but this year we are staying in Claremont for Christmas so we were both excited to put up some lights this year.

Julia and Micah pretending to be Mary and Joseph using the armrest covers from the couches.

The Nativity sets are out, including the ones for the children to play with. I found this scene last night by the Fischer Price Nativity, the shepherd riding a dump truck followed closely behind by a Hawaiian tourist. Julia informed me this morning that she was pretending the shepherd is Joseph because our Joseph is lost and that is how they got to Bethlehem.

We also went to our friends house, the Haskins, for their annual Christmas Carol Sing-A-Long. We used chimes on the last two songs.

Julia stole my phone and took a bunch of selfies while we were there. Mostly we didn't see her at all because as soon as we got there she was off running around with the other kids.

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 We also went to the Nativity Festival at an LDS church nearby where they had over a thousand nativities as well children's activities.

 I think he was about to smile but I caught him midway into it.

We got out all the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving, but finally got the tree up on Sunday night.

Last Saturday Robert and I went to his work Christmas party at LA Live (Yay! First date night since the baby.) while the Steve and Wendy Wheat family watched our kids. It was their ward party so our kids got to see Santa too. They must have worn Camden out because that night he slept from like 10:30 to 5:00 a.m. and although he hasn't slept quite as long since, he is going five or six hours straight.

And here we are back at Daniel and Amanda's before we left for the ward party.

Micah's not quite sure what to think.

Thanksgiving

Prepare for a photo overload. I handed Camden off after his blessing and put Micah down for a nap, so I was able to grab the camera and take a bunch of pictures of Thanksgiving. And since I took them of  course I love them all and had to include them. 

Cooks in the kitchen. Everyone was assigned to something so it wasn't too hard being hostess. I had the easy stuff like cranberry sauce, jam and butter and turkey. Ok, so the turkey wasn't easy, but I had help with that from everyone as well so it wasn't too hard either. I think my only contribution was making the brine two nights before. Robert was the one who actually put the turkey in the brine and roasted it. (Thanks for posting the recipes Sarah! If anyone is in need of some good recipes for next Thanksgiving check out her blog, Sarah's Fares) And I must say I think the turkey turned out perfect, it was perfectly moist and flavorful.

Hannah was actually only here for Camden's blessing. They left to have Thanksgiving dinner with the Kimballs, but we must document that Hannah made an appearance.

Reah getting artsy.

 The girls were all ready to start celebrating Christmas.

 Waiting for the food to be done and snacking on some yummy rolls. And there were plenty of rolls to be had. We finished the last of them a week later I think.

 Just making sure we had a picture of Michael.  I think I got a picture of everyone..except Rob and I.

Our Give Thanks banner that survived our move from Virginia. Julia and I made it while we lived in Virginia with all the beautiful nature things right outside our doorstep- pine needles, leaves, sticks, red berries, pine cones.

I'm happy with the way everyone fit. We moved all the furniture to the sides and set up the tables in the middle of the family and living rooms. We were going to have a separate kids table so the kids could be messy and not make a mess on the carpet, but we ended up having them at the big table and they did fine. Julia and Ali shared the piano bench as their chairs.

Camden gets passed around, Reah turns to hold him.

 Micah woke up from his nap just in time for dinner (lunch actually).

We set up the toddlers in high chairs next to each other along the wall by the tables.

Camden finally got put down and promptly woke up. He only sleeps for a long time in the day if someone holds him. In fact, I am holding him right now as he sleeps to buy me some time to finally blog.

"Yeah! Check out all my food!"

You can see our Thankful Banner. Every year as a family we cut out leaf shapes on construction paper and add leaves with what we are thankful for throughout the month of November. We still had some leaves leftover on Thanksgiving so almost everyone was able to write what they were thankful for. "Family" made it up there three times even though people were trying not to repeat words.

Now onto the dinner.

"Are you going to eat that?"

 And naps afterwards.