Gingerbread Houses

My family never did gingerbread houses when I was growing up (or even now), so it's not something that I associate with Christmas traditions.  Kaden and Lexi both saw them at their schools, though, which planted the idea in their brains.  I decided to make things easy on myself and do graham cracker houses and just let them eat them whenever they want.  So much of the time, actual gingerbread houses seem to be just for show.  What a waste of money!

So the Sunday night before Christmas, we set out to try our hands at gingerbread graham cracker houses!  The plan was to have Shane help Ari while I helped the other two kids.

This is the face I got when I told her she couldn't just eat all the candy.

Kaden wanted to do it all by himself.  I only helped a little with the framework.

Happy candy face!

Shane was going for most creative.

Heaven.

Shane's Ari's house!

Mine and Lexi's finished house.

Lexi's house from the side.

Shane made a garage.

And a Christmas tree...

And a doorbell.

Kaden copied Shane and did a garage of his own all by himself.  :)

All done!!

 Just for fun, on these next pictures I'll post underneath them what I said to the kids as I was taking the picture.  This is how well the girls follow directions:

"Look at the camera! Smile!!"

"Silly faces!"

"Smile pretty, girls!"

 Oh gosh they crack me up.

Then it was time to eat them!

Ari just wanted her plate of treats.

Nom, nom, nom.

They munched on the houses for the next couple of days.

It was slightly stressful, but definitely worth doing again.  We're going to make it our family tradition and I already started imagining how every year the house contest will grow bigger and bigger and someday all the grandkids will be "helping" as I bake cookies and Shane and Kaden make elaborate houses.  :)  I love Christmas time!

Random Christmas Fun

My mom's husband, Kent, suggested that they take everyone out to see Frozen during his and my mom's winter break (he's a school teacher and she drives school buses, so anytime the kids are out, they are, too).  I really, really, really wanted to see Frozen, so I fully endorsed this idea.

We figured out a time when all of the grandkids and most of the regular kids could go and headed to a theater in Bountiful.

Lexi, Taliyah, and Kaden

Shane and Ari with almost the same expressions.

 My mom and Kent were out getting popcorn, but I should have gotten a picture of them, too.  Anyway, we LOVED the movie!!!  It was Ari's first movie in a theater and she did great.  Every time it would get really quiet in the theater, you could hear her little voice saying loudly, "I don't wike da bad guy."  Didn't matter if it was for the previews or during the actual movie, she let everyone know how she felt.  haha  And during the end credits, Ari started singing along. It was adorable!  Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, GO!  SO GOOD!

The Sunday before Christmas, I gave the kids their church Christmas outfits.

I sincerely hope that's the face Lexi and Ari do when they like a boy in the future.  We'll be safe then.

Kaden's Christmas Program

Voyage (Kaden's school) had a Christmas program the morning of the last day of school before the break.  It's the school's first year doing this and apparently somebody dropped the ball big time because Kaden's teacher told me afterwards that the office staff was going around THAT MORNING asking each class if they knew any Christmas songs they could sing for the assembly that was in 30 minutes for all the parents who could come.

So, so many bad decisions involved here, so let's just focus on the (mostly) good, eh?

Gifts I did for Kaden and Lexi's teachers.  Cozy socks, foot cream, and toe nail polish.

Playing while we wait for the program to start.

That's Kaden in the red long sleeves in the almost center.

 Fun fact: Kaden walked in holding hands with his crush, Abby.  Abby's mom and I have known about this mutual affection for a while now, so we were sitting next to each other and tried not to laugh too hard about them holding hands.  Ah, young love.

Kaden's classes' turn to sing.  He spent the whole time trying to find us.  He finally did at the end.

Trying to keep Ari entertained.

The program lasted an hour and a half!!!  And only about two classes knew the words to the songs.  The person playing the keyboard-piano was the art teacher who had literally no warning to practice.  Most of the songs went like this: class not singing, art teacher gets frustrated that she can't hear them, stops the song after one verse and one chorus.

Good times.

Maybe next year Voyage will be better prepared if they choose to do a Christmas program again.

Anyway, after that I went to Kaden's classroom to help for the last few minutes of class.  The teacher had a little gift for each kid, plus there were two kids celebrating birthdays, plus a cute little treat the lunch ladies had put together, plus moms who thought they should bring a treat for everyone.  Needless to say, Kaden was all sorts of loaded up when we left.  :)

(And, yes, he was very good about sharing with the girls.)

Early Christmas and Willard lights

Due to scheduling conflicts (bound to happen with 6 kids plus spouses), we had to have our Christmas celebration with Shane's side of the family today.  We headed up to his parent's house after church, ate some sandwiches, then opened gifts before heading to see the lights at Willard Bay.

(Side note: everyone else wanted to go see the Zoo Lights again, but if you remember my post from last year when we went, that wasn't gonna happen again.  So, I convinced everyone to go to Willard instead because it's my 2nd favorite light display...Temple Square is the first.)

The grandkids playing before dinner.

Willard Bay!

 The girls were acting nervous about sitting with Santa, but without any hesitation Kaden marched up like a champ and sat right on down.

Ari didn't act afraid, but then she shot me this face and I was laughing.

Ryley sitting with Santa

All the grandkids (except 3 month old Damon)

Our view from the hayride

Ryley, Val, and Bryan (Val is Shane's sister who is my age.  We went to jr. high and high school together)

Us

I don't know what Lexi, Shane, and Ari were looking at, but it must have been amazing.  And my happy boy.

Lexi's favorite