Christmas Sunday

Christmas Sunday was a mixture of frantic stress and peaceful enjoyment. The frantic stress part was in trying to get myself and 4 girls all fancied up for church while David slept (he had to work Sunday night) and getting to church 1/2hr early to practice music for the program once more. Not only did the choir sing 3 songs (I'm the choir pianist), but I was also part of a violin duet. First time I've brought my violin to church in 10 years! The peaceful enjoyment part was everything after the Christmas program. lol 

Elf Antics

Jingles the Shelf Elf has turned out to have quite a sense of humor. Here's some things we've found her doing:

Rocking baby Jesus

One morning we found Jingles holding my camera. Here's what we found on it: 

Jingle Bells 

Christmas berries 

Jingles selfie 

A picture of a picture of a snowman 

Popcorn riding Princess Celestia 

More than one child was upset that Jingles was holding onto the last pudding....

Besides these pictured, we've found Jingles trapped in a Chinese Finger Trap, dangling from Amber and Jade's bus passes, completely hidden in the middle of the Christmas tree, and in the high chair. She's currently snoozing on our Cresap plaque on my picture wall. The girls have so much fun trying to find her every morning!

Treat Time!

December is the month I make a hundred different treats and promptly give them to other people so I don't eat them all myself! This year I made cinnamon rolls, melted snowman cookies, candy cane rice crispy treats, cardamom bread, cranberry-peach braid, shape cookies, and Reese's fudge.

Hot from the oven. Just need icing. Yummy!

My favorite Christmas breads!

Some have the cutest expressions 

Like this guy who's accusing me of purposely melting him....

Proof that David decorates cookies 

She was thrilled.....truly 

Amber's weirdo selfie 

My kids get weird after 9pm

Can you spot:

2 dead snowman

A pregnancy test

Boobs

Shyla

Someone who needs to pee

Yellow "pee" snow

Pledge of Alliegiance

Amber, Jade, and Paisley. I had four stockings, but the last one broke so I had to write Shyla on a snowman instead. lol

More Randoms

Just to keep caught up, here's a few more randoms:

Grant teaching Amber how to play pool

Amber spent $4 on this little fake tree for her room. She LOVES it!

Our new growth chart. All 6 of us are measured on it. =)

This little girl is frequently found in the pantry eating anything within reach. Turkey.

Cute matchy girls 

Jade's Play

We had the pleasure of watching Jade's class play last night. Her class had been practicing all month. They had held auditions for the speaking parts and Jade scored a pretty decent role. She was an elf named Bustle in a play called "Randy the Red-Horned Reinmoose". Very cute.

Kinda a crappy-dark-room-camera-picture pic but I still think it's cute

Jaders is the middle elf

Her best line: "I know what's wrong with Rudolph - his batteries are dead! Now....where do I put these?"

Three cheers for Randy the Reinmoose!

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

Here's a quick breakdown of tonight's festivities:
1. Lots of yummy food including a hot cocoa bar!
2. Good friends laughing and joking, having a great time together
3. Side-splitting laughter during the Minute-to-Win It games!
4. Awesome white elephant gifts
5. Some really, really, ugly Christmas sweaters

Kara and Darren Butler

Some random children. Okay, I suppose I'll claim a couple of them... ;)

Katie was the only one to "catch" the ball with her nose!

Shake, shake, shake! 

Throwing marshmallows through the wreaths into a bucket 

 

Fanning an ornament around the family room. NO ONE got the ornament into the finishing square! hahaha

Moving a cookie from their forehead to their mouth without touching it. Kara got hers. 

Bishop got his, too 

I don't think either Hatch got theirs. But both April and I got ours! Woot woot!

SNOWBALL FIGHT!!

Such a lovely blue macaw vase! At least it was full of chocolate!

Yay! A lantern!

How can anyone top this gift??

The Ugly Christmas Sweater winners! Darren got 1st and Katie 2nd.