December 16-24

I'm going to wrap up our Christmas countdown with this post. I didn't get any pictures for some of these, but here goes-

December 16th: I missed this day. Remember in the beginning I said I wanted this to be fun and not an added stressor? So there was no special activity or surprise today and that was OK.

December 17th: Izzy and I went on a special date to buy Christmas pajamas for a pajama drive for children that our church was doing. After we got the pajamas we went to the library and played there for a little while and then played outside in their Christmas light display. It was really fun to be out alone with her. That is a rare thing these days.

December 18th: Tonight we had Cocoa and Carols at church and took the pajamas to church for the pajama drive. Kids got to wear their pajamas and had a little parade around the family center.

December 19th: Make a hand print ornament with each of the kids.

 My mom came over after school and did these snowmen ornaments with Izzy's fingers.

We made these clay hand prints when Isabella was a baby and I wanted one for Benjamin. I love his sweet chubby hands!
Then after dinner we had our annual pajama Christmas light drive. After dinner we dressed in our pjs, stopped for a peppermint hot chocolate, and then went out to see some of the best lights in our city.

Trying not to drop 55lbs of kids! :)

December 20th: Make Christmas candy and watch the Dr. Seuss How the grinch stole Christmas. 

December 21st: Host White family Christmas at our house. The first family Christmas of the season!

December 22nd: Make sugar cookies. Go to the crystal bridge with my parents in the evening.

 Izzy helped for a little bit and then said she was "all done helping". Which meant there were a few less cookies that had a mountain of sprinkles dumped on them. :)

We've gone to the crystal bridge with my dad for several years now for the free Sunday nights in December. This was my mom's first time to be able to go. 

 And Benny's first time. :)

December 23rd: Read the candy cane story book and eat a candy cane. Christmas with the Roberts in the evening.

December 24th: Christmas EVE!! Go visit our neighbor Ms. Virginia and take her some Christmas cookies and candy. We visited with Virginia for a while and when we left she said it made her day that we came by. She is 94 and she said she can go days without seeing people other than those she sees going for walks in the neighborhood.


We had a busy and fun holiday season! Next year I hope to do some more service activities during our holiday countdown. I'll need to plan ahead sooner than the day it begins. I really enjoyed our reading time at night and adding in the advent readings. We plan on continuing with some family devotional time with the four of us during our bed time routine even now that its over.

December 12-15

December 12th- Today we had my Christmas work party in the evening.  Isabella went right up to the door before we got there with Benjamin, and asked where the toys were. We ate Italian food and talked, then Santa came to surprise the children.

 (Clarice came to the party too)

 Benjamin joined them and he just stared at Santa and smiled.

December 13th: The activity today was to go to the Yukon Christmas lights with Michael's parents. 

We went out to dinner then headed west to Yukon.

 We rode the little train that goes through the park.

Then we stopped for ice cream at chickfila on our way home!

December 14th- Devon Saturdays with Santa. I left (with Benny) to go out of town with friends from college, but Michael and Izzy went downtown together to to the Devon tower.

 She got to see live reindeer, do a craft, and write a letter to Santa. I was sad to miss out on the fun, but so grateful for the time with my friends. We met in Elk city and went to places I remember going to with my grandparents.

  I mostly thought this picture was funny as Hayli was standing right under a buffalo head!

 Its been years since the 4 of us have been all together. The time together was such a blessing. And my how our lives and conversations have changed since college! 

December 15th: The Children's program at our church. The kids at church had been practicing for their program for several weeks now. I was excited to see their work! I charged my camera battery and packed up three lenses...then left them at home. So I janked these pics from Katie. Thanks Katie!

Rocking their babies for "Away in a manger"

The Mayfair babies of 2013

After the program Izzy talked to Santa and Mrs Claus. 

December 8-11

December 8th: Watch the polar express and build a snowman.

Learning how to make snow angels with Daddy. (And yeah, those are grocery trash bags wrapped around her legs because she had outgrown her boots. She didn't mind.  And she got some pink snow boots from my mom as an early Christmas present the next day, so no more trash bags.)

We skipped over some of the weird/scary parts of the Polar Express. She really liked it. We've been listening to the book on CD in the car some since then.

December 9: She had snowman window clings hidden in her stocking to decorate the windows. We also had Michael's Christmas party that evening, but she ended up going to Michael's parents house to play since the party was just down the street. She got to have a Christmas tea party with Nana, which was probably more fun for her!

December 10th: Snow paint. We made this snow paint together.  Then painted snowmen.

She painted over her hat...I made my own so it could look a certain way and her's could be as creative as she wanted. :)

When the paint dried the snowmen were puffy. She enjoyed dousing her snowman in glitter and we made a huge mess this day. The plastic table cloth is great as it can just be wiped clean.

December 11th: Today's activity was to go to build a bear with Nana and Cappy and get Santa pictures with cousin Ryan. This was our 3rd year to do this. I tried to explain to her in the morning when we were talking about the activity for the day as she didn't remember what build a bear was. So we looked online to see what animals you could pick at build a bear. She saw the reindeer Clarice and decided she wanted to make her.

Getting the heart warm to put inside.

Putting in the stuffing.

Making sure she has enough stuffing to stand up.

She really had fun making her animal this year and Clarice has been on many adventures with us since.

December 4-7th

December 4th: We made gingerbread playdoh together today. The recipe was super easy and smelled great. Then we used buttons and pompoms to decorate the gingerbread people. She played with these for a long time and many other days.

December 5th: Today's note said to check her stocking. I hid a snowman coloring book in there. She loved getting something in her stocking...that seems to have been one of her favorite things so far.

December 6th: Today's activity was hosting a Christmas party at our house for the college kids from church. Isabella played hard with the other little kids that came and loved having  lots of people in our home.

December 7th: Today's activity was to decorate a gingerbread house. They were sold out when I had Michael look for them earlier in the week and then we were snowed in and I couldn't go back to check. So many thanks to Cappy for asking if I needed anything from the store and delivering the house in the snow!!

This was our first time to do a gingerbread house and now I think it will be an annual thing. She had fun decorating it, but also loved licking the icing and trying out the candies.

December is here

December is in full swing! I feel like it came suddenly out of nowhere. I don't know if it was the late thanksgiving or what. I found myself December 1st wrapping as many books as possible for our nightly Christmas book reading and planning advent activities. Its already such a busy time of year, I didn't want to make things more stressful, so some of our "activities" are events we already had planned on a particular day, some are fun crafts, and some are inexpensive surprises left in the stockings. That way I could see what days were already busy and plan something easy/fast for that day.

I found a kit to make this at the Deluxe Winter market. I've just written on slips of paper what the activity or event is for that day.

December 1st-
For the first day we had the annual Mitchell pizza/tree decorating night with Michael's family. 

The kids always get new pajamas. This year the theme was reindeer. Isabella was pumped to get some "footy pajamas like Benny".

Nana and the grandkids.

Izzy's face!!! :)

Ben got a new teething ring. He was a fan!

Izzy got a new little people manger set. She's been playing her "mangers" a lot since.
Its always a great night together with family! 

We've been opening a book every night and having a reading from an advent calendar we are doing.
Isabella really looks forward to it and asks me 5 times a day if she can open a book right now.

December 2nd:
Today's activity was to choose an animal from the world vision catalog to buy. We looked through all the animals and Izzy wanted to buy Ducks. So I read to her from the catalog how the Ducks would help the people in that country and we watched a video on the website about a family that is blessed through the world vision program. I'm not sure how much she understood...but I tried to explain how some people can't go to the store and buy food anytime they need it because they don't have stores like we do or money to buy food. Hopefully our 10 ducks are on their way to someone soon!

December 3rd:
Today we went to Lighting of the Commons at OC.

 There were free carriage rides!

Music and fireworks!

 Isabella is even more fun to experience this season with this year!! So fun!