More Christmas Fun

I debated if I should do a separate post for each activity we have done this week; I'm lazy and tired so I'm doing a marathon post and hope it makes sense.
December 14 - How can the Christmas season pass without visiting Temple Square? This is one of our family's favorite traditions. We were so lucky that Grandma & Grandpa Randall could came with us. We decided to visit the Children's Exhibit at the Church History Museum before looking at the lights. It was a fun exhibit and the kids liked the hands on activities; Enoch especially liked taking care of the babies in the pretend hospital nursery.

We quickly walked through Temple Square (Enoch and Kate were very cold), but it was still great. I love the orange and pink lights and the pine trees with green and blue lights were so pretty. Afterward, we walked to the time-share condo Grandma & Grandpa were staying at in downtown Salt Lake and had hot chocolate, ice cream and cookies. It was a great night.
December 15 - The last week in November I bought one of those great Gingerbread House kits at Costco. Ever since he saw it, Enoch has begged and begged to put it together. Greg finally hid it in our closet. Finally the night arrived and the kids were thrilled (it was one of the only mornings that Gavin actually acted excited). I think the boys ate more frosting than they put on the house (same with candy) and I was just relieved that we didn't have any tummy aches that night. The finished house turned out beautiful and the boys had so much fun decorating it.
December 16 - I don't know how we lucked out but on this day our activity was to have a snowball fight. The ground was covered with inches of powdery snow. We waited until Greg came home from work and of course, it was dark and very cold. Kate and I stayed inside and wrapped presents and the boys threw snowballs and sledded on our hill in the front yard. Enoch came in completely frozen and crying. He gets so cold but waits and waits to come inside because he loves playing in the snow. They had such a great time.

December 17 - Tonight was a bit of a bust. Our activity was to clean out our toys to make room for our new Christmas presents. The boys were not thrilled. I needed to finish some shopping. Therefore, I left to shop, Greg put the kids to bed, the toys were not cleaned out. Oh well.
December 18 - I love gingerbread cookies but I feel like the only time I can make them is at Christmas. I don't know why I feel like this, but I do. I was excited to make our gingerbread men and it was a good activity to get me out of Christmas stress. We decorated them with green frosting and cinnamon hearts and they tasted so good. All the boys had fun decorated them. Mine were very cute, Greg made cyclops gingerbread men, Gavin made alien men with six eyes that were upside down and Enoch just tried to get as much frosting and cinnamon hearts on one cookie as he could. It's all good.
December 19 - We had great plans to go to the cabin this weekend but canceled our plans because of the snowstorm (that really never came to our house, but I'm sure the cabin was snowed in). Our activity tonight was a family game night. Our family loves to play games together although it's hard having such an age difference in the kids. In order to appease Enoch we played a fun game of Twister and Chutes & Ladders. It is always great to play games with Enoch and try to understand his logic. After putting Enoch and Kate to bed the grown-ups (Greg, Tresa & Grandma Randall) and the sorta grown-up (Gavin) played our new game.
One of our family's favorite games is Settlers of Catan. It is so much fun! Gavin and Greg especially love it because they usually win. For our family game night we got the Traders & Barbarians add-on to Settlers. We were only able to play one game before we wrapped up at 10:30 pm, but we had so much fun. Greg, of course, won. I have to admit, playing Settlers is the one of the only times Greg becomes highly competitive and I hardly recognize him. If your family loves Settlers as much as we do, we are up for a FRIENDLY game any time!

December 20 - Since we were planning on being up at the cabin, our activity for today was to go sledding. It's probably a good thing that we didn't end up going because we had so much to do. In the morning Greg, Enoch, Kate and I ran errands. We were actually brave enough to go to the mall. I don't know what we were thinking. We got everything done we needed to and headed home to see Gavin and have lunch. After lunch Kate slept, the boys went sledding at the Rec property and I worked on my Sharing Time for the next day. The boys had so much fun and the snow was great for sledding. It was a nice break from all the hustle and bustle of Christmas.
December 21 - Tonight we took a break from our Christmas activities and visited Grandma & Grandpa Fowler for our weekly Sunday night visit. It was also Greg's last day for Tithing Settlement. Yahoo!
December 22 - Tonight for Family Home Evening we read The First Vision in the Children's Scripture Reader. The kids, especially Enoch, love to read in the Scripture Reader and I love how they explain everything in simple terms. I love the story of The First Vision and am glad that we can also remember Joseph Smith and his birthday (Dec 23) this time of year.
December 23 - We delivered friend presents this morning on our way to Costco (I know, I know it was a mess; I could barely push my cart around). The boys gave their friends giant candy bars this year. We figured everyone loves chocolate, right? Tonight, we hosted Jarom's birthday party and had a great time visiting with family and taking a break from the holidays.
Only one more day to go - I think I'm going to make it!