December Advent

This Christmas I decided to do an advent calendar. I've always wanted to do one, and this year seemed like a good time to start. I'm so excited about starting some of our own traditions for December each year. I started out by using A LOT of toilet paper. And stealing some from other family members.  Inside each elf is an activity, a treat, a puzzle piece, and a cotton ball. It was just going to be candy and an activity, but that didn't seem like enough. So I made these other countdown things and added the other stuff to give us more to do!

Kaydance has LOVED being able to open an elf every day this month. She loves that she gets to have a piece of candy everyday, and she loves being able to do an activity every night. It has been so fun for all of us. I mostly came up with all the ideas for the activities myself, but I did cheat a little and made some of the activities things that I knew we were already going to do on a certain night. 

DEC 1 - Go to a Christmas light parade

 I love little Nolan's face in this picture. He makes me smile so much. Both kids loved being outside. Nolan fell asleep about 3 minutes into the parade, but Kaydance loved watching all the floats with her hot chocolate mustache.

 DEC 2- Decorate the tree

 We put Nolan to bed before we did this one in hopes that he wouldn't go after the tree in the coming days. So far, it has worked.

 DEC 3 - Read a Christmas Story

 We read a Charlie Brown Christmas, again without Nolan. Sometimes our lives are too crazy and we don't get to do these activities until after bedtime :( Maybe next year we'll do a little better.

 DEC 4 - Make a tree ornament

 I found this cute, and really easy, ornament to make on pinterest. Take q-tips and cut one end off. Dip the other end in glue and then epsom salt. Then poke them into a styrofoam ball to make snowflakes. Kaydance didn't want to stop.

 DEC 5 - Learn Christmas songs and go caroling

 I cheated on this one because I knew the youth in our ward were going caroling for mutual. I'm in the young women's, so I decided to bring along the family and make it count. Kaydance loved singing Jingle Bells and We wish you a Merry Christmas. Also, she can now hear a song on the radio that we sang that night and recognize it, even though she doesn't remember the words.

DEC 6- Cut out paper snowflakes.

 Kaydance was all over this activity. She loves any sort of arts and crafts project. We tried to get her to fold hers in a triangle, but she thought a square snowflake would look better.

 Nolan was at least present during this activity. He crawled around and played in empty boxes mostly. A good time for everyone!

 DEC 7 - Have a dance party to Christmas music

 We blasted some Trans-siberian orchestra and went to town. We even had Grandma and Grandpa, along with Uncle Brennan and Aunt Emma. Here's what Grandpa did .

 DEC 8 - Read the Nativity story and act it out.

 This one was a little tricky since there were only 3 of us. We had to take turns reading and switching our characters. But is was fun.

 

DEC 9 - Bundle up and take a walk outside

 We definitely needed bundling up!! It had been a really warm December up until this day. It was FREEZING! We only walked a few blocks over to Grandma Berta's house. We stayed there and ate cinnamon rolls and stayed up laughing way too late. So fun!

 DEC 10 - Have hot chocolate with all the toppings

 Kaydance loves marshmallows. I let her go ahead and have as many as she wanted this night. I think she ended up eating more weight in marshmallows than she did in hot chocolate.

 DEC 11 - Write a letter to Santa Claus

 This little girl knew exactly what she wanted to write. " Dear Santa, I want a castle with princesses" Later, I added that she wanted reindeer too, as I was instructed to. I'm so proud of her though. I only helped her with a few letters. She's getting so smart!

DEC 12- Go to a Christmas party

 This was another cheat. It was our ward party that night so I used that instead of planning a party of my own. This is a horrible picture of Kaydance eating. She really was enjoying it though. It's just the only one I got.

 Nolan did get to sit on Santa's lap this year. He didn't cry, but wasn't too sure about the whole idea. Kaydance and I didn't stay long enough to see Santa. We had to leave in a hurry to make it to her dance recital. (More on that next time.)

We have had so much fun doing all of these things. I'm super glad I decided to take the time and plan stuff to do as a family. (And it's forced me to take more pictures too )

November

November went by way too fast. Only a few tidbits to mention in this post... Thanksgiving was awesome. In fact, we had two of them. We did my family's Thanksgiving the weekend before actual Turkey Day so that my little brother could be there.... more on that later. Then we had Trevor's family's feast on Thanksgiving day. Usually we have both dinners in two days, but this time, having them a week apart was really nice. We had just enough time to finish off the first leftovers and then we got to start fresh with another round. Glorious, really. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. Not sure what I was thinking. But trust me, we stuffed ourselves silly on all sorts of good stuff. And pie. Don't forget the pie.

Going back..... My little brother Josh got his mission call to Salvador, Brazil. He was to report to the Brazil MTC on November 21st (the day before Thanksgiving). Therefore, we feasted on the 17th so he could be there. Afterwards, we found out his VISA hadn't come yet, and so he was going to have to report to the Provo MTC on the 28th. He was so bummed. But everything went well. It was actually nice though because instead of dropping him off at the airport, I got to ride with him and my parents to the MTC and say my goodbyes there. He's going to be a great missionary. I'm going to miss my baby brother.

 

The past 2 months...

So I'll start where I left off last time, I suppose. I just can't keep up with blogging. I don't know how people do it. We finished out August without too much more excitement. On the way home from Kaydance's birthday in Cache Valley, we stopped to see my Grandma Dodson who lives in an assisted living center in Holladay. She was so excited to see the kids. Kaydance was so tired. She fell asleep and drooled all over herself and then....well, you get the picture.

 In September, I started doing joy school with a few other moms. Kaydance absolutely loves it and is always excited to go. She loves having it at our house, and Nolan likes it too. I made some finger paint once and let the kids go to town.

 Kaydance also started dance and tumbling in September. She does so good at the tumbling. She's always been really into doing "tricks" and somersaults and what not. She thrives in there. Dance, however, is a different story. You know how there is always the one kid who just does whatever they want when the other kids are trying to do the dance? Well, Kaydance is that girl. I try not to let it stress me out too much and just encourage her to do her best. She still loves it and is learning a little.

 I took this picture randomly one morning after Nolan woke up. It's hard to see, but if you look closely, you can see he has "old man hair." I can't get enough of it. He always pulls/twirls his hair when he is eating and when he is falling asleep. It pretty much always looks like this when he wakes up. Even more so now that he has more hair than when I took this picture.

 One of Nolan's favorite games to play is pull (fill in the blank) off/out of (fill in the blank). Movies, diapers, books, blenders, you name it. Fortunately, we've only had one mishap with all of his shenanigans. Unfortunately, it was the blender.

In mid-September, we learned that the Grand County Credit Union was having a big event where you could get a car for .99% interest. We had been talking about getting another car in the next few years, and thought we'd go check it out. I'm glad we did, cause we ended up buying this.

Yes, we are mini van owners. And no, we are not ashamed. We love this van. It is so much nicer than my car, which we traded in. No buyer's remorse here! 

 In October, we celebrated Trevor's 27th birthday. He wanted to go out to the sand dunes and have a barbeque and just enjoy the beautiful weather before it got too cold. We had so much fun, and the kids loved playing in the sand. Trevor's parents and younger brother came with us too. They found this huge log and decided to have a caber toss tournament. I'm pretty sure Trevor won. I made this bouquet for Trevor out of socks... pretty creative huh? Thank you pinterest!

We've been trying to build a retaining wall in our back yard for quite some time now, and we finally were able to finish it. Thank you to Trevor's dad and brother, McLain. We couldn't have done it without them.

 

Here's the kids playing "party" while the boys worked outside.

 Halloween came up way too fast. Trevor and I went as Cleopatra and slave, Kaydance was Juliet the Gnome (from Gnomeo and Juliet) and Nolan was a soccer player. The kids loved my wig and begged to wear it around constantly.

 I thought I had gotten some good pictures of the kids in their costumes with good smiles, but apparently I was mistaken.The first two aren't so bad, but the last two of the kids just make me laugh. Instead of carving pumpkins this year, we decided to paint them. I'm so glad we did. It was so much easier. Trevor gets the award for the best.

 A few days before Halloween, Trevor's brothers and their families went out to the Old City Park to play the frisbee golf course. It was lot of fun. We'll definitely be doing it again soon.

 I know this post is a little random, but I just went through the pictures I have taken and tried to update you on the big stuff. Hope you enjoyed.