Santa and other Christmas things

Merry Christmas Eve!

I am off to radiation in a few minutes. And then I have one last thing to buy and wrap before we start our Christmas Eve traditions. Like the untalent show—I love the untalent show every year.

Layla and Perry are especially looking forward to a visit from Santa tonight. They even tried to put our stockings out on the couches yesterday morning. And Layla talked nonstop yesterday about her plans to make Santa cookies and have them ready for him. Layla and Perry are at a Santa-crazed age. We have had many conversations about how Santa is a symbol of Christmas and reminds us of Jesus Christ. And that Santa is the spirit of giving and anyone who gives without a thought for recognition is Santa. Layla has been good about pointing out the nice Santa-like things people are doing—throwing candy canes when we were looking at Christmas lights, etc. 

Brinna, on the other hand, is not quite a fan of the jolly  St. Nick yet.

Perry’s love language is definitely gifts. He was wrapping the presents he bought from the dollar store for everyone. While he wrapped one for grandma, he told me “Grammie is so nice. She gives me presents because she loves me sooo much.” Unfortunately, he also equates bigger to better. He and Layla have been staring at the gifts under the Christmas tree since I starting putting them there two days ago. He says that Kacin’s gift to him is the best and he loves it the most and is so excited for it because it is the biggest. Ha!

We have had some great activities this December, but it hasn’t felt busy. Which is a nice thing. 

One of my favorite traditions is one we started when we moved here. But this is the first year Layla has been included. We went to see A Christmas Carol at the Hale theater.

Layla also had performances in her music theater, jazz, and tumbling classes.

We made “gingerbread” houses one afternoon.

We also went to Christmas on Comstock. It’s a street on Gilbert with a cool light display.

Layla’s favorite song this year is “12 Days of Christmas” and she has performed it for me many times.

Layla and Perry also performed quite the Rudolph Christmas play for us one afternoon with friends.

I joined the elementary kids for their one mile Polar Bear Run.

This little one is Christmas cute. And getting into things right before church.

And, lastly, here is our amazing light display on our home this year. Ha! It was my sad attempt. But it would’ve looked ok had I checked the lights before I put them up and realized half of them weren’t working. Next year!

*Well, I forgot to press post this morning. Our day didn’t go as planned, but it was still a good day. And now we are all ready for Santa to come tonight. There are some excited children around here so hopefully we will all get some sleep tonight! 

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas jammies

Usually, we get new pajamas on October General Conference weekend. That didn’t happen this year because of chemo and our trip to Washington, but mostly because of chemo. So I copied a friend who posted these pajamas on Instagram and bought them for everyone when I was out at target one day. I couldn’t resist the Harry Potter and Christmas mash up.

I guess Perry couldn’t resist putting his finger up his nose. ;)

When I surprised everyone with our pajamas some people were good sports and happy to put them on. And to model in them.

We don’t mind looking silly around here.

Perry loves his baby sister. So much. Especially when they are twinning.

I bought the wrong size for someone. I had the choice to size up way too big or get him a women’s size. Apparently women’s sizing is smaller. He was a great sport when we were all laughing at my mistake. We laughed so hard! But he was not about to let me take a picture of him in his too tight pants.

Kacin is a great kid. Eventually we got him out of his Dr Pepper pants and traded some sizes around and he ended up with more comfortable pants. I love his smile no matter what. 

Next year we will probably be back to conference  pajamas. But this year our Christmas pajamas were pretty fun.

in, on, and sit

Brinny has a favorite spot in the kitchen.

She is in that cupboard every single day. And oh does she get mad when the big pot isn’t pushed back all the way so she can’t get inside.

Her second favorite place to be is climbing this stool in the pantry. She gets so excited when someone leaves the pantry door open and hurry’s over to play. She climbs up and down and drops food from the shelves to the floor.

This little girl also loves chairs. She can get herself onto one of our small kid chairs now, but, at first and for every other chair, she would stand next to it and hit the chair and say “on” until you helped her up. I would ask her if she wanted to sit and she would repeat back in the affirmative “sit.”

In this picture, she was sitting at the table with Layla while Layla played “baby school” with her. Layla was the teacher and Brinny the student. The lesson that particular day was on farm animals.

She also loves to hide behind the stools in the kitchen. Sometimes she pushes them together and hides behind them, but this day she would pull herself back and then pop forward to play “where’s Brinna?” with daddy.