Making It: Christmas Time

Monday, December 26, 2016

Christmas Time

Thought I'd take a little of this lovely post Christmas play time to update my blog and record a few of our memories from this Christmas season. The girls are playing super nicely at the moment (knock on wood!). They even made their own sandwiches for lunch with the tiny jars of jam they found in their stockings yesterday...once they finally stopped playing long enough to realize they were hungry.

Went through and picked out my favorite photos from this Christmas and a few videos too. It's been fun to live where it snows - especially for the girls who don't have to do any snow shoveling. Even I sometimes enjoy that as long as it hasn't hardened yet! And Mike tackles the heavier snow falls most of the time. He does not enjoy the cold, and I don't know that I'd like to have to deal with all the snow when I get old, but for now I am enjoying it's good points. It's so pretty to see the flakes falling and the trees look like something off of a Christmas card. We don't have a lot of lights up like some of our neighbors. but the snow on the pine trees behind our house shines so bright in the dark it's almost like Christmas decorations from the heavens.

The girls sitting on a snow couch out in front of our house

Mike shoveling some pretty deep snow

I made a little snowman one day last week out on our back patio. I went out to clear the snow off our grill, but it was such perfect snowman snow (up until then it had been too powdery to stick together) I couldn't resist - and I thought about how fun it would be to have the girls look out and see this little guy out their window. I ended up letting Sierra help me decorate it, and Lily was a little jealous, but I'm glad I built it when I did because a few hours later the snow was so hard frozen we couldn't roll a snowman by the time Lily got out of school. And we didn't have to worry about deer eating his accessories up here!

It was so much fun looking out the patio door and seeing our little friend,,,until it snowed again and turned him into more of a snow monster! Need to go dig out his face and try reassembling him!

The girls dancing like the Peanuts characters - we have a jazz cd with "Linus and Lucy" on it and apparently they remember the moves from the couple of times they watched the Charlie Brown Christmas movie. As Lily says they just do a few moves over and over. After I took this video Lily wanted to dress up and make a split screen video with the peanuts characters dancing and then Lily and Sierra dressed up and dancing like each of the characters on the other side, but I don't know how to do that, and have you noticed how long it has been since I even blogged! - I just don't have that kind of time. But I will share this - I still think it's cute! :)

We have been missing my family so much -- especially being around our littler cousins. I had some stuff gathered last year to make angel ornaments for our tree - we make a few homemade ornaments every year, but I never got to these last year so I was determined to get them done this year. I made one of each of our California cousins to send to them as part of their present, and one each of my girls too. I let the girls paint the faces of a few and gave some to their Grandma's from them.

Wish the real cousins could be all together like this!

Sierra Angel by Sierra Lily Angel by Lily

Lily at her school Christmas program

Lily sang in her school Christmas program this year. Here's a video of her practicing along with one of our Christmas cd's - I enjoyed her version even more than the school performance :)

The girls showing off a gingerbread house they made with their Grandma Elsie.

Check out the cool little person in the window Lily is pointing out. (on the back side with the two green eyes)

It snowed a ton right before Christmas so we hopped in the car to go sledding on Christmas Eve. Sierra started singing along to the radio so I stealthily started a video...fulling expecting her to stop once she noticed I was filming...but I guess she had too much Christmas spirit to be bothered by it, and just got more into performing :)

We had a good time sledding and playing in the snow!

Christmas Eve we kept our traditions: treats and a movie, and reading scriptures and talking about the real reason for the season around the Christmas tree. Sierra did a spontaneous little performance of her own that Mike got on video. Love this kid!

Christmas Eve

Christmas morning:

I wish you could have seen the first part of her reaction!

Sierra showing off some bracelets Lily made for her and being silly :)

Mike got some good Dad gifts this year:

He needed some new slippers to keep warm in our cold downstairs while he works, and Sierra and I couldn't resist when we saw these! He is such a fun Daddy!

The gigantic pile of wrapping paper!

Lily loved the magic set from her Grandma and Grandpa. She even got a few tricks ready to do on facetime for them after church that morning. I see many magical performances in her future!

(She got on a magic performer ensemble (white shirt, starry black and white skirt, black leotard and starry tights) and took it on the road to Grandma's house later in the day)