It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . Emma is excited for Christmas and wanting to look extra festive. she dressed up for a girl scout activity on this day
John and I played at a park while we waited for the activity to end - getting too cold for this!
Another festive Emma outfit
John had another tooth issue - this time it was just a baby tooth that cracked instead of just falling out and freaked us out a little. But the dentist helped us with the tooth and all is well.
John also made this cool snowflake to make things look extra festive
We had a little fakes giving feast. Everyone was wishing we had Thanksgiving leftovers, turkey in particular, so we made a small feast one night. Sadly the turkey didn't last long. May need to make two turkeys next year. We took lots of shortcuts on this feast but I still made the cranberry compote and sweet potatoes from scratch, and the turkey but without the brining. We did Rhodes rolls instead of from scratch, Costco masked potatoes, gravy from a packet and Stovetop stuffing plus pies we still had from real Thanksgiving. I also made overly rich chocolate pecan pie bars. I love pecan pie but its so sweet!! Anyway our mini feast was fun, even if the leftovers didn't last. The turkey was gone within 24 hours - sad.
Fakes-giving table
Here we are heading out to get a Christmas tree from a local farm
Emma found a baby tree
John
Grant with his hood up
Anna ready to find us a winner
And Matthew
We found a winner!! It's pretty tall
And got some hot cocoa after
Ma2 and Pa2 came with us to get the tree and hauled it in their truck for us - lots of fun
The tree made it home!
And found a place in the house
Let the decorating begin
And John capped it off with the star on top
The tree lasted 6 weeks without getting dry thanks for Scott's careful tree tending
Me and Emma matching
We kept a close eye on the river - we like to see how high the water gets in the Washougal River, especially near the Sandy swimming hole
Another day checking out the high water after church
John and Emma helped me make gingerbread houses and people
So much gingerbread to make
Decorating gingerbread houses - the kids can manage their own frosting pretty much now so that makes it easier on me. Although I do most of the structural assembly with the frosting they can decorate with it.
Lots of fun house designs this year - I didn't get good pictures - I was waiting until we placed them all on the table and then forgot to ever take a picture, but all the kids had fun making houses
Here's Anna working on her design
Emma and John got to be Mary and Joseph at our ward party.
They did a good job, although John was pretty nervous. He pulled it off in the end.
Anna had her winter choir concert
Some frustration about homework but mostly going well
Making Christmas pretzel treats - Grant is proud of how fast he can unwrap Hershey kisses, and it is amazingly fast.
Matthew tries to gain a hair advantage when checking if he's taller than Dad. We determined Matthew is about 6'1" and Scott about 6'2" so we're watching to see if Matthew gets taller.
John and Emma having a nice moment reading together
Anna being silly pretending to be Justin Bieber
Anna made this beautiful dragon postcard for school
Here it is colored in
Emma has been having fun playing outside with friends a lot. A few times we have served Emma and friends hot chocolate on the front step. I am a nice enough mom to make them all a hot chocolate tray and take it to them, but not nice enough to let them all in the house. John was the hot chocolate butler and helped with all the cocoa delivering.
We went out to dinner at Gustav's one night - to kick off Christmas break. This was our first time there since new management took over. I was happy to see that it was busy. So Gustav's lives on. The food was good.
We made a bunch of cookies - including these sugar cookies
We did several puzzles over the break and watched lots of Christmas movies.
More Christmas adventures to come
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