New Year's Eve

We had church until 4pm on Christmas Eve so I scrambled to start dinner as soon as we got home.  We had cheese fondue with sausage, bread and fruit and veggie dippers.  After dinner we started our New Year's Eve party which was pretty tame this year.  We played a few board games including Headbands, which even John and Emma could participate in.

And Telestrations.  John had more trouble with that one since he can't read all the words so he played on Matthew's team and helped us roll the dice.  John and Emma kept wanting to go back to Headbands.

Emma fell asleep during the second board game.  Too much excitement.

Then we counted down to the New Year (several hours early).

We popped some poppers outside and blew the New Year's Eve party horns (this was about 8 or 8:30pm).

Then the kids all headed to bed.  It was a fun but low key party this year.  

I think everyone had a good time.  Hello 2018!

Christmas

Christmas morning came and everyone was very exited.  Scott and I got up pretty early and joined the kids.  I got to work on breakfast.  We eat breakfast before we open presents.

We had German pancakes, cinnamon rolls and fruit for breakfast.  

The German pancakes are the most popular.

Kids checking out gifts.

Some gift opening pics

Matthew got a new bike

Anna got a giant Lindt truffle.  Mmmm.  

It was actually just a big ball filled with regular sized truffles.

 Everyone had fun playing with their new things for most of Christmas Day.    This was a popular gift in the house.  A RC Chase from Paw Patrol.  It went so fast and was fun to drive.  Scott and I got busy and made our tradition ham Christmas dinner.

All ready for Christmas dinner!

We had a lovely Christmas Day and were so glad to be able to spend time together as a family.

Almost Christmas

Here are some pictures from the last few days before Christmas.  On the last day of school before Christmas break Matthew and Anna had their annual winter solstice performance.  The GATE classes put on a little holiday performance each year at Christmas and Scott and I both got to see it this year!

Anna and her friends made up a little skit with songs.

Then her class recited 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Each kid recited a few lines.  

They did a great job!  Matthew's class recited a poem as well.  Other kids did songs, skits and musical performances.  Matthew chose not to do anything else.

Here are Matthew and Anna after the performances.

Here is Anna with her cute teacher

Our first day of Christmas break we went to Gilroy Gardens.

Some rides were more exciting than others.

We had a fun day at Gilroy Gardens...

...then we headed home and started baking.

We made lots of treats

Christmas Eve!  Grant got upset in the evening about something so he didn't want to participate in most of the festivities.

We had a nice Christmas Eve nativity program.  

Emma was an angel and Anna was Mary.  We sang songs and read the nativity story from the scriptures.

We opened Christmas pajamas from Ma2 and Pa2.

Grant got in the picture even though he didn't want to.

Anna got some Christmas snacks ready for Santa

We're all ready for Christmas!

The kids were hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa.