Let the Christmas Season Commence!

We love the holiday season!!!  Yahoo!  It's always filled with lots of fun and love!

Ours started off with a special arrival.  Our very own Elf on the shelf.

 The kids were so excited!

 We had our ward party the first weekend in December and I was in charge of decorating...with no budget, mind you!  So I pulled all this off with what was in the closet or donated.  Here is our photo booth/Santa chair.

 The primary kids sang us some songs.

 The next day we headed up to Idaho to cut down a Christmas tree.  I always cut down a Christmas tree in the mountains with my family growing up and it is a tradition I treasure.  So I made everyone humor me and we did it this year.  I'm hoping it becomes a tradition!  We drove through Paris on our way...hahaha.

 We had fun hiking around looking for a decent looking tree.  Decent looking is the aim, cause you're not going to find a good looking one!

 We finally found "the one"

 Here are some car riding shots.

 Will's hair got seriously styled with his snow hat!

 Now it was time to trim the tree.

 I think it is a beautifully perfect looking tree!

 Its bad lighting, but here is our elf getting into trouble under the mistletoe with Barbie!

 I got to take a trip to our beautiful temple.  I just love the temple.

 Lily had a gymnastics performance.  It was so fun to see her perform.

 We began our built in bunk bed project.

 Now the girls have a lot more space in their room.

 Gingerbread cookie time!!!

 My kids started a tradition of making a gingerbread nativity instead of houses and I just love it.

 Here's our final nativity this year.

 This little girl did a lot of shopping with me while the others were at school.

 Down at the tabernacle they have a free Christmas concert every night for two weeks in December.  We headed down to the children's choir one.  It was wonderful!  Here are the kids by the giant nativity they have set up for Christmas.

 Sofie thought she was singing along.

 We had a bit more snow.

 This girl refused to wear a coat most of the time...but as long as she had her boots and mittens she was set.

 A little snowman building.

 The girls at their Christmas program.

 I got to teach Ava's primary class the week before Christmas and we did a little reenacting.  Have you ever seen a more beautiful Mary??

 It was birthday time for me!!!!  See if you can figure out how old I turned from the candles....you won't be able to.  We used a very complicated algorithm.  5x7=35-1=34.  Thats how old.  My parents came up and we had dinner and my mom brought the cake.  I was really glad they came.  It made my birthday extra special.

 Not to mention, all the kids loved it.

 Sofie couldn't stop talking about Derek the next day.  She is pointing to him in this picture.

 We just happened to have a huge storage of coal...just in case we needed it!  ;)

 More of our silly elf's mischief.  

 It got pretty nice one Saturday.  The kids were playing baseball.

 I made all the kids put on their pjs, robes and slippers and get in the car to go Christmas light hunting.

 As you can see, they were very excited to go.

 But when we started driving around for a while, they were disappointed that that was it.  They weren't too impressed!  But this was the best house we found.

 Will's face when he saw that house.

 We were pretty into Pokemon go for a while.  Here's a Christmas Pikachu.