The Lead Up to Christmas Morning

It has been said that the only thing better than being a kid at Christmas is having kids at Christmas, and I totally agree.   Christmas was so much fun this year with our three little crazies. The lead up was even better.
On the Sunday before Christmas, we started a secret service elf in our family.  Lily took charge of the activity.  She wrote down some detailed rules, wrote everyone's name on a paper and put them into a hat.  Lily sat us all down explained the rules and had us draw names.  It was so much fun.  The person who Lily drew was the luckiest...she got so into it.  It was magical to have everyone trying to give service secretly.  The girls were so excited when they would get something from their secret elf.

Here is just one of the many surprised that Lily left for dad, who she had for secret elf.

On Monday night, we did our re-enactment of the very first Christmas night for Family Night.  We were really lacking some key boy characters and one of our only boy actors-Will-refused to participate when it came time for the real performance.  Once again, Lily got very into planning this production, we even had a dress rehearsal, in which Will sort of participated.

I really enjoyed the production, the girls were fantastic in their roles.  The filled up our make shift stable with stuffed animals.  Our manger we made a few weeks before and filled it with "hay" (dead palm tree leaves) as the girls did nice and obedient things all month.  It's amazing how having this little empty cardboard manger in the corner of our lounge room being filled with good deeds added to the spirit of the season.  I really miss it.  Here is our swaddled baby Jesus in the manger.

 The entire cast at dress rehearsal.  Lily was Mary.  Ava was the angel.  And Will was supposed to be a wise man, but I think he preferred to be an angel with Ava.  Ava also played a sheep and the star in the actual production.

 Taking her part very seriously.  This picture reminds me of the scripture in Luke 2:19 "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

 Our amazing angel who nailed her part, "Fear Not!"  She said it perfectly!

The next day was Christmas Eve! I've decided that Christmas Eve is the longest day in a child's life.  They woke up super early and asked right away, when is Santa coming?  I think they failed to understand that they had all day long to wait.  I think next year, I will have something specific planned for the kids to do all day long!  To keep their minds off of the suspense.  Because I had lots I needed to do, but they were going crazy.  :)

We did make cookies for Santa in the afternoon.

 That night we went to our very best friends, Shelece and Troy's house for a fondue party.  Not sure why we said we would do fondue when had never done it before, but it was a success.  Very good food and the very best company.  I'm sad that I didn't take any pictures of the fondue fun.  But I think that is because I was enjoying it too much to stop and take pictures.
After we ate, Shelece had some presents for the kids.  She is the best pseudo aunt we could have ever asked for.  So grateful we have these guys in our lives.

 Here are the kids with their gifts.

 And here is when the magic began!  This was the first time that Will knew what to do with a wrapped present all by himself.  It was so fun to watch him rip the paper off and then jump for joy about what was inside and shout gratefully, "Thank you much!"  The magic continued all through Christmas day.  Such a fun age!!!  All the kids were amazing!

 The girls got dolls.

 And Will got a tool set.  In that one moment, his Christmas was made!   Shelece told him that Troy picked it out for him and Will just spontaneously ran and gave Troy a hug, still shouting, "Thank you much"  Spontaneous hugs are very out of Will's character, but I think Troy and Will have a special bond.  :)

 These dolls came with millions of little accessories.  That was Shelece's gift to Cory to drive him crazy.  ;)  If there is anything Cory hates, it's toys with lots of little pieces.

After that, we headed home so we could get to bed so Santa could deliver his presents.  The kids were excited to be able to open another present when they got home from their Grandma Rowe.

 It was pajamas that Grandma had made for all the grandkids.  I was glad that my kids could still be included in this tradition even though they weren't there physically.  It made family seem a little bit closer.

 The kids put out Santa's cookies and sprinkled the reindeer food all over the lawn and went right to sleep.  And Santa made his delivery shortly there after.

Not only did Santa make his delivery, but all day long Christmas eve we were visited by generous people dropping off gifts for our kids.  Some we knew, others just did a drop and run.  But we were very blessed this year by the generosity of others.  We love our Kal family.  We attempted to make an anonymous  delivery to some friends of ours on our way home from our fondue party.  I thought it was a success but then I got a message from my friend thanking us for the gifts.  What???  I asked her how she knew and she said that her husband turned to her and said, "I think I just heard Bishop's car drive away."  He recognized the sound of our car!! What the heck?  That is nuts!  So much for anonymity.  :)  

Next up, Christmas Day!!!

December Happenings: Part 2

After my birthday, Lily had her last day of school.  Then the kids were out for summer holidays.  Yay!!!  We had all sorts of Christmas parties to attend after that.  There was Cory's work party, the ward Christmas party and then just our own celebrations for Christmas with friends here.  The rainy weather kind of ruined all the party plans, however.  The work party was supposed to be at a park, it had to get relocated.  The ward party was supposed to be at the local swimming pools, it also had to be relocated and have a complete change of venue.  Our party planning committee chair person did a fabulous job reorganizing the entire thing and providing entertainment for the kids just at the chapel, Santa Claus even showed up!  So it was pretty cool.  The kids loved it.  

Here is a rainbow after all that rainy weather.  :)  

 Lily and Ava both got great reports at the end of the year and are ready to move ahead to the next year of school.  I am not liking how short the summer is here!  Can we have an American summer and still have the two week breaks every 10 weeks also?  I think that would be a perfect schedule.  Anyways, the girls both came home with heaps of school work and art projects they had completed during the year.  This was one of my most favorite little work samples of Lily's.

 Here are Lily and Ava doing a Christmas crown craft.

 The finished product.

 Here are just a few shots of the kids running around at Cory's work party.  It was raining off and on, we were inside, this was just the back area of the Kalgoorlie Rotary Club building.

 Here is our Santa Claus appearance at our ward party.  Our high councilman, Pete McQueen, was the one with the suit and was supposed to be Santa, but I guess he couldn't make it for that part.  When they were trying to find someone else to wear the suit, people were suggesting that Bishop do it!!  Haha, so wish he would have.  But instead, we got good old Neal Armstrong, (yes, that is his real name).  He was a pretty good Santa.  Everyone was laughing saying that Santa had spent too much time at the beach lately...hahaha, since he is so tan, or well actually Maori.  :)

 This is me attempting to get Will to sit on his lap.  Will got as close as he had to to snatch his box of candy from Santa and then wanted out of there.

Here's Ava getting her turn.  

And here she is before Santa made his arrival.  Not sure where those elf shoes came from.

Here's Lily's turn.

Wish I could have heard what she was telling him.  :)

Then as soon as he came Santa had to leave.

 With the warm weather, Will has been on a Popsicle or ice cream kick.

 Love that chocolate face.

 Here are the girls with theirs.

 We actually got out the cones to do our substitute gingerbread house Christmas craft.  I saw this on pinterest, where you just decorate the ice cream cones as Christmas trees.  Sounded way easier, so we tried it out.  I think the girls really enjoyed it.  I should put the Pinterest picture on here next to mine, and you'll see how well I nailed it.  Hahaha!

 I love these two pictures of Ava having a marvelous time and Lily in the background crying something Ava's doing to ruin everything. Haha, luckily she got over it.

 See here's the pin that I pinned on Pinterest.

And here is one of our awesome trees....see, nailed it! :)

 One of our Christmas countdown surprises was red and green mustaches!  We all had so much fun with these.

 Will was the absolute best!! He loved his mustache.  He left it on for probably 3 hours!!!!  Ahhahaha! It was so cute!  He is a true William Rowe, sporting the stache!!

 We decided he needed his sweet fedora to go with the stache.

 Cory just needs a top hat and a cane, then he could break into a nice little tap dance.

 Lily wrote this sweet little gem on Sunday, December 22, 2013.  I warms my heart.  I love that girl.  If you need a little help reading the creative spelling and backwards letters, I'll translate.

It says:  My testimony is I know the church is true the book of Mormon is the word of God. I know Joseph Smith is true.  Lily later told me that it was incomplete.  She wanted to finish by saying, I know Joseph Smith is true because he translated the Book of Mormon.  She has such a believing heart, it never ceases to amaze me.  I hope she never changes.  Love her!  


Next up for the month....Christmas!!!  :)