Christmas Party!

Every year, Cruise's teacher, Mr. Harris, throws a Christmas party for all past and present students and their families. I love it because I don't have to worry about dragging the kids to a mall or anything just to see Santa. It's the exact same schedule every year: snowball fight, songs, and Santa. Cruise & Jett had a lot of fun doing the snowball fight, which is just papers crumpled up into balls. Each paper has a picture of it of something Christmas. Harris plays music and everyone throws the "snowballs" at each other. When the music stops, everyone sits down with a snowball and Harris yells out a picture. If you have that picture, you go get a treat. And then it continues.

Singing was, as usual, a lot of fun to listen to...until Cruise started screaming the songs instead of singing loudly. We had to help him understand the difference between the two. The poor kid was losing his voice! At one point, Cruise wrapped his arms around the people sitting next to him, which were Jett and some poor sister of one of the former students. She was too nice to pull away, but the look on her face was priceless!

Finally, Santa came and the boys were so excited to tell him what they wanted for Christmas! Jett had prepared a letter in advance in case he forgot, and Cruise rattled off his list from memory. Then it was time for Miles. I knew he'd freak out, but I did it for my own selfish reasons of getting a picture of him being scarred for life. It's a must, you know. We made up for it by taking him and his brothers to Chick-fil-a for dinner afterwards.

Greer Presents, Fishing, Reindeer & Lights, and Gingerbread Men

Greer Presents

About a week ago, we received a package in the mail from my parents in California. It contained a cute box my mom put together for the 12 Days of Christmas with scripture quotes and items that went along with each one. It also contained some recipes of the Christmas sweets my mom always made growing up. And then, it had our Christmas presents! The boys got gift cards to Target and Dave and I got some much needed money. The boys were so excited that a few days later they wanted to go to Target and pick out their presents. Cruise got a red Lightsaber, a marble run, and a Hershey's candybar, Jett got a blue Lightsaber, a Batman Lego set, and a Hershey's candybar. With the remaining money on their cards, Miles got a ball. That is really all he was interested in. But it is a pretty cool ball! The boys have had a lot of fun fighting with the Lightsabers. We already had one, so all three of them get to use one. Miles absolutely loves it! Thanks Grandma & Papa Greer!

Fishing

This past Friday, Dave woke Jett up early and the two of them went fishing at Deer Creek. With the weird temperatures lately, there was a thick fog that covered the lake. Jett had a blast, probably because they kept catching fish! They caught 5 and all of them were at least 12 inches long. 

Reindeer & Lights

I like living close to Thanksgiving Point. And I like that we have a family membership. It makes for a pretty inexpensive experience around the holidays. Every year we go to Thanksgiving Point to see the lights and visit the reindeer. However this year, the weather has been uncharacteristically warm. Not very Christmas-y. The kids wore their coats, Dave had just a long sleeve shirt, and I wore a jacket and flip flops. I really hope we get some snow for Christmas. After seeing the reindeer, we hopped in the car and drove through the Christmas lights as we listened to Christmas music. Always a fun time for the kids and a very easy activity for us. 

Gingerbread Men

Finally, the boys wanted to make gingerbread men. Instead of using my incredible recipe, I used a mix that was "good-enough". I'll make the real deal as it gets closer to Christmas. I made some buttercream frosting and pulled out all the Christmas sprinkles and stuff for them to decorate their cookies. The only time it is socially acceptable to eat a stick of butter is when you decorate desserts in buttercream frosting.