This was our first December in our house and it was just perfect. The tree looked great in the spot I picked out when we walked through the house for the first time last December. It has been fun to think about how much our lives have changed in just a year.
December started off with a Relief Society dinner for me. The theme of the night was "Oh Come Let Us Adore Him." It was the perfect way to start off the month and I constantly made efforts to show my adoration for my Savior throughout the month. I made a little count down chain to Christmas for our tree. Each night Phin would tear a chain off and we would read a scripture together. It was really fun to relate the scriptures to his Little People Nativity set.
The first Friday in December I took the kids up to my parents house. We spent some time hanging out with cousin Aaron and set up the tree and other decorations while my parents were out of town. Aaron and Phin loved decorating the tree...as you can see all of the ornaments were on the bottom. Disclaimer...Phin is mostly pictured in his underpants of for this post...we worked very hard on potty training in December.
Phin started to warm up to Santa in December. Every time that he would see Christmas decorations he would shout "Santa." Santa made a special visit to the Home Depot Kids' Clinic. Phin went up and sang Jingle Bells...which was his favorite song of the season.
We watched Clemson play in a couple of big games in December. Phin loved dressing up in his football uniform for both games. Our Tigers won both games and we are excited to watch them play in the final game this coming Monday.
Phin loves to help me in the kitchen. His favorite thing is to scoop the flour when I am mixing up things. He put our paper towel holder on top of the flour bucket and proudly declared it a temple.
I have started taking the kids out to the Rec Center to walk around the track. It is a nice option when the sidewalks are covered in snow and the air quality is poor. Phin loves to watch other people exercising, ice skating, and playing basketball.
I had a hard time working up the courage to give Phin a haircut...so I broke down and took him to Cookie Cutters. He still threw quite a fit...but the stylist has quite a bit more experience cutting a wiggly kids hair than me. He loved leaving the shop with a balloon and a sucker.
We headed up to This is the Place Heritage Park for a gingerbread festival in December. Phin got to play in a couple of large gingerbread houses.
We also toured the gingerbread houses in the competition. Peanuts, Minions and Frozen were the major themes. Phin's favorite gingerbread house had a fireman scaling the side of the wall..which I forgot to take a picture of. Phin has become quite obsessed with firemen. He loves to watch Fireman Sam. Several times this month if he saw someone was in trouble he would say "Call Fireman Sam."
Phin also got to decorate a cookie at the Gingerbread Festival and complete a handful of little crafts. He had a wonderful time...
until we headed to get a picture with Santa. He didn't want to sit on Santa's lap...so Santa graciously let me sit on his lap with Phin on my lap.
One day we returned a few items to Home Depot and Phin insisted that I take his picture as the Grinch.
We headed down to Temple Square one night and the weather was absolutely perfect. We were very comfortable in just our sweatshirts.
I think Phin's favorite part was the fountain at City Creek Center.
I headed back to work on December 11th. Technically I didn't have to go back until the following week but that Friday was full of meetings and I thought it would be a good way to ease myself back. All of my students were excited to see me back and have given me big hugs. The staff and administration at my school told me I was missed and how grateful they were to have me back on board.
Our ward had a breakfast in December. All of the kids were able to decorate snowmen that covered the walls. Phin and Zoey had a wonderful time decorating one together.
After our ward party we headed over to Lowe's where Seth and Phin built a cute little Christmas train engine.
One day while we were at the store Phin yelled "Robots" and ran over to greet R2D2 and C3PO.
We also fingerprinted a few Popsicle sticks that we made into sled ornaments for Nona and Grandma Jo. I thought Phin would be much more excited to get his fingers dirty...not so much.
We spent the weekend before Christmas up in Cache Valley. It was fun to spend time with Grandma Jo and Grandad. We took Phin to his first movie in the theater...Pan. He loved all the parts with pirates.
He also loved playing with cousin Jameson.
One morning we made hot chocolate to go with our breakfast. Grandma Jo always includes a little Snowman soup packet in the bag of Christmas goodies she gives us. Phin was so excited to have some "chocolate milk,"
Our family Christmas gift was a Smart TV for our basement. I spent quite a bit of time down there in December tying a quilt for Seth for Christmas. One night I looked over and found that Phin had fallen asleep in quite the strange position.
For FHE the Monday before Christmas we decorated a gingerbread train.
Phin's favorite part was eating the decorations.
Uncle Jeff came to visit with Diesel and Teeny. He left the dogs at Nona and Papa's while he went to New Jersey for Christmas.
Phin had such a wonderful time with Uncle Jeffy...and his dogs.
Phin especially loved the LoveSac that Jeff had brought up for Sarah and Joe.
One day at Nona and Papa's I found that Phin had lined up all of the Teddy Bears for a snack.
We spent Christmas Eve at our house. We had homemade pizza and acted out the Nativity. Phin was so excited to open up pajamas from Nona.
We also let him open up a movie which we watched together that night.
I should post the outtakes for this picture...but here is the good one.
My heart is full with these two cuties.
Phin slept in on Christmas morning and we opened presents very slowly. He would open one and play for a while and then open another. Phin wanted to open all of our presents and for the most part we obliged.
Phin got a couple of Hot Wheels tracks which he loved. Seth got a few boardgames, a calendar that I made him and other odds and ends. I was spoiled with the new Pioneer Woman cookbook, a growth chart for the kids and a large canvas from Millie's newborn photo shoot.
Millie got lots of hair-bows.
We headed over to Nona and Papa's around noon and went to the traditional Christmas movie with the gang. This year we got to see Star Wars and we loved it.
We had a yummy dinner when we got back and spent some time trying to fish Phin's Hot Wheels out from under the couch.
One of my favorite things happened the day after Christmas. Phin woke up and ran out to the tree...he seemed quite bummed when there weren't presents waiting for him. That evening we had friends over to play some of our new board games. It is so nice to have room to host friends.
We spent quite a bit of time the following week hanging out at Nona's once Jeff and Kim came back from New Jersey.
We also got to see my family's former foreign exchanged student Victor. He was here from Brazil with his gorgeous wife, Ariana.
We had friends over again on New Years Eve and realized that we are getting OLD...it is quite hard to stay up until midnight these days. Thank you to everyone that made 2015 so memorable. We feel incredibly blessed to have you in our lives.
