Let the Christmas posting begin! We had a lovely Christmas season, that started before our California trip with the Festival of Trees. Every year, we love going and walking around and seeing all the decorated trees and gingerbread houses. The girls have fun finding ones that are perfect for them. Others are just plain inventive.
This is a Frozen gingerbread scene, with the castle and Elsa's castle on the mountain. Pretty dang amazing.
There were a ton of people there, as always, and we let the girls pick out an ice cream sandwich at the boutique area instead of waiting in line for a scone. They were ok with that. Cute little elves!
It's a Small World!
National Lampoon's Christmas scene
Beautiful Manti Temple
Salt Lake Temple
Cool wooden ball tree structure
Just a really cool detailed gingerbread house
Anne of Green Gables! My Favorite!
Candy snowman
Elsa candy castle
Lexi Lou Ladybug matched this tree!
After our vacation, it was nice to get home and jump back into the Christmas season and try to soak in as much as we could before it was over! I took the girls to the Grand America Hotel to check out the windows and this giant gingerbread house!
Cami tickling herself. :)
We couldn't get over the fanciness of the bathroom! Although Cami doesn't look very fancy.
The windows were fun and colorful as usual! It was an alphabet search, so they wrote down things for each letter.
At the end, they got 2 big sugar cookies each! Such a fun tradition. After that, we met Jake at his work at the arena, hopped on Trax, and went to Temple Square to see the lights.
Gorgeous, as always! The girls love visiting Jesus.
The next morning, Cami had Grinch Day at school. She dressed up as one of the little kids who were sleeping when the Grinch came to steal Christmas. :) She looked so cute!
She made this picture frame at school.
The girls wrote their letters to Santa. Cami asked for a scooter, bubblegum machine, jewelry, train set, and video game. She randomly chose those last 3 things on the spot. Her main thing that she wanted was a pet fish. But she asked us for that instead of Santa, since that would be more practical. :) Lexi asked for.....3 year old Lexi wishes. I love her scribbles. She actually wanted a bike and legos.
We saw Santa Claus at RC Willey, and the girls loved sitting with him and getting a candy cane.
Family photo!
Grandma Toone gave us this cute advent calendar a few years ago, and the girls enjoy putting up something new every day. Lex was so excited to put up baby Jesus.
We had some free passes to the Draper Historical Theater, so we used them to see a play of A Christmas Carol. I didn't even remember what the story was about, but figured it would be a fun family activity. Lexi Lou enjoyed a candy cane while waiting for the show. Poster child!
Little did I know, that the play would be SUPER scary for little girls! Ghosts, wrapped in chains and scary makeup....oops! And the ghost of Christmas future was a huge 8 foot tall black figure with no hands and no face. Lexi wasn't real scared, but Cami hid her eyes and buried her face in my arm. haha. Other than that, the play was fun and Scrooge was an amazing actor.
After that, we went to check out what everyone had been talking about and posting pictures of: The Tree of Life. It's a tree in Draper City Park that is completely lit up and looks like it's on fire. It was pretty cool in person!
Pre-church pictures. Haha nice faces, girls.
That's a little better! Cute velvety dresses.
Cami got to sing "Picture a Christmas" with the primary in sacrament meeting. And Lexi enjoyed her LAST day in nursery! Awww I can't believe how fast she's growing up. It was a lovely Sabbath Day. oh and I sang in the choir, and we sang 3 beautiful songs. Then Jake and I both taught lessons....me in my 11 year old girl primary class, and him in Elders Quorum. Then after church, we headed down to Grandma Willes's house for her annual Christmas Cookie Party!
We always enjoy this time to see Grandma, and aunts, uncles and cousins, and eat lots of delicious treats. Little Caesars pizza was ordered the day before and picked up that day. Here's Lexi enjoying pizza in her cute Christmasy dress.
Grandma always outdoes herself, with truffles, treats, cookies, punch, set up, picture taking, etc. She is such an amazing little lady with such tenacity! This year took a toll on her, though, with cookie baking frustrations and pure exhaustion. So next year we will delegate tasks out so that she can have a break and just enjoy it!
Sure do love her. Here she is making her punch in the sink. We lovingly call it "Sink Punch".
Bree was the first one there, for once! Then we got there, then Britt and her two boys. Ari and Owen were sick. Other relatives didn't get there until later.
Santa hats are a must!
I love how Lexi had a few squigles of frosting on her cookie.
And Cami, the candy fanatic, enjoyed eating and piling the candy on.
Check out Bree's Lexi-look alike cookie!
Jake and his masterpiece
And me and my tree.
As always, it was a fun party and really helped us get in the Christmas spirit!
3 comments:
It's so fun to go through all these lovely pictures! I don't take enough pictures anymore… just random instagram posts. :) I need to document life in a better way! You have an adorable family.
What fun events! It made me think about 3 years ago when we visited those same places with you in a wheelchair! So glad you had more fun this year! Love all the amazing displays at Festival of Trees, and Grand America is so fun ( I love those bathrooms too!) The temple pics are lovely, and that's a great family photo with Santa. The Grinch picture of Cami was a little freaky, but they sure are adorable in their Christmas dresses! And I always love seeing pictures from Grandma's party- such a fun legacy! :)
That tree in Draper looks so cool! I wish we could have seen it. Glad you got to do so many fun things!
Post a Comment