Our Family of Six

We did our best to celebrate Christmas this year. We did a few different things, we didn't do some things (like Christmas lights), and we did some of our traditional things.

This year we did a scripture advent and chocolate advent calendar. Each day, usually after school, we lit the candle, read the scriptures for the day and ate a piece of chocolate. We didn't miss one day! The kids were really good at remembering to do it. Probably one of my favorite things we did this season. The kids took turns blowing out the candle each day too.

I gifted a scripture candle advent to my friend too. Along with some Christmas tree cakes.

First day with the chocolate advents.

A few days into it. Isak and Kira happened to be wearing the Santa hats we found. They looked so cute...so picture time.

The kids helped me put up our artificial tree. We were going to get a real tree too, because I loved it so much last year. But time got away from us. We enjoyed our fake tree still.

Sofie and Noah put their ornaments on.

Isak and Kira put theirs on later. It naturally happened that they did it at separate times and I liked it. Less fighting!

We still like the little people nativity set.

Sofie thought these stockings were fun to wear. Haha.

We went to the Murfreesboro Tree Lighting. It rained off and on. Luckily, we had an umbrella. Nels had to work. But the kids and I enjoyed it.

There was a live nativity.

The kids wrote letters to Santa. Noah asked for a Ryan Egg.

Sofie asked for a stuffed animal horse.

Isak asked for a lego set and drone.

Kira asked for a unicorn lego set.

We dressed up and took a picture.

We ate free chocolate and got other candy and free stuff.

There was a big stage with live performances. Then it started to fake snow and Santa came to flip a giant switch to turn the lights on the large tree.

It was pretty fun and the kids were good too.

The next day we went to the church party. Nels had to work and missed it too.

We ate a ham and potato dinner. Sofie liked the ham. She gave a funny face though. Haha.

Noah kind of ate the cake...

I'm glad I brought a few snacks for Noah and Kira...but they still had a good time.

Then there was a talent show with guitar players, singing and the primary sang a song too.

Sofie Panda Roo.

Another Saturday, our friends invited us to their house for dinner and sugar cookie decorating.

The night the kids were waiting for...opening pajamas!

Ta-da!

This year my boys matched with Santas.

And my girls matched with reindeer.

I thought they looked super cute.

Reindeer pancakes.

Here's our tree. We just put the kids ornaments on.

It was wear a Christmas hat to school day....Aren't they so cute?!

Here's Isak's class.

I bought 6 hot chocolate mugs. And we enjoyed them several times. I made hot chocolate in the vitamix with 2 cups milk and 1/2 cup chocolate chips. Mmmmmm.

There's our silly Sofie...

We used the Christmas cards we made and sent them to the teachers at school. Noah wrote:

Thank you for teaching me math.

I love these store bought sugar cookies. So I bought them this year. They are Noah's favorite too.

This is what my house looks like after the kids get home from school. They drop their backpacks and unpack everything and show me everything....and then 50% of the time they leave it...but that's ok. Look how cute they are!

The kids were creative when blowing out the candle. Isak licked his fingers and then put the flame out, Noah waved his hands, sometimes they would see how far away they could stand to blow it out.

On Isak and Kira's last day of school, they learned about Christmas around the world. So they had a passport and a suitcase. So cute.

One Saturday, we drove to Cool Springs Mall in Franklin, TN.

We found the Giving Machine!

It took a while for everyone to decide what to get.

We ended up giving cereal, school supplies, hay for horses, 3 ducks and food for a family for a month. It was a neat opportunity. I'm glad we did it.

We walked around the crowded mall for about five minutes. We found these gum ball/candy machines and luckily, I had 4 quarters for each kid to choose something.

They also enjoyed the escalators. They went on them 2-3 times. Then we drove back home.

My sister Melissa and I gave these cute jammies to baby Lydia (my sister Jenny's daughter). Isn't she so cute!

This year, I made chocolate cookies with candy cane Hershey kisses. We all loved them.

Another thing we did this year was read different Christmas stories at bedtime. It was a collection of stories that I had when I was a child. The stories were about giving or the meaning of different Christmas things, like tinsel, the candy cane. It was fun to read them with our kids this year.