Christmas Coming Up

Every year I wish I was better prepared. Maybe by the time my youngest is 5 or so I will be. 

This year the weeks leading up the Christmas the kids were so excited. For some reason they really got into the idea of caroling and could gather the Christmas decorations together and pretend they were caroling.

Then they would find books and carol. Some of the word mix ups made for some fun entertainment.

Then we wrote letters to Santa. 

 We tried the four Santa gifts idea, something I want, need, wear and read but allowed them to give a few options in each and star their favorite.
Here was Henry's list:

Something I want: pirate legos (metal beard), spider man costume, machine dino

Something I need: tooth brush timer, speakers, daniel tiger bedding (he said he put this for Dorothea).

Something to wear: chris and martin shirt, skylanders shirt, church clothes, light up shoes, Harry Potter shirt, robe.

Something to read: fish dictionary, pop up robot, ghost busters, finding nemo, big hero six, animal almanac, boys diary (he saw something like this at B&N...)

Dorothea was hard to pin down with what she wanted so we tried our best to get down what she was talking about.

Something I want: something that plays music
Something I need: toothbrush
Something to wear: clips for hair, shoes, wild kratts shirt, hat
Something to read: books like Choo Choo Clickedy Clack, monster books, animal books, notebooks

Then Henry had to request snowman pancakes for breakfast one morning.

Leo got some Christmas jammies and looked oh so cute.

Then we had our ward Christmas party. 

Henry remembered almost all of the things on his wish and talked Santa's ear off.

Thea was, as expected, still terrified.

Leo was a littler surprised, but, rolled with it and then was happy as usual.

The day after the ward party we went with the youth to the LA Temple lights on a bus driven by our Bishop who works for the bus company. I think this has in part led to to Leo's renewed dislike of driving since we were able to take him out on the bus, he doesn't understand why it can't be like that always. 

The kids were surprisingly good on the trip down and on the way back, Thea slept, Henry entertained the youth in the back and Leo slept.

On the Temple grounds. 

The Christus in the visitor's center.

It was a long trip but we've wanted to see the lights and the kids seemed to have fun too and it didn't hurt that the youth were all really easy and well behaved!

The next week we had a play date with another home school family that has a boy Henry's same age and a girl one year older than Thea. We took them some Christmas shaped rice krispys and the kids each made them a card.

The rest of the week was spent making sure we did some home school work and planning and if I'm being honest, watching a lot of Christmas movies. We only get a few weeks for it, so I've decided not to feel guilty.

That weekend we went to a live Nativity in Claremont which is something we've never done before. It was done by a local Christian church and I was amazed at the sets and all the work they put in to it! There was also a video at the end which featured a sermon by Charles Spurgeon, a 19th century baptist preacher who I looked up and learned his writings are still pretty influential in the non-LDS Christian world. The video had bits of a sermon called, "Immanuel, God with us," that was interesting.

 I wish we could have moved from scene to scene freely but there was a bit of acting so they had us go in groups. We still enjoyed it and the kids especially loved the animals.

Then Sunday we rested and had a sigh of relief that daddy would not be going to work the next day! =)