Christmas Fun

Over the past month, we've been doing lots of Christmas activities that haven't been blogged about yet, so here's a quick rundown:

CHRISTMAS CARDS

For those of you who may not have gotten one, here's our Christmas card for the year...


The best part is that our photographer designed this card for us! As part of her fee, she designs a Christmas card too! All you do is tell her kind of what you are looking for, and she goes to town! It meant one less thing I had to worry about this year & I love how it turned out!

CHRISTMAS PERFORMANCES

Both Connor & Aiden had Christmas performances this year. Here's Aiden (doing some cheesy little grin) at his performance...


He was so funny! You could tell he was TOTALLY bored during his program! He'd sing for a minute or two and then just get bored with it & stop. Then, he'd start singing again for a few minutes & then stop. He was hilarious! We were having a great time laughing about it! Here he is doing his part in the program. He was a "Building Block"...

Connor didn't really have a Christmas program, but each grade level participated in a "Christmas Sing" at the school. Here's Connor, with the rest of the 2nd graders, singing "Hot Cup of Cocoa" and "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth." He's on the 4th row from the top, second from the right. Sorry, it's the best picture I could get from my crummy seats (and I even came half an hour early too)...

CLARK PLANETARIUM

A few weeks ago, I had a Christmas luncheon at work. While I went to it, Mike took a long lunch and watched the Aiden & Cohen for me. They headed over to Clark Planetarium & played for awhile. Here's my boys on Mars...

And on the moon. I thought this picture was funny because it looks like Cohen is doing a "moon jump"...

And, of course, they had to play with their favorite toy there. I'm not even sure what this thing is called, but it is two stories tall & balls roll down the tracks & then get carried back up. The kids can turn knobs & levers to switch the tracks, make the balls stop, etc. My boys always love it...

WARD CHRISTMAS PARTY

About a week ago, our ward held it's annual Christmas dinner & party. It was such a great time! And, it was catered by Magelby's Fresh! I have NEVER in my life been to a ward party that was catered! But, it was delicious so I'm not complaining!

At the end of the night, Santa stopped by so the kiddos could chat with him. I'm so glad he came since we hadn't done the waiting-in-line-for-four-hours-at-the-mall thing yet. Connor told Santa that he wanted Star Wars guys, specifically a "Droidica." Ummm...too bad the "Droidica" he wanted was discontinued years ago & is extremely hard to find! That's why Connor decided to ask Santa for it...because the ELVES could just make it. Oh heaven help me! Thank you Amazon for saving the day...

Aiden asked Santa for a Cars Color Changer Set & some Color Changing Cars...

And Cohen asked for, what else, Toy Story stuff. He was so big! I thought he would cry & want to get off Santa's lap, but he sat up there & had a nice conversation about Buzz & Woody and the whole Toy Story gang. I felt bad for the people in line behind us...

A NIGHT IN SLC

Each year, my family gets together to go to Salt Lake City for dinner, shopping & to see the lights. We decided to bag the lights this year & just did dinner and shopping. We went to Trolley Square like we always do and went to Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner. I love that place! After dinner, we explored Trolley Square a little bit. The boys found Santa's sleigh...

And, later, we found the cutest reindeer I've ever seen, my sweet niece Ella...

It was a fun night, as always!

ZOOLIGHTS

My station was a sponsor of Zoolights at Hogle Zoo again this year, so we got free tickets. Yay for free! We picked Mike up from work last night & went to Noodles & Co. for dinner. Can you believe I even take these four into public? They are wild animals ALL THE TIME...

After we had warm food in our bellies, we headed to the zoo. Apparently, everyone else decided to head there too! I have never seen that place so packed before! Some of Santa's reindeer were there. We didn't get very good pictures because of the crowds, but if you look in the background, you'll be able to see one of the reindeer...

Cohen got some special treatment from one of the docents. She let him go past the railing & feel an "actual reindeer antler." He thought he was pretty hot stuff...

After that, we walked around and looked at all the lighted animal displays. Zoolights is always so cute! They do a great job with it. There was pretty thick fog last night, so you'll see little water droplets in all the pictures...

Connor wasn't too thrilled with Zoolights. He was expecting to see more REAL animals. We had to explain that many of the zoo animals don't like the cold & so they weren't in their normal places. He thought that was lame & kept saying that he wished it was summer so he could see some REAL animals, instead of just the animal LIGHTS. But, we finally found some real wild animals. Here they are...

Yes, wild indeed! We walked pretty much the whole zoo & were frozen to the core by the time we were done. But, despite being cold, the boys had to play with the water feature at the zoo entrance. I don't know what else to call it, it's a big stone that rolls in a pond of water. The boys are always drawn to it in the summer because they want a chance to cool down. But, apparently, it has the same captivating powers in the frigid wintertime too...

After that, we took three cold, wet boys back to the car & headed home to homemade hot chocolate & "Frosty the Snowman." It was a fun night!

So, those are the random Christmas activities we've been doing this holiday season! So excited for Christmas Eve tonight & Christmas tomorrow! It's going to be great! Hope you & your family have a Merry Christmas! --Lindsay