Christmas- The Zero Hour

Shortly after midnight I heard the jingling of bells and rushed out to the living room to see all of this splendor!

Shortly after 2:30 a.m. I heard the rattling of Legos and came out to find this...

Tadpole exclaimed, "Who can sleep with all of that Christmas loot piled under the Christmas tree!" I didn't argue, I just went back to bed and left him to build the Star Wars ship he got from LC the night before.

Christmas Eve

It's FINALLY Christmas Eve!

This year Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday and I had the pleasure of speaking in Sacrament meeting.  We also had the pleasure of ONLY having Sacrament meeting. We looked so good for the service that we thought we better take a picture. Only Jaws is not excited. We're not sure why, it is complicated.

 Aren't we a handsome Christmas bunch?

 Abizella folded these beautiful Christmas tree napkins for our table.

We had the missionaries over for dinner again this year. After enjoying some snacks we played a few games together. These missionaries are competitive!

Jaws got this fun puzzle from his best pal at church, Thomas. We played it a dozen times together- he actually is quite good at puzzles.

 Just look at this gorgeous table!

 And Pops' delectable potatoes!

 Everything was absolutely perfect.

 So we better bring the people in for the feast!

After dinner we played some more games and then decorated sugar cookies for Santa.

This is always a fun and glorious mess!

Elder Benson wanted to learn  how to play the cello for the family talent show so Abizella gave him a lesson.

She pulled out Tad's cello too and they played a duet of, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

Superkid, Abizella and Tadpole all played a song on the piano for the talent show but in the excitement I forgot to take pictures (however I did take video footage). Little Chief and Jaws sang Christmas songs.

 And finally the happy moment when we finally get to open our first gift- Christmas jammies!

 Elder Benson shared a Christmas book that his family sent him about Boston and we all got to sign it too!

 Then the obligatory Christmas Eve picture in front of the tree before we get to open our sibling presents.

 

 I'm loving the matching camo-jammies. These are going to be tough to beat! Tadpole says the best part is they double as Swiffers.

 Finally the kids got to open their sibling gifts!

 Superkid got an Apple Gift card, Abizella got colored pencils and a sketch pad, Tadpole got Star Wars Legos, LC got Rae's light saber and Jaws got a mermaid horse! Something for everyone!

 Good luck sleeping Toads!

Busted.

The fudge tradition goes hand-in-hand with the fudge-sneak-picking tradition. 

I nearly gave this container away as the finger treads was barely visible through the blue lid. Makes me wonder how many containers have been sampled before they were delivered...

Credit this year goes to Jaws. His naughty little smile gave him away.

Preschool Holiday Spectacular

I'm not going to lie, there was no way I was going to miss the last Toad Preschool Holiday show. It was also one of those rare moments when both Pops and I are together. We decided to celebrate with a pre-show meal at Legal Seafood.

You'll recognize our Rudolph, he is the cutest one.

And the cutest Frosty too!

I wish I could successfully post video to the blog so I could melt you all into puddles when Jaws sings the Dreidel song while spinning like a top or shrugs his cute little shoulders while singing, "I like those J-I-N-G-L-E Bells".

We love this crazy little kid!

Pajama Day!

Lucky for these kids that Pajama Day fell on my first day of Christmas vacation otherwise they would have been indecent for school. Nothing that an emergency 7:00 a.m. trip to Walmart can't fix. Now we're looking decent and cool too!

Advent Calendar

Abizella packs a month full of fun into our Advent Calendar. 

I personally love the pun-ny jokes. 

But there are also Christmas movie nights, treats and crafts! 

I love these snowman cups that she invented. 

The best part is that she made a little kit for each of us to put together.

 All we had to do was follow her instructions... which I confess I didn't do. You'll recognize the snowmen I helped with because their arms are above the scarf 🙄.

These pipe cleaner ornaments were fun too and completely invented on the fly by Abizella.

 Along with the snowmen...

And Santa hats!

 We are so blessed to have this sweet, fun and creative sister!