Pre-Christmas Activities

We had a lot of fun and tried to fit in lots of activities to make the most of our time while in Utah and before Christmas. My sisters and I did the 12 days of Christmas for our parents and some of what we did was based on that. Also, Amy and John's anniversary is on the 22nd, so my Mom offered to take her kids for a night and have a sleepover at Grandma's with all of us. The next morning we had a cookie-making extravaganza. And since my parents live on a family compound some of the 2nd cousins joined, too.

Brooke ate Cookie dough. A lot of it. Please notice the spoon attached to her face in this picture.

Stuffing cookie dough in her face.

E-man (Krista's almost 3 year old) making gingerbread cookies.

This is baby Kate (cousin Jaimee's 2 year old). She is just a hoot!

Aunt Rose and cousin Gabe.

Brookie and me with our cookies.

Meg and all the kids with their finished cookies.

Meg likes sister pictures. We were asked at Macy's that week if we were twins. I have never thought we looked much alike. I always thought I looked like sister Krista. Nonetheless, we are pretty.

The day before we had our annual tradition of baking saffron rolls. My Aunt and Uncle are serving as mission presidents in Kennewick, Washington, so we were missing a lot of cousins, but here was the group that we had, including Grandpa, who happened to make a visit while the baking was happening!

After saffron rolls, we headed to This is the Place State Park for their Candlelight Christmas with all the Grandkids. It was absolutely FREEZING, but despite that they had a lot of darling things for kids to do. Each little house was filled with some kind of exhibit, or craft, dancing, hot chocolate, dutch oven food, carolers, and there was a live nativity that the kids were so reverent for.

Brooke was SO COLD that I don't think she knew what to do with herself.

This was taken in the dance hall right before we left. It was nice to go home, drink hot Chocolate, and be warm. The best line of the night was on the way home when Krista asked E-man if he had fun, to which he responded, "not really." So cute. It really was fun, though... we're sure he was just too cold to realize it!