December fun

Ever since the weather turned FRIGID in early December, the kids have been cooped up inside. Happily this has done wonders for the girls' relationship with Owen!  They are playing together, all 3 of them, so much more lately and I love it!!  This picture was on a Sunday, Katelyn seriously read to her siblings for an hour while Eric and I got other stuff done, it was great!

Owen has decided he loves Elmo, and has claimed Katelyn's old Elmo as his own.  Luckily Katelyn has kindly allowed him to use it permanently!  Also he loves these froggy pajamas and I have to hide them from thim when they're in the wash or else he wants to wear them immediately, dirty or not!

Our pre-Christmas festivities this year were pretty simple.  I was barely recovering from months of morning sickness and it was all I could do to prepare Christmas gifts on top of the normal day-to-day duties-- I didn't do many cute crafts or special new traditions with the kids this year!  And I only made ONE variety of Christmas treat -fudge- that we only took to our immediate neighbors; I usually give out plates of a variety treats to MANY more people than that!  Oh well.

But we did manage to do the major important traditions: Christmas stories at night, Christmas caroling (Owen learned several Christmas songs really well, including Joy to the World, Silent Night, Away in a Manger, Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, and little snippets of others!  He's got a great memory!) and of course, Gingerbread Houses and acting out the Nativity, both pictured below.

Owen "frosting his house" aka putting a tiny smidge of frosting on the house and eating the rest!

The girls were super cute at actually "decorating" their houses- they haven't reached the stage yet where they try to cram on as much candy as possible!

Although Katelyn did realize halfway through that she should be putting more m'n'm's on than skittles because she likes those better!

Owen and his cute house

Whitney the teenager and her house- she saw this picture and said "aw mom, don't use that one!" and made me take another, shown below. :)

Owen and Eric laughing at the "elf yourself" video Eric made :)

Kate posing with her house :)

The Sunday before Christmas- new cute clothes!  (the girls' dresses I bought plain gray at walmart and cuted them up with the red.  they looked better in person!)

2 days before Christmas we met Grandma and Grandpa Murray and Kurtis to see the lights at temple square.  Owen loves the temple so he was super excited.  The girls were mostly just cold. :)

and Owen got a fun surprise, he got to ride on a TRAIN!  (the Trax) it was so cute, he loved being at the "train station", and after we got off the train he called out "Thanks train!!"

Then for Christmas Eve we had a nice relaxing day at home, ending with acting out the Christmas story.

This was definitely our most hilarious Nativity since the classic Hansen ones in the first couple years of our marriage! Joseph was very excited to get on his costume, but then proceeded to cause non-stop turmoil as he first insisted on having his own donkey to ride, and then kept stealing the baby Jesus from Mary and the manger. He just wanted to hold the Baby himself, which is fine because I'm sure Joseph did hold Jesus, it was just a little untraditional.  

 We had a very convincing portrayal of the shepherds by Kate, shielding her face from the light of the angels-so cute.

and a very unflattering picture of me and Eric as the wise men- Eric was also the innkeeper and an angel.

It was such a fun Christmas Eve.
The best part of December for me was when I had a parenting breakthrough about a week before Christmas.  I realized, for about the millionth time, that a bad behavior I was seeing in my children was MY fault, they had learned it from me.  So in order to make Christmas more meaningful for me, I decided to give my family the gift of changing what I was doing.  I am happy to report that it has started working, and things have been much better in the rudeness category around here.  Now I just have to keep it up, forever!  haha!  But that's the beauty of Christmas, the whole reason Jesus Christ came to earth, was so that we could have HOPE and know that we CAN repent and change. I am so grateful for my Savior!