Thumpetty Thump Thump...

I always thought that was a weird part of that song.  Does a snowman that comes to life really go "thumpetty thump?"  Just pondering and perhaps I'll never know because our's didn't. 
He was made of snow, but the children know...
...well, lets just say they now know how to make an awesome snowman thanks to their mother hen. :) Ok- so he looks a little more like the elephant man or one of the orcs on Lord of the Ring.
This is the one that came to mind...

But ours is happy :) and we had fun making him.  I just couldn't pass up the irony of "children at play." :) 
It was PERFECT snowman snow- talk about a Christmas Miracle...

...For most of us.

Speaking of miracles, our sweet Aunt Catherine made the long drive to come see us.  We are just loving having her here for a couple days!  She brought some fun prizes up from Aunt Christina and the kids have had so much fun.  It's like Christmas all over again!

 

 

 

Wish this gal lived closer because we could definitely get used to having her around! :)
 

The Dearest Day in All the Year... December the 25th!

Christmas Eve- the kids all scrubbed and in their new Christmas PJ's. :)  We read about Jesus birth and opened G&G Stewart's 24th advent gift that was perfect- it was Jan Brett's "T'was the Night Before Christmas."

Christmas Movies Watched:

Authur's Christmas

The Polar Express

The Nativity

White Christmas

A Christmas Carol

Miracle on 34th Street

We've had such a special Christmas holiday!!!  I can't even express how grateful I feel!  So many sweet people were so generous and good to us- it just made it MAGICAL!  The kids are at such a fun, believing age.
 

 

 

Sweet Aunt Chelsea out-did herself!  She made these darling dress-ups for the boys.  They have not wanted to take them off!
 

 

Seth particularly loves his ninja pants and shoes.
 

She also made Amberlee a beautiful dress and knitted a precious scarf for Autumn.  She is amazing!
 

We were taking turns opening presents pretty smoothly until we hit these "woodkin" dolls from G&G Romney.  Everything came to a crashing halt and the girls had to stop and play with them.  They have spent hours- such a clever design!  They were so thoughtful- so many fun prizes!
 

 

While the girls were busy with the dolls, the boys were entertained playing Warriors and Knights.  So fun!
 

Doug was SO thoughtful this year!  He spent his entire day off (and then some) making and painting these beautiful jewelry boxes for us gals.  It was so sweet and they turned out beautiful! A true treasure!
 

My parents trip to Europe comes with some "Scottish" advantages- Doug was thrilled! 
Long live the Stewart Clan!!!
 

Post Christmas bomb... :)
 

And the Christmas feast.  Quite delicious if I do say so myself. :)
 

Here Comes Santa Claus...

Doug's work had a really fun fundraiser for a local charity that included pictures with Santa. (He was an AWESOME Santa   (He was precious old and seemingly somewhat fragile and the first thing Amberlee said to me as we were walking to the car was, "Mom, what happens when Santa dies?"  Then, thankfully, without giving me time respond, the whole drive home was filled with her reasoning out how "...Well, there is a Mrs. Claus, so of course they have kids... so the kids grow up to be Santa... right?  Hmmmm..." and more thinking and more puzzling.  I have found that silence is usually the best way to address the whole Santa thing.  I'm not very good at fibs... I usually just say that "there is just something magical about the whole Christmas thing, and I don't have all the answers."

Anyway... they also had some fun live music (from the local high school jazz band- they were actually really good and it added a lot to the atmosphere- there is something exciting about walking around a store with a live band playing.)

 

And last but not least they had "Brunch" with big sausages/hot dogs, pancakes, and orange juice (which meant I didn't have to make lunch!)  Plus we got to spend a minute with our sweet dad/hubby!  A fun day!  He sold over 300 Christmas trees!  Hard work!
 

 

 

More fun advent prizes!  We have had a blast!
 

 

These are the sweet sisters in my book club.  We have so much fun together!  How could you not love ladies that love reading as much as you?  We had a Christmas gift exchange. Here is a link to the fun dessert Melinda made.

Nativities Around the World...

This is one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE this that our Stake does.  The Nativity display is just beautiful and there is just such a sweet spirit that comes with all of it.  We had a special time walking through as a family.

 

The girls loved the bingo game.  They took it quite serious.

I got to help in the costume/picture room this year during one of the shifts.  It was fun to play dress up!  Here is how ours turned out. :)

The boys, on the other hand, loved the kids room where they could actually touch the nativities. :)  I think they could have happily spent the night there.
 

 

*Just to explain the face-painting, Autumn has been BEGGING me to face paint, so I finally got around to it. (Confession: it has always been my secret wish to do face-painting at a fair or charity or something... just my attempt to fill the void. :)  It didn't quite fit into the nativity scene, but they didn't want to wash it off. Oh well. :)

This little gal is getting so good on the piano!  She has had a good teacher.  She has been learning away in a manger and almost has it down.  I thought I would get some pretty pictures while she was in her Sunday dress. :)  Speaking of Sunday, she and Autumn sang, "Samuel tells of Jesus Birth" in sacrament   They did a beautiful job!  I was proud of them.  I was grateful they behaved because in practice they were fighting over the microphone and breathing into etc... and you just never know what you are going to get. :)