More December Stuff

A little more than a week before Christmas, we had the Haun Family Christmas party, and Santa came!  We've been lucky in the past few years that my Grandma is personal friends with "the real Santa," and he has been able to come each year to our party.  I have so many pictures of Santa that he shows up as one of my recognized people in my Amazon Prime Photos App.  Unfortunately, this year, Santa was not feeling well and couldn't make it.  A "different" Santa came and filled in nicely, but Dax and Cora pointed out to each other than it wasn't the "real Santa" this year.  Oh well.  We got some cute pictures anyway.

The problem that happens when two pictures are being taken at the same time is that only half of the people are looking at each camera.  And let's face it.  Dax is practically incapable of looking into a camera at all.  Oh well.

Dax is getting pretty big to sit on the old man's lap, but he still wanted to take his turn!

 I like how my Grandma is photobombing in this one:

 Cora is much more lap-sized.

 Cheese!

 The week before Christmas we followed another tradition and went to see Juanito Bandito's Christmas Carol.  They gave out free mustaches, so we all had to put one on:

I mustache you a question...how good do we look?

 I think Dax was the cutest (and, he's actually looking into the camera!)

Juanito Bandito sang about how he doesn't like Christmas (he loves it!), but then, as he usually does, he comes up with a plan to stick it to Santa for putting him on the naughty list all of those years.  In the end, though, he discovers the real meaning of Christmas and maybe smooches an elf or two.

We waited until Christmas Eve Eve (or Christmas Adam, if that is what you like to call it) to go and see the lights at Temple Square.  Preston needed a break from the kids and also needed to work on our ongoing floor replacement project, so he stayed home, but the rest of us braved the cold and the crowds.  As soon as we got there it started snowing a little.  Cora wanted to catch the snowflakes on her tongue.

We got there pretty early, and they just turned on the lights.  It was still light enough to see the nativity and the kids at the same time.  This time Dax and Cora both forgot how to look at the camera...its contagious!)

 But soon is was getting dark and the lights and the temple looked beautiful...even if it wasn't a "red tree year."

 Kids and lights.  (DAX!  Where are you looking!?!?!?)

After a little bit, the snow turned into slushy rain kind of stuff, so we snapped a few more pictures and headed home to watch a movie and eat through some of the mountain of treats that had been accumulating on our counter.  

The big day was almost here!  More on that later...

Remember Early December

Okay, so wow...Christmas, right?  Takes up a lot of time, but it is so worth it in the end!  I will try and catch up on all things blog, or at least give a very brief summary.

So, in my last post we had just returned from sunny Florida, and it snowed the night we got back.  It was good to see Olive again, and she had fun shoving her face into the snow:

My front-door wreath finally wore out last year, and I couldn't find one I loved to replace it.  So, Cora saw this door decoration at Target for like $5, so this was our wreath this year.

I sure hope it comes off okay :).

We got a gingerbread house kit from Costco one day.  The kids and I had a fun time putting it together, though there were a few squabbles over who was holding the frosting and who was putting which piece of candy where, but we worked it out and it turned out pretty cute!

Of course, my kids are not the kind of kids who want their gingerbread house to sit around for a week or two looking pretty (and getting stale)...oh no.  Our beautiful gingerbread house was pulled to pieces and shoved into three little mouths about 0.002 seconds after this picture was taken.

I was kind of a slacker on Christmas cards this year...hopefully you have gotten yours by now, sorry if they didn't make it in time for Christmas!  I somehow never got around to getting any family pictures taken this year, so I tried to have a quick impromptu photo shoot with the kids at home.  Everyone was willing to smile, except Cora.  Even the dog sat still!

Good dog, Olive!  Isn't she pretty?  She is looking so lovingly into the camera because I am holding a piece of cheese up right behind it.  She looooooves cheese with a deep and abiding love.  Can't you see it in her eyes?

 Arden is pretty!  But we already knew that.

 And Dax is pretty handsome, too.

 I finally talked Cora into sitting down for a picture.  Isn't she sweet when she isn't being sour?

I can't believe how much they have grown up this year!  Arden hasn't said anything to me specifically, but I got the vibe from her this year that she isn't quite sure she believes in Santa this year.  *sigh*  I knew it couldn't last forever, but it was sad for me just the same.  She didn't share her doubts with the other two kids though, and they were still firmly on the Santa bandwagon, which was fun.  I hope they can hang in there for another year or two, I'm not ready for the magic to be over!

I'll blog more tomorrow about more of our December/Christmas activities.