Grizzlies Hockey Game

 The boys LOVE hockey.  They especially have grown to love it in the last 6 months as they play street hockey with their friends and down in our basement.  It is their recent favorite past time.  On black Friday Josh and I found a killer deal on the "Pass of All Passes" for $20 a piece.  We are so excited for these passes and all that they include. 

 We didn't see any major fights, with I think was a disappointment to everyone, except me, the last time we saw a major one I just couldn't look.  I was informed that the fights were what they all came to see. 

 I do like hockey though, it is really fun to watch.  They boys are DYING to get involved in hockey...I am sort of enjoying our time being sport-less right now (Josh forgot to sign the boys up for basketball and I have been okay with it). 

 We got to see Grizzbee which the boys loved.

It was a great time and a chance to cross "hockey game" off our Christmas/Winter bucket list.

Apparently McKay....

 ...Likes pizza.

 He doesn't like to share his pizza though. :)

Letters and a Visit to Santa

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We had such a great time and are enjoying one more day of being together before Josh has to go back to work tomorrow.  I actually love the three day celebration when Christmas is on a weekend.  I have a few Christmas posts that I still need to post so I guess the blog is going to be Christmasy for a while yet.  
December is always such a whirlwind.  I have a million things I want to do, and it is always interesting to see how it plays out.  We were so busy this month and just ran from one thing to the next.   We ended up squeezing in letters and visiting Santa the week before Christmas for Family Home Evening

 I was pretty worried about writing letters to Santa right before Christmas as we were completely finished with Christmas shopping, but it is tradition!  I decided to run the risk.  I found this cute download for the boys to write their letters on. 

 McKay also wrote a special letter to Santa :)

 We headed to the magical mailbox at Maceys to put our letters in.

 On our way down the escalator Lincoln was standing on the crack that folds out into a stair and it catapulted him most of the way down the escalator.  It was so scary!  After I picked him up and held him he was shaking violently.  There were some very sweet people who worked in the mall that helped us out.   

 They had a huge sign up right in front of Santa that said you couldn't take pictures.  It was so lame!  You had to buy them from some company.  I took a picture of Santa from far away. 

 McKay was scared of Santa, but totally interested in him at the same time.  He wouldn't sit on his lap, but loved the gigantic candy cane that Santa gave him.

We took this picture after the visit to Santa (can you see the "big man" in the background?)  I think this might be Palmer's last year of belief.  I could tell he really struggled with it this year.  The last time we visited Santa at the mall was in 2008 (sad right!)  I am so glad we visited him this year.  We got to see him again a few days later at Josh's work party (he gave them seriously awesome kites...)

Snowman Craft

 I haven't posted any Christmas crafts on here!  Really December just is so fast and always zooms right past me.  I have bucket loads of posts I need to do, but I am still finishing up everything.  I am finally done with most of my gift giving list.  I had a ball shopping last night for 2 of my nieces for Christmas.  Two of my boys had their names and I hope they don't mind they are getting clothes because I couldn't help myself (do young girls like getting clothes instead of toys as gifts?  My boys don't so I have no idea).  We were in the store Crazy 8, which I really love and EVERYTHING was $11.99 or under.  We are talking EVERYTHING!  Talk about a Christmas miracle!  You might want to go check it out people.  Anyway, I got some seriously cute girl clothes and it was fun to let myself loose in that section (usually I don't even look in that direction...can't handle all the cuteness.  I don't trust myself and am sure that I will go home with something that I don't need.)

 Okay back to the craft.  We made these weeks ago to decorate the boys rooms with.  Idea adapted from here.  I just hot glued the snowmen together before we started, then let the boys paint them.

 Lincoln decided to do an opposite snowman, which I think was pretty creative.

 He looks like he has been covered in coal dust or something.

 Hunter decided to do black, then switched to white.

 He did a pretty great fix job. 

It was a fun easy craft. 

2011 Christmas Card

Some of you may have already seen our Christmas card from this year on Facebook, but I thought I'd post it on here as well.  This was the front of it.

And this was the back. 

Putting together Christmas cards is one of my favorite things to do of the season.  The first time I did it was last year and I have definitely decided that I love Photoshop.  I hope all of you are having and continue to have a wonderful Christmas season!

Gift Idea-Reindeer Noses

 I made these "Reindeer Nose" gifts for the kids in the boys' classes.  We also gave them to their friends around the neighborhood.  I adapted the idea from this one.

 

 Today we a make up for the "snow day" day we had a few weeks ago (it was actually serious winds that were the problem :) The kids got to wear their pajamas to school.  Lincoln was determined to wear the Mario pajamas that I bought him last year (I think that a he and a friend decided to match) and they were capris on him.  Like not possible for him to wear in public without me being mortified.  Josh was sweet enough to pick him up the much needed bigger size of Mario pjs on a late night dog food run.  He was so thrilled to have them, and it was a fun surprise for him to wake up to.   Palmer recently got new pajamas and Hunter has them coming out his ears (the perk of being the youngest of three brothers).
Kids are so funny.  Before he saw the new pajamas he was absolutely determined to wear the WAY too short pajamas to school.  Maybe i should have just let him wear the ones that came to his knees. He has been so obsessed with Mario lately that he took a pair of white gloves he received as a present and drew three lines on them like the ones Mario wears.  He also tries to wear a red shirt every day like Mario and has already decided that he WILL be Mario next year for Halloween. 

 Hunter wasn't in the above picture because he doesn't go to school until afternoon, so we took his picture later.  I had to talk Hunter into changing out the grubby old soccer uniform that he wore to bed.  I think I need to get rid of some of those soccer uniforms.  We have a million and five of those and they seem to be the only thing that my kids want to wear to bed. 

Teacher Christmas Gifts

 I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off this week.  I wish that I could say that I had everything done weeks ago, but the truth is...I didn't.  This is the week.  I have a few neighbor gifts out, have bought most of the boys' Christmas, but that is about it.  I have a bunch of handmade things I had hopes of giving and I still haven't given up on the idea yet...might be in for some late nights.

We have been giving our neighbors (I have a lot of this left to make...but I got another good idea today to try) this Salted Caramel Sauce and have also been enjoying it ourselves this past week.  I decided to give my boys' school teachers something to go with the sauce.

 I did an "Ice Cream Sundae" kit for each of them (idea adapted from this one).  I put in my caramel sauce, sundae glasses, a scoop, some cones and some toppings. 

 I then added a tag that said "Just add ice cream".

 Wrapped them up (stuffing them full of tissue paper so the glasses wouldn't break).

 I wrapped the first and promptly ran out of ribbon, so I had to switch things up a bit.

The bottom two are for both of Lincoln's teachers (he has two AMAZING teachers). Now on to the next project!

Christmas Caroling Party

 I can't believe it is only one week until Christmas!  Life has been so crazy this month (it seems like every December is the same) and we have been out of town twice this month. We have gotten in some very fun things though and this was one of them.  A few years ago my friend Misty had us over for a Christmas caroling party.  I love it!  It reminded me of what my family used to do when I was young.  We went caroling every year to a lot of the older couples in our ward that didn't have kids at home, or had lost their spouse.  Our family always loved it.

This year I decided to have my own Christmas caroling party and we did it this last Monday.  We invited some of the families in our ward over and headed to some great families.

 I made these folders full of music that the kids thought they were great.

 Can I tell you how much I love these people that we have met in this ward.  They are seriously good people and our family has loved being around them. 

 We had some really neat experiences while we were out caroling.  I am hoping that the kids felt the Christmas spirit and will not forget our experience.

 After caroling we headed back to our house for a "Hot Chocolate Bar".  I just went to the store and started grabbing anything that sounded like it might be good in hot chocolate.  We had peppermint, gingerbread (which were surprisingly good), and french vanilla marshmallows along with plain.  Reeses peanut buttercups, Jr. Mints, crushed candy cane and Salted Caramel Sauce (I LOVE the Salted Caramel hot chocolate at Starbucks). 

 I loved this idea for "Santa hat brownies".  Idea found here. 

 When Josh and I were in Arizona, we visited Trader Joes and picked up some of these Candy Cane Jojos for the party.  They were every bit as good as I had heard.

Josh also got out his favorite Cocoa Latte machine and made some good hot chocolate.  

 We just had a great time getting to know these wonderful families a little better. 

It was a wonderful night and I hope we do it again.  We gave each of the families a jar full of the Salted Caramel sauce to take home with them.  It was a fun night!