December Activities

I went all out with as many Christmas activities as I could this year! I say I do it for the kids, but really I love it too. :-) The whole season is just so magical and I LOVE reliving all the kid magic through my own kids. They make everything so much more fun.

We always go see the Mesa Temple lights. I always try to do this early in the season because I think being at the temple and enjoying one of our oldest family Christmas traditions is such a good way to really get into the Christmas spirit.

Making a gingerbread house! Yes, I buy the pre made one. Best things ever. Seriously. Josh helped a little with the decorating but was pretty much just interested in eating the candy and frosting. I caught him a couple times trying to sneak up the piano to steal candies.

Cute Christmas outfits/accessories! Yes yes yes!

Christmas cookies! SO much dough gets eaten but I guess that's half (or more than half) the fun. ;-)

We went to a Christmas party of someone we barely knew (ha! but I assure you we did actually get invited!) and they had the BEST SANTA EVER! He was SO nice and the kids were on Cloud 9 after meeting him.

My amazing friend McKenzie hosted a Christmas party for some of our good couple friends and it was so beautiful. She always throws the best parties! This is her version of a "small, just-whatever, casual thing" by the way.  ;-)

Love these ladies so much! (Lauren, Kelcie, Emily, me, McKenzie, and Lacey) They are some of the best friends I've made in Gilbert.

Kate had her Christmas dance recital!!! She'd practiced a ton so that even her brothers knew a lot of the dance. Haha! Anyway, she did so awesome and was so so cute to watch. She was so excited the second her dance ended that she just started jumping around with the biggest smile on her face. :-) She danced to "Mistletoe and Holly." And she LOVED that Michael gave her flowers at the end.

Putting on the final touches before her performance-

Oh, and we had a lot of fun with Hermey this month. (Our Elf on the Shelf.) The kids had SUCH a blast finding him every morning.... and our elf wasn't even that creative. All the did was hide. (There are lots of elves that will hide elaborately or bring gifts.)

We sure love Christmas stuff!