Happy Birthday Vance!

Happy Seventh Birthday Vance!  My how the years have flown by.  We are grateful to have Vance in our family.

Christmas Fun

On Tuesday we read "Bear Stays Up for Christmas" and did activities centered around that.  We love those books and the Christmas one it real cute.

 One of Tanner and Porter's favorite activities to do together (aside from playing on the computer) is Tanner reading to Porter.  It is just too sweet not to take pictures of sometimes.

 I have loved Alfie Boe ever since I saw the Les Miserables 25th anniversary concert.  When I found out he was going to be performing at the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert this year I knew I had to attend.  I mean, my favorite singer performing with the most outstanding choir in the world and it is only a half hour a way from me?  Yes, thank you.  Of course, getting the tickets wasn't an easy task.  I had to register to potentially get them and I begged some of my family members to register for me and let me have them if they were chosen.  Well, I didn't get any, but Stephen's sister, Mandy gave us two tickets and for that I am so grateful!  Then we ended up needing other babysitters than my in-laws and my sister willingly volunteered to watch the boys so I am so grateful for that too!  The concert was amazing.  Alife Boe was amazing.  He sang "Bring Him Home" from Les Mis. which got me all teary eyed.  The choir was amazing.  Tom Brokaw was also there and he told an amazing story about a man known as the Candy Bomber.  Check the full story out on that link.  That made the tears spill over because they brought him on stage and he spoke for a moment. I wish we could have gone to a the signing they had at Deseret Book and gotten Alife Boe to sign a cd of his I own, but that was Friday night when Stephen was working.  Anyway, Vance took a picture of Stephen and I  before we left.

 On Friday we did preschool activities centered around "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".  We made green grinch cookies.

 This little puzzle ball thing entertains little boys and big boys.  :)  I don't even know the name of it, but it keeps Vance and Stephen entertained.

Sickness hit our house Saturday night and continued through Sunday.  Not fun.  Tanner was the only one to miss out on our fun.  Those are the days there isn't much to take a picture of, but kids lying around...

One of Vance's favorite Christmas books is "Snowmen at Christmas".  He read it to me today and wrote a letter to his teacher about it.

Christmas Activities

 We have been having fun with Christmas activities the past week.  On Tuesday Tanner, Porter and I did gingerbread activities and they decorated gingerbread houses.

 Vance finished up the little village we had on Wednesday.  He was creative with his decorating.  Watching him reminded me of how grown up he is getting.  I was just going to do graham cracker gingerbread houses, but I found this village for a good price and I figured that would be cheaper than buying all the candy separately.

 On Thursday we did preschool activities based around candy canes.  I found this fun idea last year where you stick candy canes in the oven and then you are able to bend them.  I worked spelling out the boy's names and Tanner had fun just playing with them.

 On Friday we did reindeer activities and since Vance gets out early on Fridays he was home to do a little reindeer craft.  Don't I have cute reindeer?

 Here are two different kinds of origami trees we have around the house.  They add some extra fun to our Christmas decorations.

On Saturday we were at the Sears that is near my in-laws and it is closing so they have everything in their store discounted.  We got shoes for all the boys since they all needed some sort of shoe.  Then I saw the angry bird ties and couldn't pass them up so they wore them to church on Sunday.

 And here is a picture of my Tanner boy.

It's December!

Stephen's been letting a beard grown.  This is a picture of him after a 30 day growth.  He has since trimmed it and gotten a hair cut so he isn't nearly has hairy!  :)

 

 Vance started begging to put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving and so we finally (in his eyes) got the tree up. 

 Vance admiring the tree.  The first thing he does when he comes downstairs every morning is turn on the Christmas tree lights.  He loves looking at it. 

 Vance had crazy hair day at school.  I attempted to make his hair more crazy, but it is always kind of crazy, let's face it. 

 Our stockings were made by my mother-in-law and I think they are wonderful.  My favorite one is probably Tanner's, but I do enjoy looking at all of them.  The Merry Christmas below goes with the nativity advent calendar I do with the boys each day.

 If you have ever been around Stephen much you have probably seen him folding these stars.  We have quite a collection and since we have so many I thought they'd be fun garland for the tree so I strung some yesterday. Boy, my finger and thumb are sore.  Maybe someday we will both be ambitious enough to do bright foil paper with it...

 Here is our Christmas tree.  It actually has candy canes on it now and will soon having gingerbread ornaments on it as well.