Holiday Fun

I love Christmas time. I love all of the fun things there are to do during this time of year. Here are some of the things that we have been up to...

Christmas wouldn't be complete without a trip to Disneyland to see all of the holiday decorations (and ride some of the rides!). We got to see the holiday firework show at the end of the night which Nathan and I loved. Jake is still a little terrified of fireworks, so Jon took him inside one of the buildings until it was over. I think we might have to make one more trip to the magic kingdom before the Christmas season is over!

The boys were playing by the sliding back door last week and I looked over and noticed that it was shattered into thousands of pieces, though thankfully it was still in place and not all over the house yet. We still have no idea how it happened, but we do know that Jon spent about 3 hours that night breaking the glass and cleaning it all up and that it is going to cost $500 just to replace the one pane of glass. Thankfully, the door is double paned and only the inside one broke, but still so annoying that we are going to have to pay so much money to fix it. I guess it's just one of the perks that comes with having kids!

We went with my friend, Cortney and her daughter, Roxie to Borders last week to see Santa, hear a story and have cookies. Unfortunately, when we got there the event had been cancelled! We were disappointed, but Nathan and Roxie still had fun walking through the bookstore holding these cute polar bears.

Jake got invited to a birthday party for his school friend at Chuck E. Cheese last weekend. When we got there his friend, Kevin was so excited to see him and the two played together the whole time. I teared up watching Jake actually having a friend that wanted to play with him and that he got along so well with. Jon and I have been having a hard time lately with the fact that it is really hard for Jake to interact appropriately with other kids and therefore he gets excluded a lot. We never blame the other kids- they don't understand his special needs- but it is still hard as a parent to watch your child get left out of everything that is going on. I think we might have to invite Kevin over for a little playdate sometime soon!

Monday night for Family Home Evening we talked about the Nativity story and then we put together this ginger bread house. Here are the before and after pictures. The boys had so much fun putting all of the candy on and also enjoyed eating it along the way! I think they did a great job and surprisingly they haven't touched it since- we'll see how long it lasts on our counter!

Today we decorated Christmas sugar cookies and made cards for their Primary teachers. We went around and delivered them all tonight which the boys thought was pretty fun. I think the teachers enjoyed receiving the goodies as well!

Some other highlights of this season include going to Roger's Gardens to see all of the trees and lights, driving around and looking at everyone's Christmas lights, getting my Christmas cards done and sent (sorry, no homemade cards this year), Christmas shopping, dancing to Christmas music, Christmas parties and gift exchanges, going to see Fred Claus, Enchanted and Bee Movie, going to Follow the Star (a live Nativity)... and there's still 2 weeks to go! Did I mention how much I love this time of year?!!!