More Yuletide Family Fun

As we continue to open the advent boxes, we continue to enjoy ourselves this Christmas. 

On Sunday evening, we were able to visit family friends and drop off goodies (a roll of Christmas gift wrap with a tag stating, "Hope you are getting all wrapped up in the spirit of the season." Cute, inexpensive, practical, and calorie free so we weren't tempted!). 

While making our visits, we really had a great time viewing all the Christmas lights in the neighborhoods.  The kids were in the back seat going "Ooooo" and "Aaaaahhh" at the extravagant displays.

Monday was an awesome activity.  For Family Home Evening, we opened with prayer and a children's Christmas hymn.  Then we rolled out some butcher paper and Keri drew out the first Christmas with a magic marker while Neal read the account from the bible.  The kids loved coloring the scene with their crayons.  When we  were done, we had a beautiful mural put up on our play room wall, and as we had hoped, the kids have referred to it often. It has been a great visual reminder for us all.

Tuesday, Neal and Keri planned to attend the temple in the evening so the kids and Keri made treats to share with the family that would be watching over the kids that night.  We dipped pretzel rods into chocolate and sprinkled them with Christmas candy. The kids were really into it! 

Rhys annihilated the delicate art of sprinkling and went with the "more is better" method.  Yep, that a complete bottle dumped in the corner.  The kids enjoyed sampling sprinkles and cleaning the sweet, gooey pot.  The counter was a field of chocolaty fingerprints when all was said and done.

And at this point, Keri had to actually put down the camera and parent our death defying toddlers.

On Wednesday, we returned the favor as our friends attended the temple and had Kenzie as our guest.  We had the kids coloring pictures and signing Christmas cards to send to a couple people they were missing.

And tonight, we had special guests over for dinner.  Elder Park and Elder Dunbar are missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

They were very gracious and we enjoyed some good conversation with them.  Keri warned them that they were serving as guinea pigs for a new recipe: Autumn Vegetable Pot Pie.  They ate dinner with a smile and Neal provided a high score (and Keri knows he is brutally honest) so we may be having it again.  It was a nice, easy-going meal and we were glad to have them as guests.  They even tolerated me taking at picture of them for the blog--See! Mormon missionaries are the best!

Again, we'll post more holiday happenings as we open more advent boxes.