Cousins, Polar Express and a Christmas Surprise!

The end of December was spent with our Olsen side cousins! I love that we live close enough to see Heather, Kris, and Kara's kids quite often. Connor and Devin were meant to be brothers...or twins.

 

 

We love cousins!

 

 

Christmas Eve was our traditional Polar Express night.

 

 

We look forward to this night all season. Sawyer got way into it this year.

 



Then we spotted Rudolph and knew it was time to get home and get into bed. 

 

Christmas morning was magical. We had a fun surprise for the kids. Scott and I made a video pretending to be spies. We challenged the kids to be spies as well and search for the hidden packets throughout the house and figure out the clues. 



 

 

 

They searched and found all the clues and on the last one were instructed to open all of the packets and figure out the surprise.

 

WE'RE GOING TO DISNEYLAND!!!!

 

December family service

Scott and I want our kids to grow up with great memories. But more than that, we want our kids to remember helping others and to know that service is such an important part of life. With all of the fun and the lights, the jingle bells and traditions that the Christmas season brings we really want this season to be a time of service.

I decided that during the month of December our family would make it a habit to try to give service to others in our community. I made up a calendar and filled in all the Monday nights and Saturdays with ideas that we gathered and the kids came up with from a previous FHE.

Before we went out every Monday we would watch a Mormon message or an online video on service and then we headed out into town.

The kids worked together and got excited about being sneaky and leaving surprise services for others. Here are a few of the services we did:

We taped money and a note on vending machines at the hospital and at the College

 

 

Singing at a nursing home and giving passing out cards.

 

We all helped out at a breakfast with Santa activity put on by a local organization for foster children.

 

 Delivered doughnuts to the fire station. They actually asked us if we wanted to come in and take a tour so the kids were thrilled!

And the kids made Christmas cards and wrote a message inside. Then placed them on cars in parking lots at grocery stores. We even stayed for some and hid down on the floor of our van to watch some of them be opened.

Elf shenanigans

 

December 1st, Blizzard is back along with all his naughtiness.

 



murder mystery dinner

Our friends threw a murder mystery dinner night at their home that was themed in a 1983 High School reunion. I LOVE these things!! Scott isn't big on dressing up and stuff but even he had fun.



Scott's character was a tough bad boy who now worked as a bodyguard for the class president who is now running for President of the United States.



I was the class flirt who now owns her own online dating company.

 

 

 

Lots of laughs and silliness. Plus I got to see a whole other side of Scott haha.

Trick or Treat

 

Halloween is such a fun time and Holiday. This year all the kids picked out their own outfits (except Sawyer who didn't care what he was) and helped me gather stuff to make them. I ended up with pictures of all of them except Ellie who was Medusa,  because we got her ready at the same time we had a bunch of family's over for a pre-trick or treating dinner. It was a bit crazy but a fun night with friends.

Macie wanted to be a deer. I looked up how to do face paint for a deer and this is what it turned out like. . Pretty darn cute little deer.

Sawyer was a little homeless man :)

 And of course Connor chose to be the Minecraft guy.

 

 

For dinner I tried the yucky Jello worms I had been wanting to try and the turned out so cool! It took the kids a little while to even try them.

 

 

And we had our eyeball taco salad's again.

 

 

 

 

And to top it all off Scott made a pumpkin pie from scratch out of our Halloween pumpkins.

 Delish!!