December 2015

I wanted to do some fun things to celebrate the Christmas season. Adrian was working every day and we're away from family so I wanted to plan some fun things to do with the boys. We did a few things, but not as much as I wanted. 

One thing we did as a Family Home Evening treat was make rice crispy christmas trees. We dyed the trees green and had frosting and sprinkles to decorate. Levi had a blast decorating his, the rest of us preferred to eat ours without frosting and sprinkles. 

Malachi liked to eat the sprinkles plain.

Other activities we did were seeing a couple light displays. We have a tradition of walking around seeing lights while eating chocolate chip cookies. We went to the community center where they had a dancing light display with music. The boys loved running around while seeing the lights and hearing the music.

We went to Palm Beach Gardens specifically for a light display. We got there early and went to the mall and walked around first. Later, we drove through the light display not knowing we could get out and walk. I wish we would have gotten out and walked. Driving through took us maybe 5 minutes and it seemed almost not worth the drive all the way down to Palm Beach Gardens.

The city had a light parade at the beginning of the month at the Civic Center. It had been raining off and on all day. It was not cold, just a bit wet. As the parade started, so did the rain. It poured on us. We had our umbrellas and had to each share with a kid. We sat on the curb all huddled under umbrellas and watched the parade. We were all completely soaked by the end. Which, as the parade ended, so did the rain. Aw, the memories :)

Fort Pierce had a Christmas Boat parade and they boasted that it was going to be magnificent since it was the 25th anniversary of the parade. We had plans to go park by the water and BBQ some hot dogs for the boys there while waiting. Well, we arrived by the water just before it was time to start. We had taken a wrong turn. Had to wait for a long train to cross the road. And couldn't find parking anywhere near the water due to it being so crowded with people. When we did find a parking spot we ran to the water without our food or chairs. We found a nice place to sit, but the boys missed dinner and were hungry and were therefore grumpy. The boats were far from shore. Too far to entertain little kids. There were about 3 really awesome boats that kept their attention, but we ended up leaving early. There was a restaurant next to us releasing lit floating lanterns and the boys seemed to enjoy that more than the lit up boats. We ended up going home and roasting our hotdogs. I believe I've had my fill of boat parades, they just don't live up to my expectations.

Anther tradition we have is we have a scout elf from the North Pole come and watch the boys during the month of December. Our elf's name is Benji and he's been coming since the Christmas that Levi was 1 year old. He moves around every night and the boys loved to wake up in the mornings and find him and see what he was up to in the night.

Benji  had a snowball fight with Mr Potato Head and Jake.

Another tradition we have is our fancy Christmas dinner is Mexican dish. Adrian planed and prepared this dish. This year we had carne asada tacos.  The meat was very good and the tacos were delicious. We made a tres leches cake to go with it. I wanted to start the tradition of having a birthday cake for Jesus and singing happy birthday to him as we cut the cake. But, I cut the cake and we ate our pieces before I remembered I wanted to sing and put and candle in it. Oh, well. We left a piece of cake out for Santa too.

Our new ward had a Christmas Pancake Breakfast Party we attended. The food was delicious and we got to mingle and meet our new ward members. They had the children sing a few Christmas songs for us. Levi is in the very front and was very happy to ring his bell during the Christmas Bells song.

At the end Santa came for a visit. When Santa walked through the door Malachi was so excited. We have never taken the boys to see Santa and sit on his lap before. Levi did pick up on the fact this year that there is a Santa at the mall and other ones in other places. We finally told him these are Santa's helpers and the real Santa is at the North Pole getting ready for Christmas. Levi sat on Santa's lap. Malachi would not, he ran away. 

We put Levi in soccer lessons. Once a week for 6 weeks. It was good for Levi to be with other kids and learn to interact with them. But, they were all 4 years old and there was a lot of goofing off and playing around. Levi seemed to get tired at the end of every lesson. The last 15 minutes of every lesson he would always just sit by me. After our ward Christmas party was his last practice. He got a trophy for participating and was really happy about that.

Here's Levi ready for church Christmas Sunday.

Christmas morning the boys woke up at their usual time. Malachi woke up 10 minutes before Levi and came in our room as usual and laid on our floor and asked for his milk. All the norm stuff he does every day totally oblivious that it was Christmas and there were new presents for him under the tree. Adrian and I chuckled at the fact that he had no clue it was Christmas. Once Levi got up he immediately went to the tree and hollered for Malachi to come. Levi knows how to spell his name and he picked out his gifts and eagerly opened them. Levi also gave Malachi his gifts because he knows Malachi's name starts with an "M". 

A tradition we have is letting the boys buy gifts for each other. They are still young and don't quite get the concept of picking something out for someone else. It seems every year we go to the store and they pick something out they want for themselves. This year was no different. They both picked out 3 new train cars. We took them home and wrapped them and put them under the tree. It was a really hard week for the boys not to open them, in fact Malachi did open his once and we had the rewrap them. On Christmas morning those trains were the first gift they both opened, probably because they knew what it was and had been waiting so long to open them.

They each got a motorized engine for their trains, along with some new train tracks. 

Here you can see the new tracks, new train engines and cars, new monster trucks, new grabber claws and Levi's new swim shirt. 

They also got a marble track which provides lots of fun each day.

The boys loved all their gifts. They fought quite a bit all day. I'm not sure if was the sugar in the candy or that they couldn't share anything, but there was quite a bit of tantrums all day.

After they opened their gifts and played with them, Adrian and I surprised them by telling them we got them a trampoline.  The box for it sat in the living room for a week so we had to tell them it was from us and not Santa. They had asked Santa for a trampoline. When Levi got up Christmas morning he looked out the front door and asked where his trampoline was. Adrian and I were not ambitious enough to put it together the night before in the dark being feasted on by mosquitoes, so we put it together Christmas morning. They love it!!!