Holidays

Hope your holidays were as blissful as ours. We spent the first part of our month getting the house all Christmas-ey and enjoying the church and school parties and programs. Then on the 21st we made the trek down to Arizona for our always anticipated holiday family time. We love this time of year with it's traditions, good food, family memories, and focus on the Savior. Here's a little recap of our month:

When it comes to decorations, we can't get our tree and lights up soon enough. As soon as the last pumpkin is out the door, haul out the holly folks! It is the only holiday I really go all out for. And this year was even more fun because the girls were so excited to "help" put everything up. Arden loves surprises and every box of ornaments or decor was something for her to open.

We love the classic tradition of decorating gingerbread houses. This year we decided to use graham crackers just to make it a little more toddler-friendly. Suzy pretty much took it as an opportunity to get completely hopped up on sugar. Arden got really into the craftiness of it all.
On the 17th, Arden had her preschool program. They had a pajama party to start off the day and then performed some Christmas songs and poems for the parents. Arden did awesome singing and performing, huge improvement from the Halloween fiasco. Now we just need to work on her not talking loudly to the audience members during the performance about how they have on the same p.j.'s as her or how they shouldn't be singing because its her turn to perform. Minor details for someone with her potential for the fine arts.

This is her sneaky, hiding-the-bells face. Can you sense the anticipation?And bammo!- huge finish. The long-awaited bells. I just love her. More Christmas fun to come . . .