December Festivities

We love the days leading up to Christmas. They always go quickly (at least for the parents-- maybe not for the kids). We had a Christmas advent activity each day of December, and the boys loved finding a note in their advent tree saying what we'd do each day. The pictures might be out of order, but here are some pictures up until Christmas!

Just curling up with a good book. (T,E)

Cute sleeping Collin. 5 years old and we still go in his room to check on his breathing every night (along with the other boys). Will it ever stop? No. (I don't think so).

Christmas build and grow! This was Truman and Elliott's first time going and they loved it. (T,C,E)

Gingerbread house day is always an exciting one!

Truman really got into the decorating this year.

Collin's masterpiece

And Elliott. . . he had other creative ideas for his house and what to do with the candy.

Three cuties

Love sunny December days that are warm enough to play outside after Play to Learn! (T,E)

I love how they are always side by side.

Melted heart. My twins are so precious! (E,T)

Panned out to a full bed that's extremely hard to get out of sometimes! Also, the twins look so identical in this picture! I mean, they are identical. . . but they don't usually look that way!

"Fridgey the snowman." The whole day we decorated this, the boys sang that, except it wasn't the Frosty song. It was to the tune of "Do as I'm Doing." (Fridgey the snowman! Fridgey fridgey fridge." The pipe and red flower were additions that Collin had woken up early one morning and added himself.

Usually I'll turn on a show in the mornings for the big boys when I take a quick shower, knowing they'll be mesmerized. But this day, when I stepped out of the shower, I smelled popcorn.  Apparently someone had popcorn on their show, so they decided to make some. I was kind of impressed that they found the air popper and lid, a bowl, and popped the right amount of kernels (and we definitely found a safer place to keep appliances after that!). 

We attended a fun little tree lighting event at a local shopping center. This was one of the decorations, and Collin gets excited whenever he sees nutcrackers, so we had to get a picture!

Elliott was all smiles during the tree lighting.

Elliott and Bennett twinning

Grinch day! We made little grinch kebabs, read the book, and watched the movie.

Reading the Grinch next to the tree. That little tree lasted us 7 years, but this was the last. Too many lights were burned out by Christmas. Maybe we'll finally get a real tree next year!

We went bowling as a family for the first time! We went with the Tacoma Executives Association which Rob is involved in. The boys had a great time! They'd just kind of roll the ball slowly, but were so excited about every pin that got knocked down! Truman would roll his ball, then lie down while he waited for it to reach the end!

Rob was pretty impressive with his one handed baby holding bowling skills. Well, the rest of us weren't exactly stiff competition, so he probably needed a little disadvantage :)

E and T's favorite part was watching for the ball to come back. And no, they didn't get hit in the face with any!

Elliott was the most enthusiastic! He celebrated every turn.

Bowler Collin

Matchy family

Getting artsy with those bowling shoes. . . but Elliott is just so adorable!

This smile makes us so happy!

And another

. . . and another of this precious Bennett at 4 months! We can't get over what a sweet and happy baby he is! (He's a pretty big fan of his feet).

We didn't take any other pictures, but got this from the gala we attended put on by a law firm Rob works with. This year, it was at the LeMay Car Museum and it was fun to check out the old cars and eat all the fancy food!

Have I bragged about my puzzle genius Collin lately? No? Okay. I found a 300 piece puzzle that I thought we could do as a family at Christmas time and he could help with. He just couldn't wait and got into it one day. And that's what he did. . . pretty much all day. I did sit and work on it with him for just a little while, but for the most part he did it on his own. 

Took this picture when Collin came home from preschool one day with one candy cane. He went right to the table and broke it in three to share with his brothers. I love him.

Trying to let Collin impart his puzzle talent upon his little brothers.

Sleeping baby

Ugly sweater party at the Ottos! Rob won ugliest sweater (believe it or not).

When you drive by Krispy Kreme and the "hot now" light is actually on, you just have to stop and watch the doughnuts being made!

Elliott

Sweet Bennett in his Christmas suit

We love sugar cookie day!

We felt so loved this Christmas. We found a small Christmas tree decoration that someone left on our doorstep one night, and each day of the "12 Days of Christmas" they dropped off a song and an ornament to put on it. And one night, we found another surprise-- a gift bag full of fun stuff. Cookies with frosting and candy for the kids to decorate, a NOEL banner craft to make, and a movie night Redbox code with hot cocoa and popcorn. We still don't know who did any of that for us, but it made our Christmas special, especially being new in town. These kids sure love surprises on the doorstep!

And a picture from a Christmas party Rob's cousin put on. A couple other December activities we must not have gotten pictures of were seeing the Fantasy Lights in Spanaway (an awesome drive through light display!) a Polar Express day where we read the book and watched the movie while drinking hot chocolate, and of course our daily chocolate advent calendars. We love Christmas time!