The Tree Christmas Morning before the kids got to it!
This is what happens when you stay awake majority of the night waiting for Santa. You fall asleep in your lunch, and so give up and go to bed for the evening.
Our Christmas Eve started with a dinner of Santa Pancakes, Bacon, Sausage, Egg Nog, & Chocolate Milk
The kids love to decorate their snowman with whipped cream.
After dinner the kids opened the new pajamas, took their showers and got ready for bed. We then read the Polar Express, Watch A King Is Born, & Read from the Scriptures the Birth of our Savior. We put the kids in bed at 7:30 knowing it would be a late night as they would have problems falling asleep. The three little ones were all asleep by 10pm but Vincent was up pretty much all night long. It made Santa's job HARD!
We got together with the Hunter's and had a BBQ and then made gingerbread houses with graham crackers, frosting, candy, more frosting, and even more candy.
Addison's House
Little Ben's Shrine to Candy. Just like decorating cookies. He had layer upon layer of of frosting and candy. It was hard not to laugh when the roof came tumbling in with the weight of his candy. He was crushed.
Eating the frosting and candy was just as much fun and putting them on the houses.
As they do every year our nursery kids dress up as the nativity and walk through all the rest of the organizations. Eliza as the oldest little girl was Mary this year. Her friend Ethan was Joseph and in her own words his job was to take care of her. Abagail Clift and Brynna Hunter were the angels, and not in this picture Seth McBride was the shepherd. They were cute as always!
Wrestling Sounded like a good activity to pass the time waiting for the parade to start.
Ethan, John, & Eliza
Little Ben
Erik, Vincent, & Addison
Vincent
Nicholas
Little Miss Brynna
We went to the Porterville Christmas Parade with the Hunter's and Vincent's friend Erik also came along for the ride. This years theme was the Whooville, Grinchmas. So the floats were sure cute this year and we saw the Grinch a lot. We had a lot of fun as a large group yelling out the name of people we knew in the parade and waving at them. Megan was such a good mom and friend. She brought hot chocolate and licorice strings. The kids were all in heaven!
We only had one situation that upset us, was we went an hour before it started to make sure we could get good seating for our large group. We found it and had a lady come with her two grand kids and plop herself right at the top corner of our blanket, and the proceeded to start smoking like crazy. As fast as she would finish one she would light up again. I have an asthmatic and so does Megan and so they both started having difficulties breathing. I understand we are outside in a public place, but show some consideration when you are packed on the sides of the street like that. Megan finally asked her to put it out telling her we had small children and two of them were asthmatic, to which she did, but then promptly stood up with her grand kids and stood right in front of our group. ARGH!
At the kids school they do Pillars of Characters or AKA Character Counts. Each month they focus on one of the Pillars and then each teacher on campus picks a few children from their class that they feel reflects that pillar and tells why and then the staff picks one child per class to get the award. The goal is by the time they finish 6th grade they have been recognized in one of the six pillars. Vincent was recognized in 1st Grade and got the Pillar of Trustworthiness. Addison got the award last year in the Pillar of Caring. I was a bit surprised when I got an enveloped note home from his teacher on Monday letting me know that they would be having the character counts assembly this Friday and Addison was getting an award. (The kids are not told ahead of time so it is a surprise to them) I asked another teacher if Addison could be getting a second one and she told me it is possible and he would have had to been voted on to get it, but they do try to keep it at one award for each child. I went to the assembly this morning and for the first time they had 3 grades in there so they did the video of all the recipients and then recognized each of the kids with a certificate and a pencil with their pillar on it. Since it wasn't just his grade level each teacher didn't get to take the time to explain why each child had been chosen for that award. I was so proud of Addison for getting it twice. When it was over I headed home. About a half hour after I got home the Assistant Principle called and told me that I left before he could talk to me, could I please come back up to the school he needed to talk to me. I figured it had something to do with Vincent since he is over Vincent's case at school. I went back over to the school and met with the Assistant Principle and he walked me and Eliza right to Addison's class. Following us was the School Psychologist and Principle. His teacher then got up front and said she wanted to explain why Addison had received the award he did. One day during class while his teacher was teaching Addison got out of his seat and started walking to the other side of the classroom. She started to get after him and she said the words just didn't come out. Addison then grabbed a chair from the computer and sat down next to a little boy in the class who was crying and without saying a word just put his arm around him. Not a single word was ever spoken by Addison or this little boy, but his teacher said she had a hard time continuing to teach after that. For you see this little boy in Addison's class is being raised along with his little sister by a single father who was called up to active duty a little over a month ago. There is no family near by so members of his congregation at church have been helping to take care of him and his little sister while his dad serves his country in Afghanistan. He has been having a very hard time. The school psychologist just happen to be in the class observing this little boy the day Addison did that. Addison was then recognized by the Principle and Assistant Principle and given the Bear Country Citizenship Award. Of course bad mom me had not a clue that was why I was going back to the school so didn't take my camera so have no pictures from his class, but I am so proud of my son! Addison is my challenge in life, but in so many ways is my most observant of others. Way to go Addison!
