Perfect Christmas picture

This is a perfect Christmas picture. You can see the tree, a clean house,a My First Christmas book, a sleeping child, and Charlie Brown Christmas on the television.

Gingerbread house

My mom would spend at least one whole day making a beautiful gingerbread house with all of her children. I have wonderful memories of this tradition. After making my first one I decided that making a gingerbread house is not something I enjoy. It takes so much time, the kids make it so messy and I want the house to look nice when we are done. Last year I bought a kit for $9.99 from Target and let Kris do it with the kids. A new tradition was born. Kris does a great job letting the kids help him and after $10 and 1 hour we are done. A few weeks later it goes into the trash and everyone is happy.

Oreos

I bought Oreos for a new recipe I wanted to try, the bag had a fancy new easy open top. I was excited about the new package until Zach found the package and also found it very easy to open. I think he ate most of the bag. He would climb the pantry to get to them first thing in the morning because nothing is better than Oreos for breakfast.

Kennedy the Lamb

Kennedy's preschool had a Christmas program for the parents and because Kennedy was the smallest she got to be the lamb. She just stood in front of Mary and baby Jesus most of the time with a frown on her face. Kennedy is so social and loud but when she has to be in front of everyone you would never know she has any personality at all. She does this with the primary at church, I don't think she has smiled or tried to sing yet.

Pancakes

I found these really cute pancake molds from Williams-Sonoma and was so excited to use them. It started snowing one morning so I decided to be a great mom and use them for breakfast. The reindeer would never work, the snowflake and gingerbread man took 3 tries, by the time I served breakfast the kids were crying and I might have been swearing at the stupid pancake molds. I really don't think this turned out to be as fun as I thought it would be.

Gingerbread and Letters to Santa

We tried to do several fun holiday activites with the kids and one evening we tried making Gingerbread men and women and writing letters to Santa. We actually had a pretty good time together and Savannah was in great mood and tried to join in with the family.

Holiday Pictures

I think that holiday pictures are so stressful and my children are always grumpy, wild, screaming, or just won't look at the camera! This was our first try and Savannah would not even think of sitting still for the pictures.