Christmas Activities

Omer Christmas Dinner:  Instead of having our get together on Christmas Eve, we had it the Sunday before on the 21st.  It was up in Kaysville and there were a lot of people there.  Scott had to work, but he was able to head over afterwards in time for dessert and the gift exchange.  We had a ham dinner and we didn't start eating until an hour after it should have, so it got hard to keep Kylie happy as she was hungry.  It was fun to see Kylie actually start interacting and playing with Marley.  In the past, she would just run up to her and then turn away, but this time they were chasing each other around the house.  After dinner and dessert, we went downstairs and first had a short musical program.  After the music, we dived into the white elephant presents. There were some fun ones passed around and we didn't end up awful like last time.  We came away with hand warmers, silly string and these foam rockets.  Since there's so many people, it became a late night and Kylie got restless and fussy, but it was still wonderful to see my family. I do look forward to it every year.

Christmas Eve:  We didn't do much during the day except get ready for a dinner with my family that night.  I was in charge of making the funeral potatoes and a dessert.  When we went shopping the day before, Wal-Mart was completely out of frozen hash browns and no way was I going to grate up real ones.  Scott suggested using tater tots and smashing them up.  It actually worked out deliciously!  I also only had a little bit of bread crumbs, so I combined them with ground up Ritz crackers and it worked out great!  I also made these super yummy Oreo White Chocolate Pudding Peppermint Cookies.  I saw them and said that I am making these no matter what and I am glad that I did.  Everyone loved them, including Scott who isn't so into treats.  We took some cookies and passed them around to our neighbors.  I hoped they enjoyed them as well.  Dinner was yummy and we did a little program after.  We played a few songs with these bells my mom has and then we read some scriptures about the Nativity.  We then tried to sing Christmas songs, but no one was really that into it.  We just wanted to hear Grandma Omer play them instead.  My mom gave us a few Christmas Eve gifts and then we headed home since Scott had to work early the next morning.  Before dinner, we exchanged our own Christmas Eve gifts to each other.  This year, everyone received pajamas.  The Christmas Eve gift doesn't always have to be pajamas, but it does have to be something related to sleep (new pillows, bed, sheets, etc.). Kylie got Rapunzel ones and she loves them.

Christmas Day: Scott and I didn't sleep very well, so we were able to open stockings together before he went to work. I am so glad that he worked the morning shift, but it did make the day feel like a normal day and not like Christmas.  I had planned on making a special breakfast, but ended up just giving Kylie some banana bread from visiting teachers the night before (good timing!), yogurt and grapes.  When Kylie went down for a nap, I just watched TV until she woke back up.  We had lunch and then Scott came home from work.  The first present we showed her was the kitchen and play room downstairs.  She wasn't super interested in it until we started opening doors and showing her what the kitchen had.  After that, she loved playing with it the rest of the day.  We took the poor girl away to open some more presents and she wasn't very interested in unwrapping any of them.  Kylie did love each present when we unwrapped it for her.  Around 2pm my family showed up and Brianna and Kyle opened their presents from dad.  About half an hour later, mom, Aaron and Mike showed up.  From everyone, Kylie came away with a nice Frozen stash.  She loved every single Frozen thing she received.  Things were pretty chill after that.  Everyone was gone by 6:30-7:00 and I was glad as we still had to pack!  We spent the rest of the night getting everything ready for our trip.  Christmas was wonderful and we received so many wonderful gifts are are grateful for all of them.  The Christmas holiday is one of my favorites.

Her Frozen stash. Missing is an ornament and a blanket.

Christmas Eve Musings

It's Christmas Eve and we just got back from having dinner at my grandma's house with my family.  We had a delicious ham and potato dinner (along with salad, rolls and vegetables).  After dinner my mom had us play a few songs with these bells and then we sort-of sang Christmas songs.  We read scriptures, had dessert (we brought pumpkin pie and I made Oreo Peppermint Cookies) and my mom gave us a few gifts.  It was a nice evening.  Before we left, we opened up our Christmas Eve gift and we all got new pajamas.  I'll make sure to get a picture of all of us in them tomorrow.

I had this post written up a few days ago, but then never got around to publishing it.  So, I will publish it now as it's as good of a day as any.  Christmas is tomorrow and it should be a lot of fun!  Scott works in the morning,but I'll be making a fun breakfast and start packing (since we're leaving for California the next day!) while we wait for him to get home.  Then we'll open presents and my family will come over to where I'm sure we'll play games and watch movies.  Anyways, back to the original post.

Kylie continually shows interest in cleaning and helping with the chores around the house.  She still loves to help me in doing laundry and will now put the clothes from the washer into the dryer and put the clothes from the dryer into the hamper.  She's not as helpful in folding and putting clothes away, though.  I might make that her main chore around the house when she's older as that's the worst part about doing laundry and I'd rather not do it (evil laugh).  Kylie also enjoys sweeping and actually went to the pantry to grab the broom after she saw a mess on the floor from eating.  She'll also help me empty the dishwasher, but only the utensils.

We bought raspberries the other day and Scott started putting them on Kylie's fingers, like you can do with olives.  Kylie had fun trying to figure out what was on her finger and then eating it.

I made a list of Christmas goodies that I wanted to make during the Christmas season.  I have 3 checked off and I'm hoping to check off at least 2 more.  One of the goodies was sugar cookies.  I have a recipe that I used when I was teaching that I love and makes the softest cookies.  I made the dough, rolled it out and put Kylie up on the counter with me to help cut out some shapes.  Instead of pressing the cookie cutter into the dough, she would just drag it through the dough.  After a little bit, she picked up some dough and ate it.  She immediately went back for more and more and more.  I finally had to put her down and she got super upset at me.  I gave her some real food instead, but it was cute to see how much she loved the cookie dough.  This girl has a sweet tooth just like her mom.  I had her wear one of my old aprons from college, but I'm thinking I might sew her one here sometime soon (especially since she just got a super fun play kitchen).  Kylie enjoyed eating the cookies the next day with her cousins.

Actually, speaking of Christmas goodies, I think I've finally figured out this one recipe that haunts me every year.  I wrote a post about it back in 2011 and I've been trying to figure out the recipe since.  Even though it's not an amazing recipe, it's just bugged me that I couldn't figure it out.  The brownies would always, always stick to the bottom of the pan no matter how much I greased it.  I also never did the ganache or crushed peppermint on top.  This year, I bought mini cupcake liners and used that along with greasing the inside of those.  I figured out the baking time (1-2 minutes less than the recipe calls for) and with the chocolate and peppermint on top, they were delicious!!  I even felt confident enough to send some to work with Scott.  It's funny how a recipe turning out can make me so happy.

Christmas Lights

On the 19th of December, I planned for us to drive around and look at Christmas lights.  We stopped at one house that coordinates the lights with music and then drove Christmas Street (which is smaller than I thought it would be).  We played Pentatonix's new Christmas CD while driving around.  When we got home after Kylie went to bed, we watched Elf and I had some hot chocolate.  It was a very Christmas-y night.

The house that coordinated music with the lights. It was pretty good!

Dancing to the music.

 Christmas Street is a street in Taylorsville that has the 'twas the night before Christmas story.  It's not the whole story, but it's pretty cool to see this cul-de-sac do this for years.  Some houses get super decked out which is fun to see.  It was crowded when we went and we had to go through a second time so I could get better pictures of some of the signs.