Christmas Part 1

Ward Christmas party. Everyone danced this year. It was a good time.

The only good thing about our layover in Chicago: being the sole travelers continuing on to the next destination and having the Crew invite us to check out the cockpit. The pilot even offered to take our picture.

Ok, no one is looking in the picture, but I took a quick one to get the idea of what Christmas with the Vellinga's is like. And there's another table behind me, not pictured. And I don't even know where are the little kids were during all this.

The three newest additions. Sophie, Jackson, and Jane.

I tried, but it ain't easy getting a good one of all of them. I had like 4 people singing and dancing behind me while I tried to take their picture.
And play time around the house.
I could pretty much always count on finding Crew in the treehouse. It was his favorite spot!

Highlights from the trip:

Staying up late pretty much every night - just talking and catching up, cafe rio, temple square and chuckarama, boys fishing trip/movie night, girls shopping trip/lunch, family giftcard exchange, ogden treehouse. But most of all, we just enjoyed seeing our family and being together.

Happy Birthday Dad

Bocce Ball

Look at those toofers! Her top two teeth are huge, and there is a big gap between them.

Gave Crew some chocolate today. . .

Gingerbread Houses

I have really been in the baking spirit this holiday. . . printing recipes left and right, and just waiting for the opportunity to make them for some event or gathering. I had been wanting to make gingerbread houses this year. So when our friends invited us over, it was the perfect opportunity. I spent one night rolling and baking the pieces. Then let them sit out for a day or two to really harden. Then the day of decoration came. Henry was really into it. He had just been telling me all about building houses, and really knows his stuff.

Crew was happy because his face was stuffed with candy the whole time. He let Ryan do most of the work, while he took care of the candy. Parent fail: When we visit other people's house its nearly impossible to get Crew to eat anything because he is too overwhelmed with so many new toys. This particular day I just decided we would feed him on the way home, or when we got home so I could enjoy my dinner and avoid force feeding a resistant 2 year old. I wasn't really paying attention, or realizing what was going on, while he ate LOADS and LOADS of candy during gingerbread house construction and then wouldn't eat much real food later. I layed in bed pondering my decisions of the evening.

Finished product! Cute cute kids!

And, I had been craving sugar cookies, and found this cute idea on pinterest. Printed it out and waited. . . and the perfect opportunity to make them just came my way, so I had to. Aren't they so cute?! Melted snowmen!

Live Nativity & Trains

This year I had a few Christmas activities that I really wanted to do, so we squeezed them in one evening as our FHE activity. We went to see a train display in a nearby town. It was pretty big, with lots of trains - I was even surprised by how long some of them were. It was fun to see, but kind of hard for Crew to stay behind the crowd rail and not run up and grab the trains. . . so we weren't there very long :)

That same night we went to a live drive through nativity that was done at a local church. Right when we drove up, there was this crazy guy dressed up like a scientist that told us he was going to take us back in time to Bethlehem. He was very loud, and came right up to the window, so Crew didn't quite know what to expect. I HAD to get a picture of his face - we had his window rolled down.

Here is the crazy mad scientist. Man, this guy really got into character! It made it fun. Then we drove though this tunnel that had a projector with an image twirling in front of us, so it looked like we were being transported to Bethlehem.
I didn't get any other shots of the Roman soldiers guarding the gates, the nice inn keeper who told us there was no room, the shepards with the angel, the wise men following the star, or the actual scene with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus - and a cute little girl dressed up as a lamb who kept waving and smiling at Crew. But I caught my kids riding through, looking at all the people who came right up to our window to chat with us.
This is when we were still in the time machine.
At the end, they even brought free hot chocolate to our window!

Videos

Jared Comes to Town

It was so much fun having Jared come visit us for a week during Thanksgiving. We got do to lots of fun stuff, and had plenty of down time as well . When Jane woke up from her nap and she saw Jared for the first time she went right to him and was all snuggly. It was pretty cute.

We had been telling Crew about Jared's visit for a few days, so by the time he was actually here, crew was READY for him to be here. Note to self: don't tell 2 year old about something that isn't going to happen for a whole week. He still doesn't grasp the concept of weeks and days yet. He still says that everything happened "last night".

In the city we rented bikes for 2 hours and rode all the way around central park. This was our second attempt at this. We tried to do it when Crew was around 9 months old, and didn't get very far. This time both the kids LOVED it. It was PERFECT weather that day.

Look at the colors on that tree. Its like a rainbow - so pretty!

Stopped at a park about halfway around to let the kids out to run and play. They were happy.

We went to the museum of natural history that day. It was so cool. All of the fossils were real! Definitely could have spent more time there if it hadn't been such a long day already. We were pretty tired by the end, so we didn't even go to all the different floors - and we still had one more stop to make.

Uncle Jar spoiled Crew and they shared an ice cream cone together.

We also hit up Grimaldis Pizza under the Brooklyn bridge on the way back to Long Island. It made for a late night, but it was totally worth it. The boys got to go into the city one other evening while Jared was here and see Rockafeller center and do some other stuff. We loved having Jared here, it made us very reminiscent of the time he spent with us - and made us extra excited to spend time with our families in December!