Random December fun!

The girls love this cute little wooden nativity set I got when Sarah was a baby at Deseret Book on clearance for $7. It has everything - wise men, an angel, a shepherd, Mary, Joseph and of course baby Jesus. The weird thing is that it has quite an assortment of animals, but no sheep for the shepherd. Perhaps the reason it was on clearance. No matter, the girls don't notice and love to play with these. It's the first thing Sarah asks for when the Christmas boxes come out of the attic.

Bobolito Bear on the preschool field trip to the airport. More on Bobolito below...

I have done this field trip to the Hillsboro airport with all three of my girls. It is a favorite, for sure. We love the guy who takes us on the tour - he always makes it so fun.

Kayelynn and I did preschool the first week of December. The lesson was on transportation. This pretend airplane was a HUGE hit. The kids played along and had a great time putting on their seatbelts, getting pretend snacks, looking out the windows at the clouds and reading books during the flight! They even had tickets and had to find their seat numbers. Very cute. Julie and Kim have the cutest preschool lessons.

One night we had Mark and Michelle over for dinner. We enjoyed chili, Christmas singing and dancing - provided by the kids with some lovely piano accompaniment and while the dads were up playing Barbies with the little girls, they made the discovery that Prince Phillip looks just like one of their co-workers. If anyone is interested, apparently this is an exact replica of Kevin and he is single, ladies. (o: Although, I'm not sure if the real life version wears a red cape.

The first part of December, Angela was honored with a visit from Bobolito, the preschool "pet". All the kids adore this little friend and can't wait for their turn. Angela took good care of Bobolito and loved feeding him, sleeping with him and bringing him on our field trip to the airport (as seen above).

Natalie is always creating something with tape, scissors, glue, markers, stickers, bananas?? Whatever she can get her hands on. I love this banana butterfly. (o: Very creative.

What a couple of nuts!

O Christmas Tree

Every year, our family heads to Helvetia Tree Farm to cut down our Christmas tree. I think we've gone there for 7 years now. This year we sprayed our tree with some Raid to avoid the problem we had last year. A spider egg hatched somewhere near the top of the tree and all of December we had darling little spiders gracing our ceiling (and probably other places too). Every day I would have to vacuum the little friends that I could find. Yuck. This year we were happily critter free. (I heard a story this last week about someone who had a BAT in their tree!!!! I don't think even Raid would help with that!) We had some issues getting the tree to stand straight in the stand and then several strands of lights went out that had to be replaced. It was such a pain this year that we nearly vowed to buy artificial next year, but I'm sure we'll have amnesia and get caught up in the Christmas spirit and go through it all again.

Here are some pictures of the decorating process - much more fun than the 'getting-it-in-the-stand-and-lights-on-it' part.

These glass-looking ornaments are actually plastic! The coolest idea ever - pretty, but unbreakable. Much safer for little hands. We love these!