Flashback Friday - Advent December 2016

December 1st: Matching Christmas Pajamas.

December 2nd: Make Christmas Cookies. We made Mel's S'mores Kiss Blossom Cookies except with peppermint kisses and a drizzle of chocolate on top. 

December 3rd: Pick out Christmas Ornaments. I took Corbyn and Peyton and Rog stayed home with Logan while he napped. It was quite the adventure because I almost lost my phone. Corbyn picked Iron Man, Peyton picked Elsa and Anna, and we picked Buzz for Logan.

December 4th: Watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. It took me 3 tries, but I finally made us an acceptable batch of Kettle Corn to eat while we watched.

December 5th: Write Letters to Santa. I didn't want to go through all the effort of writing a reply from Santa and all that, so I didn't put stamps on them. 

December 6th: Donuts at Krispy Kreme. We tried to go see the Winter Wonderland lights, but when we got there we learned it was Lights and Leashes Night. This was our last ditch attempt to save the night, but it was so fun, it's become a yearly tradition!

December 7th: Christmas Play-doh.

December 8th: Decorate Gingerbread Cookies.

December 9th: Ward Christmas Party. Jake Egbert took these beautiful photos.

December 10th: Go to a Christmas Pajama Party. We got to go on a date while the Yates took the kids to a party at the Sullivans' house. I also hosted a Cookie Exchange for my RS Craft/Cooking Group earlier in the day.

December 11th: Open and Read a New Christmas Book. This year's book was The Mismatched Nativity. 

December 12th: Christmas Perler Beads. Peyton made a penguin, Corbyn made a snowman, and Logan made a mess!

December 13th: Watch a Christmas Movie. We watched Mickey's Magical Christmas.

December 14th: Make Neighbor Gifts. We made Our Best Bites' Garlic Bread Seasoning. I didn't buy enough garlic powder and we had to venture out in a crazy snowstorm to get more.

December 15th: Deliver Neighbor Gifts. We braved the icy roads in Rog's Subaru to get this done.

December 16th: Volunteer at the Holiday Village. This didn't turn out as we expected because they had more volunteers than they needed. The kids had fun and got to meet a very authentic Santa though.

December 17th: Winter Wonderland Lights (for real this time).

December 18th: Stained Glass Nativities. The kids and I were supposed to fly to Colorado, but our flight got cancelled and rescheduled for days later.

December 19th: Play Don't Eat the Reindeer.

December 20th: See Moana at the theater.

December 21st: Fly to Colorado (finally).

December 22nd: Take Pictures for Grandma Lori's Christmas Surprise.

December 23rd: Pick our Family Ornament at St. Nick's. It was slim pickings by the time we got there, but these bees are pretty cute!

December 24th: Read the Christmas Story in Luke and Sing Happy Birthday to Christ. Mel's Chocolate Cake and Cookie Dough Frosting make this tradition extra delicious!

A lot of our plans didn't turn out exactly as we expected, but we had a lot of fun nonetheless.

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Rog's birthday fell on a Friday this year. We sent the big kids off to school and then Logan and I took him to breakfast at Biscuits Cafe.

For dinner we went to Five Guys.

When we got home he opened his birthday presents. He got the games Cover Your Assets and Five Crowns (want), an air vent phone mount (need), running shorts and running tights (wear), and Lord of the Rings (read).

Then we had some friends (Yates, Martyns, and Kevan Willes) over for cake and ice cream.

He wanted a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, so that's what he got!

We were busy Saturday morning and Sunday morning we were fasting, so I made him cinnamon rolls for our FHE treat.

For our date night swap that next weekend we went to see The Greatest Showman for his birthday date. We had been dying to see it since it came out on December 20th and were glad to finally know what all the fuss was about. We definitely were not disappointed.

My Rog does so much to make life wonderful for me, the kids, and basically everyone he knows, so it's nice to be able to celebrate him once a year. We like to make a big deal of birthdays at our house and I think he's come to enjoy that.

Homemade Gifts 2017

I didn't make a lot of homemade gifts for Christmas this year, but I did make a few. 

I made 15 of these Christmas Burlap Bags from my Super Saturday activity for my family gift. I put a cinnamon pinecone in each one.

I made trees bags for all the ones I was giving away, but I made a few bags for our decorations while I was at it and did one snowflake to go with my trees.

I wrapped them in these cute bags that were 33 cents from Walmart and made personalized tags from Our Best Bites.

The only other homemade gift I made was a Five Little Monkeys finger puppet set for Jared and Cailey's daughter, Madison (and all their future kids). I hand sewed the monkeys and the crocodile on my many flights on my Italy/Greece trip and then I sewed a quick drawstring bag to put them in when I got home. I have now made this set for all of our siblings other than Marti. When she gets married and has kids, I'll make a set for her and then I'll retire from the monkey finger puppet business! 😂 The template is no longer available online, so when I made this set I had to trace the set we have to make my own template.

I need to go back and blog about January and February 2017, but other than those months, I think this is the end of 2017 posts! 

Colorado After Christmas

After arriving in Colorado on Christmas Day, we spent the next week there splitting time between the Riries and the Phillips. It wasn't near as convenient as when our parents lived a block away from each other, but it worked well enough.

Dixie had our yearly ornament from St. Nick's waiting for us. Last year we learned you can't wait or you end up with very slim pickings!

Unfortunately the mattress in our bedroom at my parent's house was not good. I can sleep almost anywhere, but Rog always ended up moving down to the couch in the basement at some point in the night. That meant I had a spot open in bed with me for visitors.

The swings in my parent's backyard were always popular with the kids - even in the snow.

The day after Christmas we got together with all the Phillips who were in Colorado. Rog took the older two to a pool with most of the cousins while I stayed back to let Logan take a nap. As far as I know, no one took any pictures, but everyone had a good time. After swimming we had dinner and then did the cousin gift exchange. We FaceTimed with Taylor and McKae who were in Utah and it was madness as all the kids opened their gifts at the same time. Logan got a Jake stuffed animal, Peyton got a Shopkins game, and Corbyn got a Splatoon Blaster. He fell asleep on the way back to my parent's house with his goggles on. 😂

On the way home, we stopped at Hallmark right before they closed to get a couple ornaments at half price. I picked out this Santa Ice Cream Truck for Logan's ornament for the year. 

And Rog got this Aladdin ornament to go with a Genie ornament he got last year (or maybe a couple years ago).

All the Phillips except for us have dogs and I had failed to take allergy medicine in preparation for our visit, so the next morning I stayed back while Rog took the kids to Rex and Edda's house. Logan loved playing on Edda's pianos (she teaches piano out of her house and has a few) and it was driving everyone a little crazy until they realized they could give him headphones that made it so he could hear his music, but no one else could. Technology for the win!

That night we had dinner at Sweet Tomatoes with the whole Ririe crew. The kids had a competition to see who could eat the most plates of food which totally took me back to when I used to do that anytime we went to Chuck-a-Rama or Home Town Buffet with my Ririe cousins.

We did a white elephant gift exchange and our sibling gift exchange after dinner. Diana and Jason got us these shirts which were too perfect.

The next day we went to Jumpoline Family Fun Center with Diana and her kids.

Even the adults got in on the fun!

That night we met Mike and Dixie for dinner at the Denver Biscuit Company. We finally got to try their Giant Biscuit Cinnamon Roll which was good, but didn't live up to the hype for us.

The next morning we did a session at the Denver Temple with my dad and Jared and Cailey while Grandma watched the kids.

That night we had pizza for dinner along with lots of crazy cousin play time.

Peyton enjoyed holding little Madison any chance she could get.

Rog and Jason had been trying to arrange a time to take Corbyn and Blake to see the latest Star Wars movie and finally were able to make it happen Saturday morning. 

While they were at the movie, we watched Leap! at Diana's house and had a dance party during the credits.

And then we took the girls to get their nails painted at salon inside Walmart. Skyler chickened out when it was her turn, but Peyton thought it was the best thing ever!

That night we had dinner at Rex and Edda's house. Rex made Dixie's famous egg rolls - meaning we had them two times in less than a week, but they're so good, no one minded one bit!

For New Year's Eve Diana and I made a whole bunch of appetizers and treats, but I only got a picture of these Black and White Cookies.

We watched the ball drop on Netflix around 9:00 pm and the Hobbs headed home and we sent our kids to bed.

New Year's Day was spent traveling home. We got a few meals from Panda Express in the airport and everyone dug in.

I spy a cutie on the MAX.

When we got home, it was like Christmas morning all over again for the kids since we had only taken a few of their new toys to Colorado.

You know you've had a full week of vacation fun when someone falls asleep on the floor before bed!