December pics from my phone

I love phone pictures because they show more spontaneous snapshots of our life since I pretty much always have my phone nearby. So here are some of our December snapshots. 

 Driving to the zoo the girls fell asleep in the car holding hands. I love that they love each other so much.

 Brinley drew this adorable picture of herself, Santa, and Sneaky, our elf on the shelf. I love that she included the elf, and her pigtail antennae. So cute!

 I got to sing in a Stake Christmas musical fireside/sing a long so I brought Teya with me on a special Mommy daughter date and she loved it. Sweet girl belted her heart out during the Alleluia chorus. I think we may have another singer in the family. 

My kids really love to dress up. 

Sometimes they have dress ups on before they've even changed out of their pajamas.

You can't really blame Cam for wanting to join them. (although I should probably invest in some superhero dress ups so he has more options besides princess and a fairy.)

 One Sunday Brinley saw me curling my hair so she asked me to do hers too. Twinners!

 A few days before Christmas I told they kids if they cleaned they playroom they could open one of their Christmas presents. They've never cleaned it so fast or so well AND they treasured and played with those bears all day, which the wouldn't have done had they opened them with everything else on Christmas. Best bribe ever. 

 Window shopping at Petsmart. Keeps the kids entertained and out of the cold. and it's free!

 Cam building an epic tower with two of his favorite things, blocks and Brinley. 

 We did A LOT of baking in December which contributed to an impressive 12 lb holiday gain for me. 12 lbs!! I think that's a record. 

Did a cookie swap and white elephant gift exchange with the ladies in my neighborhood. Lots of fun and lots of yum.

Also discovered Grahams, the best candy/chocolate store in the world and ate lots and lots of chocolate.

Christmas eve shopping with my mini me.

Got to sub in primary and the kids were pretty excited about the nativity costumes I brought. 

and Taber and I celebrated our 11 year anniversary with dinner and a movie date to see the Hobbit! Love him :)

Gingerbread house and making new Christmas memories...

It's not really Christmas without the annual gingerbread house making tradition.

Daddy was the froster and the girls put on the decorations.

After an hour or so of gooey sticky fun the masterpiece was finished!

Looked so good we could eat it! 

And since we were in the mood for making Christmas memories, Taber and were feeling brave and decided to take the kids downtown for the big Christmas tree lighting festival. Apparently it's a Geneva tradition and everyone and their dog (seriously, there were tons of dogs) goes and they close off 3rd street and have chestnuts roasting on open fires, hot cocoa, carolers, cookies, frosting shots, homemade candy canes and all sorts of fun Christmasy stuff.

It was a little more effort than we had envisioned due to the freezing cold temps and the fact that SO many people came that we had to park 8 blocks away and walk in the cold. The kids were pretty good troopers though and I think it was worth it once we got there.

The beautiful tree lit up in front of the courthouse. It is so so tall I have no idea how they decorated it!

Taber and the girls

One of the highlights was watching them make homemade candy canes at the candy store. The girls were pretty riveted.

And we actually convinced a kind stranger to take a pic of the whole family to document our adventurous outing. In the end it took a lot of effort but it was a lot of fun and I'm glad we got to go out and make some new memories with the fam. 

Sometimes you just gotta "borrow" your niece for a day...

One day my girls were acting crazy and I knew they were going to go nuts if we didn't do something different to shake things up, STAT! So I called my sister and asked if I could borrow my niece for 24 hours.  Best idea ever.

I picked up Brooklyn and for 24 hours the girls were in heaven. They played and played and never asked to watch TV once. It was beautiful. In the morning she asked if she could stay for 10 more nights. I totally would've let her but it turns out my sister wanted her back, so we had to return her the next day. Sure is awesome though living close enough to family to be able to borrow a niece every now and then. Definitely counting our blessings!

Not so Secret, Secret Elves.

This year was our 2nd year doing the 12 days of Christmas with the girls. 

They chose to do it for our cute neighbor boys down the street who go to school with Teya.

Every night they packaged up their gifts and snuck down the street to deliver their secret surprise. 

They would ring the doorbell (with the help of Mom or Dad) then run away as fast as they could, leaving a note that said, "love, your secret elves."

A few days into it Teya came home from school with a sad look on her face. 

"What happened?" I asked

"Ryan knows I'm his secret elf" 

"How do you know that?"

"Well I asked him if he has an elf on the shelf and he said, "no, but I have a secret elf, and it's YOU!"

"Oh wow...Well what did you say?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? You didn't shake your head, or smile or say anything?"

"Well Mom I didn't know what to say so I just said nothing!"

The image of Teya just standing there saying nothing almost made me laugh out loud.

She didn't want to admit it was her, but she cannot, for the life of her, tell a lie. 

I love that girl. 

So the next couple nights the girls continued their secret drop offs, 

but were still a little sad that they'd been discovered. 

Then a few nights before the 12 days were over, Ryan and his brother stopped by our house with a huge bag of gifts for the girls and a note that said, 

"Merry Christmas, love YOUR secret elves!"

It made the girls night. And they felt much better knowing that they were ALL a bunch of "not so secret" Secret Elves. :) 

Family Zoo pass, the best $100 I've spent in a long time!

Back in December Naomi invited us to go with her preschool class to the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago. When I got there I had the option to buy a one time pass for us, which would've cost like $60 with parking, or I could pay $110 and get a year pass for our whole family, plus one extra adult, plus free parking, plus 6 guest passes, plus 4 tickets to the dolphin show and 4 tickets to the jungle safari. So yeah, kind of a no brainer. Bought the pass and our zoo adventures began!

Brinley and Cam had fun with Brinley's little preschool buddies.

They had some pretty sweet exhibits including a brand new baby giraffe just a few weeks old!

 Everybody loved the zoo!

Cam loved it.

 Brinley loved it. 

(even if her new "picture smile" doesn't fully convey her love :)) 

 Mommy loved it.

In fact we all loved it soooo much that we had to go back the very next day so Daddy and Teya could join the fun.

Daddy loved it.

Teya loved it.

Once again, everybody loved the Zoo. 

Good thing we got a year pass.

The cutest kid friendly Christmas ornaments and new Christmas decorations!

After 11 years of marriage I decided that it was time for some new Christmas decorations. 

It started when I found "Alaska Santa" at Kohl's. He was too perfect with his fur boots and snow shoes on his back. In honor of my Alaska boy, I had to have him. 

Once I bought Alaska Santa I started looking at the other pieces of that collection. The wooden Christmas trees stole my heart, and the snowy owl lamp and the center piece were calling my name too.  I brought them all home and set them up on the fireplace mantle. Perfection.

Once my mantle was looking all Alaska rustic adorable, I needed Christmas tree ornaments that would compliment it. I found a similar collection at Kohl's that had fur stockings, woodland creatures, and just cute woodsy crafts that were adorable and also could be handled by kids without breaking.

Seriously how precious are these snowmen? And no matter how many times Cam took them off the tree, he couldn't break them.

The girls were in love with the birdies, Especially the bird with the nest and eggs. Teya had a very hard time packing it away after Christmas. 

Look at these owls! maybe I'm the only one dying over them but they are just so stinking cute!

Once I had the ornaments it was tree decorating time. Even this little man could be a part of it without destroying anything. 

Of course he mostly just loved climbing the ladder. :)

One by one the ornaments found their places on the tree

I took a lot of pictures because I was a little excited. :)

Love them.

Daddy helped Brinley reach up high

and soon the masterpiece was finished!

We loved our cute woodsy kid friendly Christmas tree. 

And we loved making special Christmas memories decorating it as a family.