Traditions!!!

Christmas baking was another intense full day of baking! Well, and delivering. We ended up with about 45 plates which took us over two hours to deliver.

Our baking might be getting a bit out of control. We may need to pull back in the future.

 Marshmallow dipped candy canes, rice krispies, chocolate covered pretzels (white and chocolate), magic cookie bars, fudge, peanut butter marshmallow chocolate bars, peppermint cookies, peanut butter balls, golden graham caramel balls, candy cane white chocolate bark, peppermint candy cane puppy chow, and more. The plates couldn't hold all of the different treats we made, so they all just got samplings. Surprisingly, it's about 5 hours of baking- which isn't too bad for all of those treats. It's nice because the girls are really helpful now. I can give them a recipe and let them go. It's pretty awesome!

My absolute favorite Christmas treat is peanut butter balls. Yes, they are a PAIN to make- but they are so incredibly delicious! Camille and I bonded over the dipping- she insisted that nobody else help us.

Audra has decided she does to like peanut butter flavored treats. More for me then!

Merry Christmas!

9,000 Granola Bars

For the past 5 years, our family has helped an organization called Be About Bliss. It is a wonderful non-profit started by a woman in our congregation. We make winter food kits for children in need to take home 2 weeks worth of food over winter break so they don't go hungry. It started out as 300 bags. This year, it was 1,550!

Our family was the granola bar stewards. That means we collected and stored about 9,000 granola bars in our house. Just so you know, that is A LOT of granola bars!

Tonight was the packing party. Phew. We had to bring all the granola bars over to the church. Then, we manned the granola bar station. This was the first time we have manned a station. Wow- it was intense! The girls were total rock stars! They had to put 6 bars into each bag, and the bags came FAST! Far faster than I expected. It was non stop for 2 hours.

Things aren't over yet. On Tuesday I need to go pick up lots of fruit, 1,550 pieces of fruit to be exact. And then on Wednesday we deliver all the food.

I am in charge of our ward diaper drive and sort for our ward Christmas party tomorrow night, but after Wednesday I am officially calling it quits and spending the rest of the month relaxing and enjoying cheesy Hallmark movies with the girls!

This is 1,000 boxes of cereal- wow!

Rice and beans:

Claire's dear friend Hannah came and helped which made Claire VERY happy!

Now I'm tired! We should all sleep very well tonight!

Christmas Around the World!

Every year I wonder why on earth we do Christmas Around the World. And, every year it's one of the best things we do! It is SO MUCH WORK- but so incredible in the end. I asked the kids (not just mine, but others who have done it multiple times) if they wanted to do it again next year , and they all exclaimed, "YES!"

This year, since we are going on a cruise in a couple months, I had the girls each choose one of the countries we are visiting. Claire chose Cayman Islands because we have a Christmas ornament for it. Audra chose Belize, and Camille Mexico.

All three of them did a great job of doing most of the work themselves. They all had clear ideas of what they wanted to do, and researched and executed their vision. Camille wanted poinsettias to be her main focus. Claire wanted to make smoothies, so she made Pina Coladas (virgin, obviously). Audra wanted hers to be very professional.

They all did brilliant. Last year, when Camille gave her presentation you couldn't hear a word she said. This year, she nailed it- she spoke clear and loud enough. I was so proud of her!

I already have the library reserved for next year, so I'm certain we will do it again.

Camp Christmas

We had such a great time at Camp Christmas today! It's basically a warehouse totally decked out for Christmas. It takes you from Roman times to modern times.

 Baroque:

Family Pose!

Mission Hills

We went to this last year and I knew it needed to be part of our holiday traditions! It is such an incredible event for the entire community- I can't imagine the amount of work that goes into this. It is truly incredible. Our favorite part are the gingerbread houses, but the cookie decorating, Candyland, and all the other activities are also wonderful!

Homeschool PE!

Yes, we got a ton of snow last week. But, the snow came with FREEZING temps- like 10 degrees freezing.

But, today it warmed up to 59- which made it a PERFECT day to go sledding! Monday happens to be our weekly recess day, so we had recess at our favorite sledding hill.

The kids had so much fun!!!! They were exuding joy, it was so precious. Of course, since everybody else had school, they had the hill to themselves- and they took full advantage. These kids get along so well together. It is really awesome to see. Whenever people say "what about socialization?" I really just have to laugh.