Christmas time!!!

Our first celebration of the season was buying a Christmas tree. I always loved the tradition of going to the lot and picking out our live Christmas tree. I love the pine smell in our house for the entire month too. I just can't bring myself to give that up and buy and fake one.

Next, it was Mae's joyschool performance. They act out the nativity and then sing the cutest little Christmas songs they learned. Mae was an angel. It was SO CUTE!!!


We went with our good friends, the Binghams, to see Santa at the mall. It was a great day. After we ate Chick Fillet in line, saw Santa, and rode the Merry-go-round, the girls danced in the little courtyard outside where Christmas music was playing. They didn't mind one bit that they had an audience at times. Here are two very excited girls in line to see Santa...

Then onto Grace's preschool program. They also did the nativity and sang Christmas songs. Both of our girls were angels this year.

Grandma Carol makes nativites with the grandchildren every year. It gives the moms a little time to run some last minute errands and the kids have a blast. She has so many grandchildren, that she has to break them up into age groups. Here is a picture of the younger group.

We went to Ballet Etudes' production of the Nutcracker. Christmas would not be complete for me without seeing the Nutcracker at least once. We sat in the second row and Mesa Center for the Arts and got overtaken by the fog machine during snow scene. It was really exciting being that upclose and personal. We snapped a picture with the Sugar Plum Fairy after she changed out of her costume.

Our lovely gingerbread house that we made for family night...We also went to the temple lights. It was so crowded, we could barely walk, let alone stop to take a picture. We went to Grandma Ray's to make Christmas cookies with all of the cousins and I forgot to take pictures there. We had a fun December!