Christmas Top 10

 
Above are some pictures of our Christmas - I sort of hate blogger right now - why is it so hard to put pictures in order?  I can't figure it out.  Anyway, now that you've enjoyed some pictures of our December - here's a top 10 list about this December:

1. Activities: Maggie sings with our Stake (local congregation) youth choir at our town's Festival of Trees, we visit the Oakland Temple to see the lights with Christopher's cousin Devin and his family, we also visited a few locally famous streets with lights, as an aside: everyone should take a three year old with them to see lights, it ups the excitement factor by about 5, we all attend a Messiah sing along - two of us love it, 2 of us think it is ok, 1 of us starts to cry shortly after intermission because it is "taking forever" and we have unfortunately obeyed the rules and finished M&M's in the lobby, we attend Christmas Eve service, which Paige blessedly sleeps almost entirely through.

2.  Gifts: this year, I used an idea from Design Mom and the girls made each other's  gifts: Maggie made pillow cases (pictured above) - on a day that Christopher was home for help with the machine, Ashlee made hair clips and headbands with flowers and Paige made glitter letters.  I loved this.

3.  Food: we had lots of yummy food and delivered treats to Primary teachers and neighbors.  My favorite this year was chocolate covered popcorn.

4.  Time: We had lots of time to spend together.  The girls both had the entire week before Christmas off and even though Christopher didn't have leave, he was able to be home alot.

5.  The girls let us sleep until 7:30 Christmas morning

6.  Ashlee loved that she got to stay in her PJ's all day Christmas day.

7.  We got a real tree this year.  As we are putting it up Christopher tells us a funny childhood anecdote about family friends who thought their tree was just really "thirsty" but really the stand had a leak and they rotted the sub floor.  The morning after Christmas, Paige retrieves her calendar from underneath the tree and it is mysteriously wet - turns out we had a little water issue also, not enough to rot the floor, just enough to leave a big red stain from the felt tree skirt.

8. Gorgeous California weather.  The hills are so green and beautiful right now - it reminds me of summer in our little German town HP.

9.  Christopher got another helicopter and it is a big hit with everyone (one of the pictures above with Paige wincing is her ducking from "Chopster")

10.  Shopping was like going on a date - I love that Maggie is old enough to babysit now, also Paige is old enough to spill the beans about gifts, so we stopped taking her with us.  The end.