December Lights and Activities

I absolutely love the month of December and all the fun activities and traditions leading up to Christmas! Here is what we did (and the reason why I haven't blogged in so long...but at least it's January and I am up to December, right?)

1. Decorating the tree- We always make a day of it and put up our tree, decorate the house, hang up lights, and watch Christmas movies. I dig it, enough said.


2. Seeing Lights- Every year we love to drive around and see all of the cool Christmas lights. It was pretty fun this year with Dawson because he got so excited over them. We always make it a point to see Temple Square, the Christmas Utah house (if you haven't seen it you should, it's pretty cool), the Night Before Christmas street, and also the leg lamp house. We stumbled upon the leg lamp house a few years back and have gone back every year. It just cracks us up. The whole house is completely dark except for the leg lamp. It's like electric sex gleaming in the window. Sorry if I offended...but it's classic...you've all seen A Christmas Story, right???? Sorry again, but I had to.


3. Gingerbread Houses/Cookies- I grew up always making a gingerbread house as a family and baking Christmas cookies so it's a must still and I carry on the tradition with my kids now.



4. Festival of Trees- As I probably mentioned before back in mine and Christopher's young days with no kids we volunteered at this awesome festival that raises tons of money for Primary Children's Medical Center. Now with kids we go every year as spectators to all the fabulous trees they have and have fun seeing Santa, playing in the Kids Korner, and getting fat off of the delish cinnamon sugar scones.

5. Gift Exchange- We got together with the Olsen/Olsen/Jesperson clan for our Christmas gift exchange. The best part is we always hang out, eat, and enjoy the company. This year we switched it up and went to Iggy's for dinner. We also got to enjoy Carole and Lisa's company this time...score!


I hate having to do so much catch up on my blog but I loved just not caring and focusing 100% on my family for a couple months. I sort of pushed aside crafting, blogging, sewing, etsy, and my regular things I do to fully enjoy the holidays and not feel stressed about doing those things on top of all the other things that makes the season feel so busy. None of those things are hard to do and blogging is easy, but they just together get time consuming so I decided to push them ALL aside. I have to say...it was nice and a lot more calm.

PS- Here is a picture of D with Santa, he loved him, Emerson on the other hand freaked. Major. This is also a picture of how Dawson decorates the tree :)

A Camping We Will Go

Well, go to the front room at least. Every now and then on a weekend night Chris and Dawson will have a "camp-in" night in our family room. They bust out an air mattress (once even the tent for kicks!), sleeping bags, and a lantern and "camp" under the light of the tv of whatever movie they decide to watch. I am a sprawler so I use those nights to take advantage of having the whole bed to sprawl about.

As Cute As She Is...

...I don't think she can even pull off the "mullet" look; so I gave Emerson's hair a trim. It was getting so long in back but not so much on the sides so I bucked up and trimmed her cute little baby hair. I am glad I did, it seems to look a bit thicker now, and sort of curls right under. I know, she's cute.


On another "first/milestone" note; at 17 months Emerson became a walker! It's so funny to see little tiny Miss Sass toddling around the house. She thinks she is the bees knees.

PS- She is such a girlie girl. My sister gave her a fairy princess dress up for Christmas and she brings it to us to put on her. Anything that is or resembles a bracelet/necklace she wears. She loves her purse. She thinks she is a mom and I call her "Little Momma" because she constantly carries her baby doll or pushes her in the toy stroller. If she doesn't have her doll she says "bebe bebe bebe" until you give it to her. She is just like I was when I was little.