Busy Christmas Weekend

Our weekend leading up to Christmas ended up being a really busy one.  Weekend before Christmas so busy:

Saturday we decided to go to the Jaker's Farm (see details about that one here). Right after going to that, I had booked a reservation at a local art studio for a kids paint day for Cara and Gwen. I knew they'd really like it (and wasn't sure if Lucy would be able to understand so I only did the older two) and it ended up being SUCH a fun experience. They did a Christmas Cactus picture and they did REALLY well with it (considering their age and it being their very first time). We definitely made plans to do that again. Larry took Lucy and Pierce to a nearby playground to have fun.

When we got home I had made some gingerbread men out of cardboard and let them decorate with all sorts of things we had in our activity closet. I think they really liked that. I liked that Cara made a football guy and a football field out of paper (she's SO creative).

Clockwise from top left is Cara's, Gwen's,
Pierce's, and Lucy's (hers has the rainbow face)

I also had to take Lucy to her Ballet Christmas Party. Leaving was a little frustrating (she was confused about why it was for ballet, but she didn't need to dress in her leotard and she's at an age where when she get confused she gets pretty upset, easily, so getting out the door was hard). But once we got there and she interacted with friends (one from her school was there) she had a lot of fun! She got to eat pizza, play some games, and got a little gift and they took a group photo. I'm glad we were able to go to that with her.

We always have Larry's family Christmas party the Sunday before Christmas as well. That's always fun, there's food and visiting with everyone. And then his Grandma or Mom will bring a box of craft kits for the kids to do. And boy do they love doing as many of those crafts as possible. I love seeing the kids get all creative as well. We then head over to his Grandma's house to open gifts and it's nice to be able to do that (I love getting the gifts we have for others out of our house so it's less clutter haha. Plus we get some fun things off our list and the kids get a lot of cute things!)

After going there, we drove up to Cindy's to exchange gifts there. It's sometimes hard to find time to get together with her and her family since we both live at opposite-ish ends of "the valley" and it isn't a quick drive to each other's homes. I figured since we were already in West Valley, we could drive a little further to see her. We got some good stuff and I was pretty excited to give them their gifts as well. The kids all seemed to have fun together!

We also have some fishies to babysit, our neighbors are going out of town for Christmas so they asked if we'd take them while they were out. I was so happy to help, but didn't realize how much the kitties would be really interested in them haha. Cara and Gwen have loved helping feed them to earn money, they love any opportunity to earn money.

And finally, football this weekend was amazing! Packers had the first shut out of the whole football season and it means we made it to the playoffs. I, of course, have to make time to have the games on whenever we can. I'm such a proud fan haha. 

Overall a fun weekend and now we can really just relax and focus on Christmas