Pre-Christmas Fun and Traditions

From graham cracker houses to making sugar cookies to wrapping many presents on their own, it feels like we truly made the most of the holiday season this year. With all that our kids receive at Christmas,we thought it was a good idea to spend a little more time teaching them about the giving part of Christmas this year... We brought them shopping to pick out a gift for everyone in our immediate family and had them wrap those gifs, as well as the gifts to gmas and gpas, and teachers. We went through many rolls of scotch tape but it was worth it to keep them involved in the process of giving gifts. We continued one of my favorite traditions of making cookies and delivering them to friends. Joel and Grant each picked about five friends and delivered the cookies we made themselves. They had alot of fun with it.

Cookie making:)

Um... Grant must have thought he was going to lick the knife...:)

We gave the boys all of Mitchell's imaginext castle stuff this Christmas, that we had been keeping carefully hidden for the last few years.

Jeff, with all his "toys". Yep, he is defnitely a nerd... and proud of it:)

Jeff got me a charm bracelet, which was a nice surprise. So far, it has a camera and coffee cup charm and several beads. I love it:)

Grant, with one of the knights from the Imaginext set.

Joel seriously spent 30 minutes assembling a Bey Blade in the middle of opening presents. He was not going to move on to his next gift until this thing was put together.

Jeff, opening the cards the boys picked out for him.

Mitch and his cards...

Joel, opening the "Hot Wheels Wall Track" which was his most frequently wished for gift this Christmas.

Grant got his very own Bey Blade.

Opening all of Mitch's Imaginext stuff

Best self-timed family portrait. Ever. Period. Even Billy is looking at the camera!