Parkers Birthday

At the end of December, Parker turned 7.

He wanted a Star Wars cake. 

I took an easy way out by ma,ing the cake and the logo, but just putting figurines (his present) on top for the bulk of the decorations:

Christmas

Christmas eve at the Murphy's

Corin and Mommy jumping on the trampoline

The Denny's made their annual ornament and let my kids make some, too

Opening presents:

Christmas morning (with Parker and Aria in their new PJs) before heading downstairs

At the Tiemans Christmas day

We had a brunch and a gift exchange

Just a couple pics of my kids while we were there

Christmas Stuff

A bunch of pictures of our activities leading up to Christmas 2014

Decorating the big tree downstairs

The downstairs tree

The kids also got their own tree upstairs that they decorated their own way, and mostly with their own homemade decorations

The kids tree

Contact paper and green cellophane

Color sample Christmas trees

Making glue ornaments

A few of the glue ornaments after they dried

Trees made from foam and stickers

Parker just made these on his own.
Little presents with yarn to hang them on the tree

The kids also helped me make cinnamon dough, and we rolled and cut out Christmas shapes.

After they dries we painted them

Finished cinnamon dough ornaments

Handprint Santa Claus

The handprint Santa's were actually done at Glendale Glitters.

Speaking of which....

We went to Glendale Glitters. A friend who teaches dance was asked to set up a flash mob for on of the nights and we got to be a part of it. 

So Parker and I were part of a flash mob dancing to Justin Beiber at Glendale Glitters

If I can I will add the awful video of us dancing, but here are some pics of the night

Anna and Elsa were part of the flash-mob as well and the kids wanted a picture with them

Then There's the food:

We baked sugar cookies together and the kids decorated them for family home evening.

Cookies

And of course, we ate them afterwards

For family home evening another week we tried to make graham cracker "gingerbread" houses. 

A bit of a fail, since they wouldn't stand tall, but the they were fun and got decorated/eaten all the same

A lot of the treats from our advent were just candy but we got creative with a few:

grape/strawberry Santas

Banana Strawberry candy canes

Our ward had a Christmas party and only a couple of our kids would go sit with Santa, but that's ok, since he isn't real anyway ;)

We played with goop (cornstarch and water) dyed in Christmas colors and scented with peppermint for a little Christmas themed sensory activity:

At the Childrens Museum they made wreathes that also ended up on the kids' Christmas tree

Temple Lights

We went to go see the Christmas lights at the Mesa Temple again.

Basically it's one of my favorite parts of the holidays

We got there early and ate a picnic dinner at the Temple, just as the lights were turning on, then as it got dark we go to look around.

The pictures while we were eating dinner:

Touring the visitors center:

My whole wonderful family: