All Christmas experiences....

This Christmas season has been a lot of fun.  I've tried really hard to help the boys have fun "Christmas type" experiences.  I decorated the house, put lights up in the front and the backyard, I made special treats for friends and neighbors, hosted a couple of parties, the boys have gone caroling, we went to the Live Nativity, saw Santa and did the Opportunity Village activities, drove through the light display at the Speedway, they have advent calendars from their Grandma, we had an Family Home Evening lesson on Luke 2 and we went to the light display at Ethel M's Chocolate Factory. Whoo! It's been fun! Here are some pictures from our adventures:)

Because I'm crazy, I bought a huge sugar cookie mix at Costco about a month ago.  It was enough mix to make 15 dozen sugar cookies.  Yes, 15 dozen.  Wow- sign me up! Yeah, so I made countless cookies.  I don't think it ended up being exactly 15 dozen, but let me tell ya- it was plenty! AND as if that wasn't enough, I decided I would also try making fudge.  I've never made fudge before, but I did it the easy way by buying a mix at Costco, again, and this one made 4 lbs of fudge.  Yep- signed up for both.  I wanted to be one of those cute little mormon ladies that gives out the plates of cookies that have 5 different flavors of treats.  Well, after making 2 different treats, I decided that those ladies must be on Meth or something, because I aint makin' any more treats! Seriously? How do they do it? How do they make 5 different perfect little treats and put them on perfect little plates with perfect little holiday tags and even holiday colored saran wrap? Well.  My treats are below- they turned out just fine for my taste (haha good pun huh!)

These treats above I actually made for our ward party.  It was so cute- the relief society gave us 12 decorated "take out" boxes and we filled them with a few cookies each. What a cute idea! Then each family received a take out box when they left the party.  I wasn't able to go because my parents were in town, but I'm sure it was a fun occasion.   

Above is a moose shaped pancake.  You have to be kind of imaginative because they aren't perfect, but I had fun making them for the boys. 

This is a picture from when my parents were in town. What a funny experience it is watching my parents.  This is them helping me fix the toilet because Kes doesn't do repairs around the house.  Rick ended up making a temporary repair, but I assured him it would probably be there the next time he visited. 

One of the activities we did while they were in town was garage sale'n.  My dad and I hit a jack pot and bought the boys this Superman computer for $1.  I'm not sure who had more fun playing, Grandpa Rick or Rooster. 

Cute picture of Bean

Cool house I drove by- look at those lights!

Snapped this random picture coming out of the DMV last week.  These are the mountains right next to my house.  This is a beautiful picture for Vegas- we don't see this very often. 

And here we have our trip to the Opportunity Village Magical Forest.  This was Gunman's second time ever seeing Santa.  I think last year he didn't have a clue what was going on- but this year the big Jolly guy freaked Gunman out.  I like this picture though- classic. 

Gunman and I on the Magical Forest train. It's a little train you ride through all the lights and displays. 

This is Gunman's friend Axtan Boo. 

 

The boys with the Coache family.  Our kids are really close in age and we have fun with their parents too!

Check out Guman's hat change.  So cute. 

Bean loves the carousel.

Rooster tolerates the carousel.

Every mom needs a picture of their baby under the Christmas tree. 

This was a really fun activity.  The Las Vegas Motor Speedway has a great light display.  2.5 miles to be exact.  It's so fun because you drive through the concession area of the speedway! Pretty crazy they let cars in there.  The lights are amazing and you get to enjoy all 2.5 miles in your car listening to Christmas music.  It was so fun.  We went with our cousins Jeff and Jen with their kids.  The boys loved riding in the far back of her suburban.  Gunman was loose out of his car seat and enjoys watching the boys.  He spent the entire time riding backwards standing on the seat in front of the boys watching them in the back.   

On Saturday, Kes wanted to take the dogs up to the mountains to try and cross a Mountain Lion track.  We didn't find any tracks, but the boys enjoyed some time in the snow. 

Rooster making a snow angel.

Blake and our Amish snowman.  We brought some carrots and stuff to make the face, but ended up just leaving it faceless and Amish. 

Rooster made a "cooler" for his pop. 

We have tons of wild horses and burros in the Vegas desert.  They have longer hair then normal horses and I always enjoy seeing them out there.  In the background you can see the little colt. 

Tonight for Family Home Evening we went to the Ethel M's Factory Cactus Garden.  They decorate it in lights and sell you expensive $5 hot chocolate.  I passed on the hot chocolate but the lights are amazing!

Gunman waiting in line to purchase 3D glasses for the boys.  The glasses were actually really cool.  They made the lights look like big snow flakes.  The boys ended up loosing interest in the $2 glasses, so Kes and I decided to try and get our money's worth out of their use. 

This dead Suaro cactus was so cool- it's a Suaro skeleton. 

What are we going to do with this kid? He is completely addicted to pop. 

Well my house is nothing like the Griswald's but I did work really really hard and even had some help from Adrienne and her daughters.  I really like how they turned out!