Gingerbread Girls!

Today we had a few of my cousins and a few of Matt's cousins over to make gingerbread men.

We gave them the choice of making girls or boys, and nearly everyone chose the girls!
(Maybe because Matt was the ONLY boy!)

We cut out the dough upstairs, then did our decorating downstairs.

This is Lindsay's latest trick that makes me laugh.

I think Heather was the winner for cutest gingerbread men/girls.

Matt enjoying the final product!

The crew (minus Heather and mom).

Saying goodbye with a little smooch!

Thanks for coming girls!  It is always a treat to have you!!

And I think that Matt is getting more excited to have a baby brother

 so he won't be the only boy next time!!

The Polar Express!

We received the BEST Christmas present EVER!!  

Dad and Mom G. bought us tickets to ride the Polar Express in Heber!  

It was magical!

Our drive up was really snowy, but then it stopped right as we pulled up.  

We started out by checking out the trains.

As Darin took this picture our train started to pull up!  

You can even see the conductor standing in the doorway.

“All Aboard!”

We hopped on the train, and took our seats.

The train was decorated with all kinds of Christmas decorations.

They had us move seats a couple of times to try to make room for everyone.

It was a little squishy, and then a man came up to us and said, 

“Would you like an early Christmas Present?”  

Of course we said yes, and he moved us up to FIRST class in the BEST seats!  Wahoo!!

The kids LOVED their hot chocolates with Whip Cream, and we even got to keep the mugs!

Here is Matt with two of the “elfs.” One is 121 years old, and the other is 109 years old! 

They had a musician that Lindsay loved singing and dancing along with.

I wish I could have had a camera on the other side of the window to capture 

Matt and Lindsay’s faces as we pulled up to the “North Pole” and saw Santa!

We sang as loud as we could, in hopes that Santa would get on the train…

and he DID!!

Matt told Santa that he wanted a spider-man costume, Santa agreed, 

and then gave Matt and Linds a bell!

BEST. TRIP. EVER!!!  Thanks again and again mom and dad!  We had a ball!!

Temple Square and City Creek

The Christmas Season would feel incomplete without a trip to Temple Square.
We went last night.
I HONESTLY think that the lights were the BEST they’ve EVER been!

Part of that may have been Matt and Lindsay’s excitement.

The kids loved the JSMB Christmas tree.
(It was also nice to warm up for a minute!)

Next we went to City Creek and ran into our friends, the Itas. 
We LOVE them!
Especially the kids because Paula warmed up Matt and gave both the kids some of her donut!

We stopped in to Deseret Book to see the Taffy Train, and Matt got to pull the horn!

Next we went to see the fountains at City Creek.  

You REALLY need to go see them if you can!  

They were pretty fabulous! 

This video I took doesn’t do it justice (but I do LOVE when you hear Matt right at the start say “WOAH!!!” followed by random strangers laughing at him).

And last, we went to the ZCMI candy windows!  Growing up this was one of my VERY favorite childhood memories!  I am SOOO glad they brought them back, and I REALLY hope they continue to do it!  Matt LOVED it!  I mean LOVE LOVED it!  I couldn’t get him to turn around for one picture and it took a lot of work to pull him away when it was time to go.

It was a perfect night!

Sinterklaas!!

Sinterklaas made it to our house again this year! 

 

Work Party!

Tonight was Darin’s work party.

I really do LOVE going to his work parties, they do a nice job!

We started out with some YUMMY dinner (fish, chicken, pork, yummy veggies, roasted potatoes, bruschetta, crackers with lots of cheese, meats, and fruit, rolls, and more), they also had comedian Steve Soelberg there.  He is pretty funny you can watch a funny clip HERE.

After dinner we went ice-skating.

The rink is up on the roof and I think it is so pretty up there!

Here is Darin and his colleague Mike.

Darin and me.

After skating they had a yummy dessert bar, dancing, photo booth, wii games, arcade, and more!

But the best part was just getting to be with my sweet husband!! 

(And check out the tummy!!  HALF WAY THERE!!)

G is for…well, LOTS of things!

We had preschool this week studying the letter “G.”

After we finished some of the academic learning we jumped in with some fun crafts.

We started out by making Green Gloves.

Then we made Glowing Glass Gifts with Glue.

(I know you can’t tell from this picture, but these actually turn out really cute!  We used little baby food jars and you glue little scraps of tissue paper around the jar.  Next you put a little tea light candle inside and when they light up they look like stain glass windows.  I think this was the kids favorite part).

Next we read “The Gingerbread Man” and “The Gingerbread Girl.”  

(If you haven’t read the Gingerbread girl, you should…it has a MUCH happier ending!)

After we read the books we made Gingerbread houses using Graham crackers. 

Another fun day at Preschool!