Christmas Highlights

I did such a bad job posting in December that I am going to do a HUGE post now of some of my favorite little moments and highlights...

 

Our Elf Skittles came back much to the boys delight!

He did lots of funny stuff including putting mustaches on all the boys!

Each of my boys picked there favorite Christmas treat and we made it together.  First up caramels with Connor!

This is a very hit or miss recipe for me, but this year they turned out perfectly!  I think I will make more for Valentine gifts.  YUM!  I used this recipe found here.

Next up was pretzel melts with Rolos, Hugs and M&Ms with my 3 little boys.  We even made a gluten free variety with some homemade caramel.

TJ  is the king of white chocolate pretzels and does them every year.  They are the best!

 

One afternoon while I made dinner the boys played Monopoly.  Such a happy sight for me!

 

This was such a fun night---We were having a very special guest coming but the boys had no idea--Cannon was reading and I could hardly contain my excitement:) 

Santa and his Elf came!  They were so cute!  This is the second year they have found our house.  They even know our elf on the shelf's name.  The little boys loved it!

One of our favorite traditions since we moved here to Tennessee where we have no family, is to invite the missionaries assigned to our ward to enjoy Christmas Eve with us. 

They bring such a special spirit into our home. This year we were blessed to have Sisters and Elders!

We had our traditional Chicken ala King dinner, sang carols together, listened to the accounts in the scriptures of Christ's birth and were privileged to hear these four bear testimony of the Savior.

It was a very special night!

Lots of treats were shared too, of course!

It was a very special night for sure!

 

This is the only night of the whole year that my boys can't wait to get to bed!

As sson as the missionaries left we let the boys unwrap their new Christmas PJ pants and they were off to dream of sugar plums:)  All sleeping together in Connor's room!

 

And pretty soon it was evident that Santa had made his stop at our house:)

 

 

 Christmas breakfast!

 

After all the gifts were unwrapped we all relaxed....one of my favorite moments was reading new books together with Cannon!

 

The 4 oldest boys got tickets to the Music City Bowl Game in Nashville in their Christmas stockings--they were so excited!

It was in the Titans stadium (outdoors) and it was frigid!!

 

 Cannon and I were VERY happy to stay home.  We went out to dinner at Panda Express and watched  Miracle on 34th Street (the movie he gave me for Christmas...love it!)

Brrr...

 New Years Eve!  These boys of mine didn't want to miss any of the big games, so they hauled our kitchen table into the family room, right in front of the TV for game playing!

 

 

Only 4 of us made it until midnight for the toast...

Cheers! 

 Here is to a great New Year!! Happy 2014!! 

  One last mug of cocoa in the glow of the tree before we took it down until next year!

It was a great month and I hated to see it end!

xoxoxo