Gingerbread Houses the Easy Way!

Last year's gingerbread house making was a fiasco so this year I decided to play it smart, buying 3 of the pre-made gingerbread house kits and hot glue gunning the houses together. Wow, what a pleasant time one can have when there is nothing to worry about but decorating! 

Loads of yummy candy and tasty frosting - can you blame him?

David even jumped in and helped, with the decorating as well as the munching.

They all did a fabulous job!!

This was another "Christmas-time" activity we squeezed in right before the New Year but I'm glad we at least did it. And pre-made is definitely the way to roll, at least for us!

Temple Lights

Confession - in the nine Decembers we've spent in Baltimore we have only been down to see the DC temple lights once. Pathetic! So this year David and I agreed that we must make it a priority...and we still almost missed it! The Saturday after Christmas down we went. Savannah and Xander goofed off the entire drive down which drove David and I batty...

and Noah passed out!

The temple is so, so beautiful!!

If only the kids's faces didn't look so scary or so grumpy! Noah was not thrilled to have been woken up!

The evening was so pleasant that we left our coats in the car. I love when the weather cooperates for outside activities.

This used to be a live manger but no longer.

Next time I'll rethink my wardrobe...wearing a Utah Utes sweatshirt to a Mormon event drew a lot of comments, both annoying and funny.

I was hopeful that most people would have already visited the temple lights but there were still a ton of people there. Still, we made it through the nativity room quickly and with room to breathe.

I took a ton of pictures of the different nativities but these were some of our favorites:

It was such a fun evening spent together.

We stood around waiting forever to get a picture of the lights with the temple in the background until I realized that there was no one taking it from the corner and that ended up being the best shot! Too bad Xander couldn't quite keep his eyes open for this one.

Christmas 2014

Christmas morning - excitement was in the air! We all headed down around 7:30 to see what Santa had brought the kids.

Noah got what he wanted - a new knight costume and sword!

Trying out his newest weapon.

A very cute little knight! From that smile on his face I think Santa got it right!

Santa brought our huge baseball fan a new bat...

and Savannah received more Monster High dolls, though I think this will be the last year for those.

Santa also stuffed some new hats in the kids' stockings.

Say what?!?!

There were even some candy canes for me and David.

Some favorite gifts of the day: Legos, of course;

a North Face jacket;

a new tie;

a nerf gun;

and new scentsy buddies!

I always love when the kids get gifts for each other. Noah gave Xander his old sword since he knew he's be getting a new one from Santa. That little guy is too much! Xander was very sweet about it.

Xander saved up several weeks of allowance so he could get gifts for everyone in the family...a new mug for David,

rings for me and Savannah,

and a back scratcher for Noah. Noah loved it! Hilarious!

We still get gifts for traitors.

And of course the big gift of the day - Legos!! David even got me some! Yahoo!

The rest of the day was spent putting together all our new Legos, playing new video games, and watching Christmas movies. It was a wonderful day!

David prepared a delicious turkey for our special Christmas dinner

and I made a trifle for dessert. Yummy!

It was another wonderful Christmas in the Pierce house!

The Countdown to Christmas

Each year I swear that I'm NOT going to make Christmas goodie plates for our friends. I have always hated baking but David insists it's something we need to do and that he'll help me so I give in. And then I get buried under massive amounts of cookie making and getting everything done in time that the overwhelming stress of it all pushes me over the edge! And yet, once again, I found myself on Christmas Eve this year scrambling to get goodie plates completed.  However, this time around I roped the kids into helping me with some of the work which they were happy to do.
Yummy peanut brittle!

Let the frosting begin!

My little frosters hard at work! I love the look of concentration on their faces!

They did a great job! And we even got Noah to not lick the knife this year between frostings, ha ha!

We had our wonderful traditional Christmas Eve dinner: filet mignon, Caesar salad, cream corn, and plenty of Martinellis.

I found these miniature bottles of Martinellis at BJs this year and knew that the kids would get a kick out of having their own bottle.

Our Christmas Eve festivities included singing lots of carols...

a meltdown from Noah (I asked him to read a snowman Christmas book which he refused to do but then started bawling when Savannah started to read it...gotta love it!)...

reading several Christmas books and the scriptures, including prophesies by Isaiah, the Book of Mormon account, and Luke 2...

and listening to Savannah play her violin. Absolutely beautiful!

It was then time for Christmas Eve jammies! Noah's mood definitely improved when it was time to open gifts.

We love Christmas!!!

After watching Miracle on 34th Street, which none of us had ever seen and all of us liked, the boys headed outside to sprinkle some reindeer food on the front lawn.

One last cute Christmas picture...

and some cookies and milk left by the door for Santa...

and then it was off to bed to have those visions of sugarplums!