Holiday Festivities!

CANDLELIGHT CHRISTMAS

Last Monday the boys and I went to the Candlelight Christmas up at This is the Place with the Johansens. We had never done this before but I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun we had. Each building has a different activity going on. We rode the small train up and first stopped at the hotel where we got cookies and hot chocolate. We then went and picked up a little craft that the kids can put together. At Santa's workshop we put together some wooden trains...Mason really liked that! Camden liked the cute puppet show about Santa and his reindeer. They also had a live nativity where we saw the wisemen and shepherds who led us into the stable where baby Jesus was. We then took the train again and visited St. Nicholas and his reindeer. It was a fun evening.

Us at the Puppet Show

St. Nick in his sleigh

Our pit stop for hot chocolate and cookies

Ward Christmas Party
Saturday was our ward Christmas breakfast. We ate some yummy food and enjoyed visiting with neighbors. Mason was anxious to sit on Santa's lap so he could tell him what he wants for Christmas. We told him Santa only brings one or two gifts to each boy and girl so he is asking for TWO remote control transformers...Hmmm, good luck Santa, I don't think those exist?!?! When Camden first saw Santa he said "ho ho ho"...it was cute! He liked Santa a whole lot more from afar rather than sitting on his lap. He wouldn't be bribed with any candy either!

When we were getting ready to leave, Camden decided to run away from me. He went to grab the edge of a table, missed and landed head first on the leg of the table. He instantly had a HUGE goose egg forming on his forehead. This picture was taken after 2o minutes of icing it! Poor Guy!

RING CHRISTMAS BELLS
Ben and I were able to go to the RING CHRISTMAS BELLS concert at the conference center. Our friends Celeste and Tyler had two extra tickets and we jumped at the offer to go with them. The concert was wonderful! Brian Stokes Mitchell was the guest singer and he was AWESOME! What a beautiful talent he has been given! Edward Herrmann was also present and he did an amazing job narrating. Some of the songs gave me chills they were so powerful! After the concert we braved the cold and went and got some hot chocolate and dessert at the Gateway. Above all this fun, it was just great hanging out with my hubby!

Wood Family says "CHEESE!"

My mom took a few pictures of us this weekend. I'm realizing more and more how incredibly hard it is to get just one good family picture. With two little boys, it proves to be quite difficult. But here are a few of the results:

Festival of Trees

We went to the Festival of Trees on Saturday and had a good time. Mason REALLY enjoyed it! He would stop and look at a tree for minutes at a time, I had to pull him away each time so we could get through them all. We made it all the way to the end and Mason was still as excited as ever! I was really surprised he enjoyed it so much. We also sat and watched some cute little girls sing and dance for a minute and again, Mason didn't want to leave. We had watched "The Grinch" just the night before so he really liked seeing that tree. He also liked the Tonka Truck Tree, all the football trees, and the dinosaur little tree. Camden liked the Firefighter tree (especially with the big dalmation dog) and all the Mickey Mouse trees.

Gobble Gobble!

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! We started out Thurs by going up to Farmington to Ben's grandpa's home. We enjoyed eating with about 40 of Ben's family members. After a delicious Thanksgiving lunch, Ben and I headed to the Tooele Senior Center. We volunteered to help out with the dinner for the homeless. We were scheduled to work for a few hours but when we arrived, there wasn't much to do. There were a lot more people who volunteered then expected (which of course is a good thing)...so we helped clean up and put the left over meals into packages. We then took the extra meals and went to the senior's who lived nearby and handed out Thanksgiving dinners to them. It felt wonderful to help out, even if it was just a little. Friday I woke up early (but not CRAZY early) to get some shopping done. I found a couple really good deals for Ben so it was worth it. Then later that afternoon we headed out East to Vernal. My parents decided last minute to come for Thanksgiving which lead to my brother from Spokane coming with his family too! So it was wonderful to have MOST of my family together for a few days.

One evening we left all the kiddos home and all the adults went to my grandparents for cake and ice cream. We were celebrating my grandpa's 80th birthday! Camden was the only little one who came and he LOVED all the attention! He was hyper and hilarious! He kept doing "tricks" to make everyone laugh like summersaults, jumping, twirling and kissing this ceramic dog.

Mason and Kristy

Mason and Camden playing in the clubhouse

Mason and his Gingerbread house

When my family gets together there are a few things you can count on:

The infamous chicken fights. Just for the record: Lindsey has been dethrowned and Sam is now the reigning champion.

Lightning on the basketball court

And... Lots and Lots of game playing!

It was great to hang out with both our families this Thanksgiving and we're so grateful to have such wonderful people in our lives!

Firestation

A couple weeks ago we went to the Stansbury Park Firestation and had a GREAT time! Fireman Joe was a wonderful tour guide! The kids watched an "Elmo goes to the Firestation" movie, got to put on the real firefighter gear, had fun spraying the flowers with the big hose and SOME of the kids even rode in the firetruck...with sirens, lights and all. Well, those SOME kids didn't include mine. Mason was really timid and shy to begin with and when the others were climbing in the truck he got scared. But as soon as the truck took off down the road without us in it, he got so sad and really wanted to ride in it. (Sorry Mason, maybe next time)...