More Christmas Fun & Family Fun Night: December

another fun activity that is becoming a tradition

is our neighborhood cookie decorating party

one of our neighbors has hosted this the past couple of years

and of course the kids LOVE it and have a blast!

hard at work

sweet nate

nate's cookie looks pretty good!

that same night,

we had our family fun night for december

it just consisted of us watching a christmas movie in our bed

with popcorn

it was a fun time

(except the part where duncan put a popcorn kernel up his nose - thankfully i was able to get it out with some device mary beth had in her bathroom - little stinker!)

Christmas Playgroup Brunch

i am still playing catch up on my blog posts -

so christmas will come soon :)

but for now,

i wanted to post about one of my favorite christmas activities :)

we started this last year,

(i think)

but our last playgroup of the year we have the kids come in their pj's

and have a brunch

it is SO fun!

i love seeing all the kids in their cute pj's

and of course eating the yummy brunch food :)

i made this sausage/cream cheese crescent roll dish

all you do is cook 1lb sausage then mix 1 carton cream cheese

and then spread out crescent rolls (i used two packages for the decorations)

and put the sausage/cheese mixture inside - put more rolls on the top

and bake at 350 for 20ish minutes!

so good and EASY!

the spread

the pregnant mamma's :)

apparently my kids don't know how to take pictures without having funny faces :)

all the sudan cousins had their matching pj's on -

my mom got them for them to all wear on christmas morning

you will see these pj's a lot in coming posts :)

amy & danny

working on a craft project

sweet and beautiful sparrow & eli

cutie pie georgia

little miss priss :)

sweetie pie hallie

our attempts at a picture of all the kids

the best one we could get :)

love this time each year!

christmas fun

we have had fun celebrating christmas around here!

i have some random pictures from the past couple of weeks to capture what we have been doing

last week - jordan and i went to a christmas party for "time to revive"

it was a fun time to be together

(do you like the hands reaching up from the bottom of the picture?)

on thursday we had jayden's school christmas party

it was a sweet time

the kids made precious little placemats with ornaments of all the student's pictures on them

it was such a cute craft idea!

the kids also showed us some recitation and what a normal morning is like!

they are PRECIOUS!

yesterday we headed over to the carona's early

and had breakfast with them,

and then made some christmas crafts!

thanks for the great pic - j

the kids made peppermint play dough,

reindeer with their hands and feet, and an ornament

these kids have so much fun together!

duncan didn't want to do any of the crafts,

but we did finally get him to play with the play dough

silly little guy!

our finished projects!

what fun things have you been doing to prepare for christmas?

CHICAGO!

a couple of weeks ago

my mom, sisters, sister in law, and I got the very special gift

of going on a girls trip to

CHICAGO!

it was a very sweet and generous gift from my dad -

and we LOVED IT!

dinner our first night at a local italian place

yummy!

it was so fun being together, just us girls with no kids

of course we all LOVE & ADORE our kiddos,

but we are hardly ever all together without kids -

so this was a gift - to connect, be together, enjoy one another,

SHOP, and eat - just us :)

on thursday we explored downtown chicago

we walked everywhere -

didn't even get a taxi once -

which i LOVE

i love to discover a new place on foot, i have decided!

don't you love mary beth's fur coat :)?

it was my grandmother's -

she cut it short and of course made it look stylish!

amy and i laugh b/c we would look so out of place in something like that - but for B it fits!

here we are at the bean

it is such a fun place to take pictures,

as you will be able to tell :)

we then stopped at intelligentsia for some yummy coffee!

love this!

one of my favorite little spots!

we of course had to get some chicago style -

deep dish pizza!

it was huge, and takes almost an hour to make after you order it!

i don't have any pics from friday - because we literally shopped the entire day!

it was so much fun!

but i didn't think you wanted pictures of us trying on clothes, getting christmas gifts, or window shopping - but trust me - we all LOVED it - and were SO exhausted afterwards!

we really did - shop till you drop :)

right outside of our hotel was an "ogden plaza"

thought i needed a pic by that :)

on saturday morning we walked to the navy pier

it was neat to be there, but i am sure in the summer it is a better time to explore -

because it is right on the water and it was FREEZING!

pretty pic of chicago

the famous ferris wheel

it was such a FUN trip!

we all loved it and loved being together!

i think it was really fun because it was before mary beth got engaged and

the craziness of planning a wedding had started,

it was a sweet time to enjoy one another

thank you Dad for the best gift ever!

we loved it!