Christmas!

 Christmas Sunday:

The kids got to open a present on Sunday (church sweaters!).

I can't believe I didn't get a picture of Avery. She got to give a talk in our Christmas Sacrament meeting. She talked about shepherds. She memorized Luke 2:8. 

It was awesome. 

 Christmas Eve:

Christmas eve is such a fun and torturous day for kids.

This year the weather was so warm! 

We went down to Pt Whitehorn to kill some time while the turkey smoked. 

These are the kids' ornaments of 2018.

The package said that they are made from a tree that actually grew in Jerusalem. 

I will just pretend like that is the honest truth. 

One day Andrew brought me this ornament and said, "this is Lisa and Joe, right?"

It might as well be! They look the exact! 

Andrew cracks me up.

See? And actually Joe currently has a long Jewish beard, so he looks even more like Joseph. 

I got exited about bunting this year. 

I love Nettie's lettering skills on our Christmas card. 

Evan "opened" the envelope, and I was able to stop him from ripping it to shreds. 

Anyway, Christmas eve was lovely. The beach, smoked turkey, two kinds of pie. 

The kids were crazy with anticipation. I forced them outside for an hour. They teamed up with neighborhood kids and went to a few houses singing "We wish you a merry Christmas". 

When they came to sing at our door, I was like "what is that terrible noise?". 

We opened jammies (everyone in the Larsen side had matching!)

watched The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

sang The Nativity Song

then went to bed. 

The kids were so sweet. They hugged us and we hugged them and there were lots of "Merry Christmas"es. 

 Christmas Day:

So much anticipation. So much excitement. 

I feel so strange this year in that I don't think we were able to meet expectations. I don't even know how to write about it, but it was just a weird year. I think it has something to do with the age the two olders are at. 

Andrew's expectations were met and exceeded. 

I don't know. I have thought this to death and talked it to death, so I'm sick of it. But I do want to remember it. 

But I also want to forget it.

So lets just move on and focus on the good and lovely of the day. 

Evan asked for a hot wheels garage, but Santa brought him snap circuits instead. It was a Christmas miss. I don't want to talk about it. 

Andrew got his Alvin stuffy. Grandma Larsen sent him that awesome matching hoodie.

Mary quilt! Perfect for a Christmas nap. I love the mushroom/gnome fabric a freakish amount.

See those skis behind me? I was really excited about that present...the kids were not. 

Maybe they will have fun once we go up the mountain and try them out?

We play musical quilt. Tonight is Andrew's turn to sleep with it. 

My neighbor and friend Jessica has a screen printer, so I made the whole family Galbraith tees. That was a fun surprise. 

Avery got kinetic sand. She's at a tricky age where she doesn't really know what she wants. 

I don't want to talk about it. 

Andrew knows exactly what he wants. He knows how to play with the things he wants. 

5 year olds are just so easy! It's so simple. 

He asked for a "ninjago suitcase" so that red thing is what I came up with. 

He got a lego set and he is so good at putting it together!

He kept saying "I can't wait to finish so I can play with it!"

and I was thinking "you are playing with it" and I didn't think he would do much more with it once it was built, 

but of course Andrew knows how to play and after it was built he spent the next hour playing a ninjago scenario of capture and release and redemption and the bad guy deciding to be a good guy...

I put the tree and decorations away today, and I don't know how I missed it, but the entire month of December is a blur. It went so fast I truly don't remember it. Did it really happen? 

Andrew came in and saw me cleaning -  lip quivering he said, "I don't want Christmas to be over". 

Solstice

I actually celebrated solstice twice this year. 

The first night we had a lovely dinner of La Gloria take out with the Black family. 

I did a play on light and dark here with these store bought cream puffs. 

All the candles alight.

We didn't have our bonfire this night because it was crazy windy all day. 

So windy in fact, Birch Bay got slammed with a storm serge. Restaurants and roads were flooded and destroyed by ocean rocks and logs. So much debris was covering the roads. 

I went running the next morning and it had all been scraped to the side. 

Solstice day Jim had to work, and all my friends' husbands went up Mt Baker with the youth to night sled in the light of a full moon. 

I didn't have to go because there would have been no one to stay home and parent the children. 

So I had a women/children solstice bonfire. We roasted hot dogs on our solstice fire. 

It truly is a relief for me to hit winter solstice. Every day the sun is out one minute longer than the day before. 

December is Killing Me

Wow wow wow. 

This month is going by so so fast and I feel like I'm really close to being able to "enjoy" it.

Most of my young women stuff is finally done and my neighbor/friend gifts are done. Tomorrow is our Solstice party and I'm ordering Mexican from La Gloria...so it's all just good times from here on. Question mark.

I might even start a puzzle!

But what in the world? Why has it been so nuts? 

One night we had a "Grinch Party". We drank "grinch drinks" while I read the book to them. Then we watched the cartoon. Andrew is such a character this year. He loves the grinch. He draws the grinch. He plays pretend the grinch. 

I subbed a few times in Evan's class. He is such a stud. He made the "helpful student" list. 

For Family Home Evening we had a lesson about lighting the world and then Andrew had us draw things. The instructions were unclear, but I drew this,

Evan drew this picture of a fireman saving a burning building,

Andrew drew this. 

"How to be reverent": 

"say sh" with a little finger over his lips. 

And Jim's masterpiece. 

One cold day, Jim rode Galbraith while I ran. 

I turned a corner and there was this beautiful, frosty scene. 

We made mints. 

Andrew helped write Christmas cards. He would write the funniest things. This is to Grandma Cook. 

Another day Jim rode Chuckanut while I ran. 

It was so nice because I had so much on my mind. 

Winter Kelli's brain is here, and it is revved up, thinking and thinking. Running through the forest is therapeutic.

Then we went and ate at this amazing bistro in downtown Bham.  Look how cute the water pitcher is.

I was wet from sweat, so brrrr. 

See the goose egg on my head?

For a while this month, I made it a rule that anytime my kids fight, I take down a Christmas decoration. 

They fight A LOT, so there was a huge pile growing on the top shelf of the pantry.

One time I was reaching up in my confiscated decorations, and this:

wooden sign fell on my head. 

There is still a bump. 

I decided I should put the decorations back around the house where they belong. 

Now they have to do a chore when they fight. 

The kids dress up as Santa. 

One time Andrew unzipped a throw pillow and took out the stuffing to use as a beard. 

This note and taped styrofoam circle were put in a box and under the tree as a present to me from Andrew. 

He let me open it early.

Turns out he "accidentally" broke the styrofoam and felt bad about it for some reason. So the note explains that he's actually a really good boy, but a book made it crack in half. 

Andrew is the best. Look at the arms on his picture.

The other day in primary they were playing sing or dare. 

Avery got to pick a song, and she asked if she could play it on the piano: the only song she knows.

(Jolly Old Saint Nicolas)

My friend the pianist took the picture. 

So brave!

Also, Avery and Bailey are speaking in our Christmas Sacrament meeting Sunday about shepherds. 

Evan learned to hand weave in class, so he worked on a long one the other night. It's hanging in his room now. It kept him busy and calm for a long time. 

Andrew loves elf on the shelf.

He wrote the note "you can't touch a elf" to make sure the rules were clear to everyone. 

Then tonight he dressed up like Elf and sat all over the house. 

This is a speed post because I am out of time! There's too much to do! But I don't want to forget all of these weird things my kids do. 

I need one more extra week. 

Tomorrow we are making molasses cookies.