Eight Months

Eleanor is a super cute, super busy little girl.  She is very happy and smiley and loves chasing her brothers around and getting into their things.  We are so blessed to have such a sweet little girl in our lives.

(Apologies for the crusties on the nose and blurry photos....like I mentioned she's super busy!)

Gingerbread Men

I was a little disappointed at how our gingerbread house turned out this year (or didn't!) and so I found a recipe for gingerbread cookies and we tried our hand at making gingerbread men.  The recipe we used was super yummy and the boys had a lot of fun decorating their cookies.

After we finished decorating Stephen decided to test them out.  (Poor little gingerbread man didn't even see what was coming.)

Eleanor also tested out the cookies, but in the end decided she preferred to break them into little pieces rather than eat them.

Mr. and Mrs. Gingerbread.

It was a fun little project and we all enjoyed decorating our cookies and spending time together.

Gingerbread House

Our gingerbread house wasn't as successful as it has been in the past.  The boys got really excited about our little project and broke part of the roof.  The other problem was that I used regular store bought frosting to piece everything together. (Last year I used the frosting that the kit came with and it was too old and hard.  This year I tried store bought and it was too soft.  Maybe next year I'll remember and take the time to make some frosting.)

Despite all the difficulties the boys had a lot of fun decorating their house. (Maybe one of these days we'll try making our own gingerbread houses.....like from scratch!)

Reindeer

We tried making some reindeer cake pops one night before Christmas.  The antlers were a little battered but the boys had a lot of fun making them.

The Adventurer

Eleanor is such a fun adventurous little girl.  She loves the freedom of being mobile and is always getting into something new.  She is super happy and smiley too.  She adds so much joy to our little family.

Emerson's Nativity Performance

Emerson was a shepard in his schools nativity performance this year.  (We forgot the camera so this picture is from Stephen's phone.  He is the one in the front left adjusting his headpiece.)  

The shepard's all sang and danced about going to see Jesus in Bethlehem.  It was very cute and made me grateful that Emerson goes to a school that is not afraid to teach the children about the true meaning behind Christmas.

The Big Tree

We were all so busy decoroating our tree that I only took a couple pictures.  Here are a couple of the boys putting some decorations on the tree (I love the consentration/focus in their faces).

 This year Canyon was the lucky boy to put the star on top of the tree.  (All this decorating makes me so excited for Christmas and the wonderful spirit that it brings.)