Christmas Break... Let the Fun Begin!

It wouldn't be the Christmas Season without finding the Pickle! After the tree is decorated mom places the Pickle ornament on the tree at some random time and waits until one of the kids finds it for a prize. This year it was up for 2 weeks before the girls asked if it was in the tree somewhere. They looked and looked and finally mom had to give them a hint. Auri finally found the pickle and was given a gift card to the Airborne trampoline park. Definitely a tradition we will continue.

We have made it a tradition over the last few years to attend the Christmas Carol at the Hale Center Theater in Orem. We invited Jared and Jodi's family, Noelle and Janson and Grandma and Grandpa Pikus. We ate at MiRanchitos before heading to the play. They do such a great job bringing the Christ-Child into the play which isn't typical in most Christmas Carol performances. It always sets the mood for the Christmas Season!

Since the girls are getting older, we thought we would make the most of their Christmas gifts and let them have a "girls shopping day" to pick out a few items they would like since clothes are number one on the list. So we headed to University Mall where the girls found plenty of clothes to open on Christmas morning! It is always a good excuse as well to spend time with the girls.

A treat making day is always something we look forward to during the Christmas Season. From homemade toffee, dipped pretzels and Auri's snowman donuts and chocolate reindeer, we would call it a success!

After a long day of making treats, the girls decided to take a trip up to Salt Lake to see the lights. Since the temple is being renovated, the lights weren't as spectacular as usual, but we loved walking around temple square, listening to choirs, looking at the candy displays at the ZCMI center and sipping on some hot chocolate. 

Jared's family reached out and asked if we wanted to go skiing with them at Brighton. We will never turn down a ski day with the cousins if we are available. Ayisa invited her friend Delaney to join us. Lincoln was Mom's ski buddy for the first half of the night so that the older cousins could cruise together while Jared taught tanner to ski. After dinner, we all headed out together where we were all able to take a few runs down as an entire group. Tanner and Lincoln did an amazing job keeping up!

During the break we were able to watch Christmas movies while putting puzzles together, get together with Andy, Sabrina and Kaitlyn for breakfast, pick up Grandma Woobie to scout out amazing Christmas light displays in neighborhoods, make homemade ice-cream, shop, ski as a family, play games and ice-skate. There wasn't a day during the break that we had much down time other than watching an occasional movie. We were missing Skyler, but so proud of him for spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to those in North Dakota and soon to be Jamaica!