Class Party Crashers

 My girls love their cousin Emily.  They thought it was the greatest thing in the world that they got to go to school with Emily for her Christmas party while my boys were at the new Hobbit movie. 

 They played lots of games and jumped right in like they were in fifth grade too.

 They made a Christmas card craft.

They stayed for lunch.  Faith's class party was today too, but I'm pretty sure she was excited to miss it if it meant going to Emily's party instead.

Adventures in Travel

 We flew to Salt Lake on Dec. 16th on a very late flight that landed after midnight.  This is what Hope looked like waiting for the luggage :).  It was a long day.

 Not only was our flight really late, but they lost our luggage.  We didn't want to sit around waiting for them to deliver it, so we drove to the airport to pick it up today, and went to see Cortney and Grey in Salt Lake.

It was so great to see Cortney and her sweet baby girl.  She is the cutest baby ever.

 This baby is pure sunshine.

We got to see the krispateers in action tonight making their rice krispie treats to deliver to the cafe.  Mammy, Michelle and Taycina make their krispie treats as a small business, and it was fun to see their creations.  It's good to be home.

Christmas BINGO

 Last year on Christmas day we were with our friends the Mamouneys playing BINGO with them.  It is a Christmas tradition for them, and they were so kind to take us in on Christmas Day and share their family and traditions with us.  When we were getting ready to move back to Virginia, Bindi gave us a Christmas BINGO set to take with us complete with Aussie BINGO cards and gifts to open.  Since we won't be home on Christmas Day, we got out the BINGO set today to play.  It was so much fun opening the presents, but this game came with a bit of sadness too as we are missing Australia and our dear friends there.

This book was our favourite!  (Thought I'd spell like an Aussie).  Thank you again, Bindi, for this game and this new tradition that will live on in our family at Christmas.  I've already started buying the funny gifts for BINGO next year.

Christmas Lights

 For FHE tonight we drove around looking at Christmas lights.  We drove to Meadowlark Botanical Garden in Vienna for their light festival.  We usually do a drive-through light festival at Bull Run Park, but we decided to try a walk-through light festival this year.  The kids kept asking why we didn't go to the drive-through one.  It wasn't that cold, so I don't know why they were complaining :)

 We are pretending to ice skate like the people behind us.

 They stopped complaining once they got hot chocolate.

 On our way home we stopped at a house in our town. Every year they fill their yard with Christmas blow-ups. It is quite amazing.

Contacts and Christmas Parties

 I wore contacts for the first time when I was in eighth grade, and I told Spencer he could get contacts in eighth grade.  He's been in eighth grade a long time and was overdue for contacts.  When James came home from school this week with his glasses in a pile of crushed metal and glass I figured we might as well get James in contacts too.  Friday night we hung out at Costco watching these boys put contacts in for the first time.  It's no easy thing.  It was quite the night since Faith threw up all the way to Costco.  Thank heavens for ziplock bags :)

 Saturday night was our ward Christmas party.  Of course the girls are the only ones who let me take their picture anymore.

Fun with Friends

 Hope really loves her preschool friends.  We rotate houses and the moms teach these little girls.  This week it was our turn to host preschool.

The preschool friends had fun this week at Ella's birthday party.  Such cute little girls.

Our Outback Shack

 I bought this at our local grocery store in Australia last year, but we never got around to making our gingerbread outback shack. Lucky for us, we got to make it this year for FHE and bring a little Australia into our home.

 Faith was the only one who would pose with our finished product.