December Activities excluding Christmas

Shanda, Devin (Santa) and Derrick some of my favorite kids. They dressed up and shared the Christmas Spirit with visitors who came to see their Granpas Christmas village & Nativity. I took Shaunie and the girls to see the Christmas village. They could have stayed much longer but it was too cold outside.
This was taken just before Evelyn asked Santa to bring her "New Panties, Please" for Christmas. The funny thing, I'm pretty sure "panties" isn't in Santa Devons vocabulary.
The pains of being beautiful start at a young age.
Auntie Michelle had just applied beautiful eye shadow on Evelyn and she had to show it off. Both girls love putting on make up. One of their favorite things I got them were the Princess Chap Sticks. Until its gone it will be applied every two minutes, sometimes on Drama & Drampas lips.
Its nice to have a picture of Jilly were she isn't doing the "Cheese Ball Grin" she inherited from her daddy. I don't think we have more than two pictures of Ben where he isn't pulling his version of the same.
I got to make a gingerbread house with the girls. We had been talking about it on the phone so it was one of the first tings we did when the girls arrived.
My Kitchen, me and the girls had Royal Icing all over by the time we were finished making our house. Then as long as they were here they were able to pick off the candy and eat it, yum! We caught Jilly picking off the candy, licking the icing off then dropping the candy on the floor. Then one night when Evelyn was ready for bed I found her biting off all the candy on the tree. She wouldn't go to bed until she had all the candy off. Thanks Shaunie for choosing to fight other battles and letting your girls eat candy like they did over Christmas. What a sweet memory it is!
Most of you know Chuck plays the bagpipe. Thankfully he plays outside most of the time. The girls were very interested in watching Drampa play, they say, "He's loud."
He is getting pretty good, you'll have to believe me that he is playing Amazing Grace in this picture. As soon as he is done with piping school we are hoping he gets an invitation to play with the Boise Highlanders. Notice the snow in the background, it was actually snowing when I took this picture.
I've always wanted to have a table scape on my table and found that one of the benefits is though Chuck still lays out all his work stuff on the table, he'll clean it up when he's done so the table looks good again. I used my silver snowflake napkin rings, snowflake runner, and three snowflake ornaments all from Pottery Barn. Then finished off with silver chargers, white plates, snowflake votives and the Southern Living At Home Pine Sprig Tray. We enjoyed our winter table scape until the girls came then it was changed to the plastic cloth, Winne The Pooh and Princess place mats and Melamine dishes.
I've not mentioned it on my blog but those of you who read Ben & Shaunies know Evelyn and Jill are going to get a baby brother, Gordon Benjamin, to torture & love the first part of April. I couldn't resist this Classic Pooh outfit when I saw it. I believe they are going to bless him in it. Jilly was playing with me and a bowl of marshmallows and would open her mouth just as I took the picture. I was trying to get one of her just being Jill until I realized she is "just being Jill" when she is goofing off. Evelyn, who doesn't have comedic timing at all had to pose with her mouth open. I managed to get one of Jill without her mouth closed and true to form she has her cheese ball grin. I love having little "photo shoots" when the girls are not doing anything special rather doing every day things. Those are the precious times I so love with my grand children.


For our ward party I made Brandon & Kara Thompson Joseph and Mary costumes. They loved the cutting put part of the process. Both Brandon and Kara were in Chuck and my nursery class, they are the cutest little people and made an adorable Mary & Joseph.

On the first Sunday in December we came home from church to find a heard of sheep walking down Central Avenue, right past us. I had Chuck stop at the top of our street so I could take these pictures. I love the one with the sheep dog doing his work. I don't know how many sheep were there but there were only two dogs and three shepherds. All winter the sheep travel this way to fields where they eat the straw or hay down to the ground. The other day as I travelled up Gem Ave there was a herd of sheep eating my brother Muggys field down where I believe he had wheat planted. They chomp it all down then move onto the next field via the nearest road. This woudl never happen in Torrance, Ca. Girin:)