Charles turns 7!

Again we reach the end of the winter version of the Welch family birthday season by celebrating Charlie's birthday. He has reached the ripe old age of 7. We so enjoy this boy, except we don't really love his 'frumps' lately. He has had a hard time getting up and going for school and acts really frumpy. He always tells me he's tired and I always tell him, "Join the party. We are all tired and we all have to get up and going anyway!" Aren't I a nice mom? :P

Charles had decided that we were doing foil dinners for his birthday, just like Soren and James, but at the last minute he decided he'd rather have pizza. Sweet! So much easier! 

How we miss Little Caesar's! Living here we either make our own pizza on French Bread or we buy frozen Freschetta or DiGiorgno when it's on sale. The pizza places in town are just too much $.

Following dinner, we lit up his cake and sang to him. As you can see, he wasn't sure about our singing and I'm not sure if he was laughing at us or trying not to cry by covering his mouth….

He wanted a Ninjago cake. (we did wash all those Legos before putting them on the cake, and again after we took them off. Cleanest they've ever been!)

He opened presents and was happy to get a new Star Wars t-shirt, money, a rubber band pistol, and a RC car. Oh and CANDY. Cannot forget candy. It's his most favorite thing in the world.

Kami provided the entertainment for the evening. After everyone who wanted cake got some, she pulled that cake over to her and using the server began eating the frosting off the cake. She really went to town and had it pretty much everywhere. We laughed and laughed at her, which just made her keep at it.

At the end of the night, I had no problem just chucking the rest of the cake. Kami really helped her old grandma not be tempted to finish off the cake the next day. Thank you Kami!!!!

Christmas 2015

Everyone was so excited for Christmas to finally get here! We hosted a Christmas Eve dinner at our house with Grandma and Hugh and Karla, Jim, Allie and Peyton. We decided to have Mexican food for dinner and we had a taco/nacho bar and Karla brought enchiladas. It was yummy. I like to do Mexican food on Christmas Eve, it reminds me of our years in Arizona.

Kami and Grandpa

After everyone else left, we did our traditional Sibling Gift Exchange present opening.

James-a new slinky

Kami: has no siblings but got new pjs.

Charles-new Minion shirt

Soren in a Jedi robe

Perfect-new Star Wars shirt

Sadie-nail goodies 

Hannah-nail art kits

Ford really wanted Curtis to open the gift they gave him. Shiala wrapped each item individually.  :)

Oh, my.

Apple beer and a new hat that say Best Grandpa Ever. 

This is my favorite Christmas picture. I love to think that that sweet, wrinkled forehead baby is the way to Peace.

after all the festivities, we put out some cookies for Santa and Charles decided to write him a note
about the location of the milk. So cute!

after everything was put out, but before the kids dove in

Santa fills the stockings and leaves them around the room. It's always the first thing to check. He went a bit overboard on the candy this year. Hope he's going to help with any dental bills….

James…Doing his best picture face.

Charles ever so excited about all the sweet stuff. He has a bit of a sweet tooth.

Soren was very happy to have a giant Hershey's bar.

Sadie and her favorite flavor Pringles

Nina got a big box of Bottle-caps. 

And Hannah loves Sweet Stripes soft candy canes...

Now it's time to pass out all the gifts and prepare to open them…
(see the bags of cereal in the middle? Santa left that as well. We should be set for the break for breakfast!)

Jame got a Pokemon watch

We start with the youngest who opens a gift first, then the next person and so on, then back to the youngest who opens another gift and so it goes until everything is open.

We had a lovely bit of new white snow. Thankful we didn't have to go anywhere.

Soren inspecting a gift...

I made some Christmas bags years ago. They are so nice to put boxes in. Saves on paper waste.

She's so excited to have gotten some grocery sacks...

but underneath the bags was a ukulele

Hannah got her own flat iron

I found a great deal on Lego mini figures on Amazon. So I put them all in a bag and we played Greed with them. That way there was good-natured fighting over who got what one. They just all belong to the family. After we played a couple of times, we allowed them to go put them together.

Our family gift this year was new Wiimotes, a new charger and several new games. The girls were pretty excited about the Dance game. It was fun to watch them play.

It took awhile to put together 30 mini figures. 

They really like the song from Aladdin...

We also got a Battleship game. The boys had requested it.

Ford, Shiala and Kami came over in the afternoon. Sadie tried out some of her new polishes on Kami.

She wasn't too sure about it and only lasted long enough to do one hand.

Christmas is a magical time. I hope that the traditions we have will help my kids remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas. I am so thankful for my Savior. If he was not who He said he was and did not do what He did, we would have no reason to celebrate Christmas at all.

But He was and He did. 

Mormon Jesse tree

This is a fairly new Christmas tradition at our house. We use it as our daily Advent countdown. We call it a Mormon Jesse Tree. You can google Jesse tree to see what that means to the wider Christian world. This is a Mormon version. I found the list of symbols and scriptures and other info on the internet by doing a search for "Mormon Jesse Tree".

We used to have a traditional Santa advent calendar but since we were trying to put less emphasis on Santa, I got the the point where I didn't want to use it anymore. What I really wanted was a Nativity version or something that would be more Christ-centered. I ran across the idea of a Jesse Tree somewhere and thought I could try to tweak it to fit better with our beliefs, then thought maybe someone had already done that. Lo and behold, someone had and had shared their work on their blog.

Since it was close to Christmas when I found it, I hurriedly printed out the symbols with clipart and matted them. I also decided to just put them up on a wreath I already had instead of trying to find a branch. It worked fine and we enjoyed this way to lead in to Christmas, but I knew I wanted to do something cuter than printed cartoons on a wreath eventually.

So, here it is 3 or 4 years later and we have a mix of printed cartoons and felt symbols because the next year I thought it would be cute to make the daily symbols out of felt. I had NO idea how time-consuming and tedious that would be. As you can see I got disillusioned and gave that idea up. I still like the idea of something other than paper, but I don't know yet what it will be.

Maybe we will just have a hodgepodge forever, because you know, it really just doesn't matter. What really matters is what each symbol is representative of. Each piece represents a witness or type or shadow of Christ. From all the standard works. Each night as we open a little door on the Advent house and pull the symbol out we read the associated scriptures and the kids try to determine WHO the witness is and we review their story and how they are a witness or type or shadow of Christ. I thought it would get boring and they'd be uninterested after a couple of years, but they still enjoy it. Their answers are becoming more thoughtful and insightful. This is a great tradition that I think has proved itself and will be a keeper.

Our advent wreath.

Our advent house which houses the symbols. It was given to us and we used to put candy in the doors,
but this is a much better use for it. 

I'm so glad I decided to retire our Santa Advent calendar!