Our last Delaware Christmas!!

 Christmas Eve and Christmas this year were fantastic!!!  We tried doing some new things we have never tried before and had a really great holiday!! 

Unfortunately, there was NOT a whole lot to do on Christmas Eve in Dover this year...no good movies were playing...no amazing light displays that we could find...so we improvised.  Of course, I made sugar cookies for the kids...and Ryan...to decorate for Santa...and us :)  They were yummy!!

 Jane made her star cookie look like a snow flake...very creative!!

 Beckham, as usual, added ALOT of candy to his cookies :)

 Ryan enjoyed making his gingerbread men...each with their own unique look!!

 Here was the end result!!!  Santa is one lucky guy :)

 We rented "Rise of the Guardians" to watch.  We love that darling movie :) And the kids got a special present  and note which was left by our Elf Eric since he went back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve!!  The kids loved their new jammies that Elf Eric left them...he knows them so well!!

 My favorite part of Christmas Eve is doing our traditional Shepherd's dinner, a tradition set forth long ago by my family :) 

 Daddy read the story of the Nativity to us and we talked about the Savior and his life!!  I love this tradition!! And naturally, right before bed, we spread out our reindeer food on our front lawn and read "Twas the Night Before Christmas"  The kids were asleep in no time at all :)

 Christmas morning came early, around 6am :) However, we were ALL too excited to wait.  So, the sun was still waiting to rise when we started opening presents!! Among other things, Beckham got his Hex bug from Santa and was thrilled!!

 Jane got her kitty cat key chain...

 and her Elsa doll from Santa.  She was a happy lady :)

 Here is Jane's magical flying fairy doll!!!  It is super neat :)

 I was surprised to see that one of Beckham's favorite presents was his bug sucker gun- hehe!! While Ryan is gone for two whole moths, Beckham was agreed to be on bug duty with his bug sucker gun :)

 The Lincoln logs have been a huge hit...

 Play dough is always a winner...messy...but a winner!!

 And Beckham got a Ziggle and Jane a scooter.  Not even the cold could stop them from going outside to try them out.

 We ventured far from home this year on Christmas in search of some beautiful Christmas lights. We traveled to Longwood Gardens and were not dissappointed :) We started in their AMAZING greenhouse where they had beautiful Christmas displays everywhere.

 They even had fun water activities that the kids loved :)

 And cool places to explore.

 I loved all the Christmas trees and red and green flowers everywhere!!  It truly was a magical place :)

 A highlight was hearing the outstanding organist play Christmas music!!  This organ is one of the largest in America with 10,010 pipes!!!  The sound it produced was stunning!!

 Here is just one small room FULL of organ pipes.  On this one floor there were ten rooms or so and there were three other stories of rooms full of organ pipes.

 This display was crazy.  Those are apples floating in water making that awesome design...

 Once it got dark we went outside to see the lights :) It was cold but worth it.

 This tree had a mind boggling number of lights on it.  This was Ryan's favorite tree :)

 Walking around the gardens and lights at night listening to Christmas music was so neat.

 

I can hardly believe another Christmas has come and gone...life just will not slow down.  However, we are looking forward to another year full of many new changes and fun adventures :)

A Centurion, Christmas Kids, and a Gingerbread Earthquake!!!

    Our Dover Ward Christmas party this year was wonderful and super unique!!  It's hard to see what it was really like from my pictures...but the gym was decorated like an old Jerusalem City Market and most of the ward members were dressed in period clothing...(not us...I just couldn't do it :)!! 

 We were able to go around to the different market shops and "buy" food that they might have eaten back in the time that Christ lived.  There was a meat market with summer sausage slices, cheese cubes and split pea soup.  There was a bread market that had pieces of beagles and pita with cream cheese and hummus and olives. There was also a fruit market. They also threw in a desert market...not exactly period food but yummy just the same!!

 Then, we all sat on blankets and ate while we watched a good old reenactment of the Nativity!! It may sound strange, but it was actually really neat and there was a great spirit there!!

 Haha, they roped Ryan into dressing up as a Centurion....

 A few little friends came to join us on our blanket!! Cute!!

 I always LOVE the Christmas sacrament meeting program at church!! This year the choir sang a Christmas cantata which was really lovely.  I also love seeing all the sweet kids at church all dressed up in Christmas colors.  We went with a festive green theme this year!! My kids are so darling!!

 This year we made a Christmas gingerbread village as apposed to just one house!!  Each of us got to decorate our own little houses!!  It made for some interesting and messy results...

 Jane's was adorned with alot of PINK and RED :)

 Beckham's was just covered in A LOT of everything...

 Ryan had a little too much fun with his creation...

 Here is the end result.  A Christmas village that looks like it has survived an earthquake...hehe!!

I can't believe Christmas is a mere two days away!!  Merry Christmas everyone :)

Rainy Christmas Lights and Camp Read-a-lot!!

 Upon Beckham's sweet request, we made a trip up the the Washington DC temple to see the lights. He really loves those lights and even though it was ugly, rainy weather, we had a really fun time :)

Here are the kids in front of the Nativity...

 The lights were so beautiful!!

 And the temple was such a beautiful backdrop!!

 The kids love seeing the statue of Christ :)

 We all attended "Camp Read-a-lot" at Jane's school recently.  Jane has such an amazing school and I love all the cool things they do!!  We went around to different stations where the kids participated in different activities based around reading.  At this station the kids got to pick books and we got to read them with flashlights in our very own tent!!!

 At another one of the stations the kids got to pet a creepy looking corn snake and a turtle :)

 And at this station we played fun reading games!! Even Beckham rocked at these games!! My kids are such smarties...

For our last station, we got to go hear a story read by Santa himself!!!  We love Christmas time fun!!

Christmas In The Olden Days!!!

  There is an agricultural museum in Delaware that we have never really thought to visit...after all, how interesting can agriculture really be!!! However, they were having a one day Christmas festival, so with nothing else really going on, we decided to give it a try.  To our surprise this place ended up being really neat!! Out back behind the museum there was a whole city laid out with actual buildings from the early settlements of Delaware!!  They were all so beautiful and we had so much fun walking around the city like we were living in the olden days!!

Here's a beautiful picture of the kids in the old city as the sun was setting!!

 Here we are at the old train station where the station master was a telling a true ghost story from an early Delaware settlement!!  It was freezing out side, so every building was heated with old wood burning stoves!!  They were so cool!!  And the old guys being the station masters were darling :)

 Here we are in front of a beautiful covered bridge that took us into the city portion of the town!!

 This, of course, was my FAVORITE building...the old school house.  It had cool old desks with writing slates inside!!  I would have loved to be a teacher back in those days :) There was a special little Christmas craft to do inside the school house!!  It was so fun!!

 Another beautiful building was the chapel.  Inside they even had carolers singing Christmas songs!!! Outside the building there was a huge bell that Beckham, in particular, loved to ring over and over again. We eventually had to tear him away from it...it was a very loud bell!!

Some buildings that we didn't get pictures of were a shop, an old home, a barber shop and a blacksmith shop!!

Inside the museum there were many booths set up with Christmas crafts and cool demonstrations of how they did things in the olden days like making brooms, a loom making rugs, etc etc!!  The kids loved making Christmas tree ornaments!!

Naturally we got see Santa and Mrs. Clause!!  The kids were in heaven!!

What a fun Christmas adventure we stumbled across!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 Thanksgiving this year was wonderful!!!  It was the very FIRST time Ryan and I just stayed home for Thanksgiving and got to make whatever we wanted for our Thanksgiving feast!!  It was so fun to decide what we wanted to make. And it was extra easy, because we had our dear friends, the Woodlands, over to dinner since their dad is deployed :( Ryan's job was the turkey and gravy, and my sweet friend, Kelsey, and I split up the sides and pies!! It was YUMMY!!

Here is the table...

 And Ryan with his most excellent and beautiful turkey!!  The guys got skills- it was super yummy!! I suppose I must thank his extremely talented mother who is an amazing cook :)!!

 And here we all are enjoying the feast...I think it was a hit:)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!  We hope your day was fabulous!!