It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I've been unexpectedly busy with work the last couple of months but despite that I've been trying to fit in fun activities with the kids and family time for the four of us. There are so many things to do this time of year and so I've tried to embrace the Holidays without adding to much additional stress or chaos to the household. So far I think we've had a pretty successful Christmas season!

The Friday after Thanksgiving, Kingsburg has a Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony. You meet in the memorial park, then walk down the main street singing Christmas Carols, the big tree in the middle of town is lit, Santa makes an appearance, and everyone dances around while singing Swedish songs. Kieran had a blast dancing and singing and was in love with Santa. Jon and Reed weren't quite as enthusiastic and unfortunatley the only picture I managed to take was a family pic of the Suemotos (the Parkinsons and Siegels were also there).

Since we didn't have any family in town this year for Thanksgiving we decorated for Christmas the weekend after. The boys loved decorating the mini-trees they get to put in their rooms and had a great time helping decorate our family tree as well. There is something magical about a Christmas tree and almost every morning they end up with their toys right by the tree playing, which is adorable!

Pretty much every fall/winter Jon and some of his friends do some kind of fitness challenge. This year there were a bunch of different exercises that had to be performed by each teammate so they gathered at our house one night to have the competition. We invited all of the wives and kids over too and had a fun little pizza party while the guys sweated it out in the front yard. Most of the guys were growing mustaches for "Movember" so I forced them to take a group picture before the competition began.

Team Movember

As is our tradition every year, we went to the Electrical Farm Equipment Parade in Reedley this year. Grandma was out of town but Grandpa joined us to watch the parade. Almost all of our Kingsburg friends made it too. The floats and equipment were pretty impressive this year and the weather was really nice so we had a great evening of Holiday Festivities.

 

 

Reed has been obsessed with doing crafts lately and came up with the idea of making Christmas Lights. He wasn't too sure about Kieran's take on it, but we had fun, and he was so proud of the end result!

I've been trying to work through my Christmas to-do list when I feel like it and can enjoy doing the stuff and not worrying about the unimportant things I don't get to. So far this has worked out really well for my sanity. Over the weekend Reed helped me wrap gifts and he was so excited to wrap the gift that he picked out for Kieran and pretty proud when he wrote both his and Kieran's names on the gift tag all by himself.

We have a few more Holiday outings planned which I know the boys are going to love and I promise to share. To say they are excited for Christmas this year is an understatement!!!