We did have Christmas around here

Hey, I'm not quite a month behind yet.  Better late than never. 

One night for Family Home Evening we acted out the nativity.  We pulled out some fabric, towels, and other items and let Dallin and Adam choose which part they wanted to play.  Owen didn't get to choose.  He's already an angel so that worked out.

Dallin was a wise man.  (The angel disrobing in the background).

 

Adam was a shepherd.

Mark and I were Mary and Joseph and we don't have any baby dolls (we are a family of boys) so some sort of animal was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a serving tray.  Mark read from Luke 2 while we acted out the scene.  Afterward, Adam was looking outside.  The neighbors across the street has put up a lighted nativity scene that day and now it was dark and lit for the first time.  Adam exclaimed, "Hey!  That's the same play that we were doing!"  So it was the perfect opportunity to take the kids across the street and reinforce the message.  Sometimes those moments just fall into your lap and it was a sweet night with the boys. 

Here's a few other pictures from other things we did:

Mark and his jazz band played at the temple visitor's center one night.  Looks like this might become an annual tradition.

Owen and I watching the performance.

We went with the Melzers to a free "Media Night" for Zoolights.  Finally all this work for I Heart Mesa is starting to have some perks.

There's a neighborhood in Mesa we have visited for the last few years where an older couple dresses up like Santa and Mrs. Claus and visits with kids in this bench that they set up in front of their yard.  They collect donations of food and cash for the Child Crisis Center.  Aren't you glad there are good people in this world?

I love this picture below, partly because of the look Adam is giving his little brother.  The paper in the tree is one that Adam wrote.  He asked me how to spell, "I love my baby brother" then he put the paper up in the Christmas tree.  It says "I LOEV MY BABY BROTHER. LOEV ADAM."  Dallin and Adam were happy they got "warm pajamas" for Christmas like Owen has.  They wear these every night if they are clean.

And you can't tell from this picture, but it was snowing when I took it.  We got a good 15 minutes of snow at our house the week after and the boys were running around with our neighbor Jack signing, "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."  The snow was big enough that it would land on our clothes and on the ground for a few seconds.  That's a big deal around here.  I think I've only ever seen snow fall once in my life, on a band trip to northern Arizona.

I figured I'd better post because Mark has scared my from leaving the blog blank for too long.  You never know what he is going to put on here.