We made gingerbread houses. I actually made gingerbread for the first time. It smelled delicious, but was a disaster trying to frost together. I finally quit and used the hot glue gun instead.
We also dressed up and had our own little nativity for family home evening one night.
Christmas was on a Sunday this year, and Brighton moved their skiing as Santa day to Christmas Day instead of Christmas Eve. So our little family went skiing for a couple hours on Christmas Eve. Alta lets you pay $10/person to go on one lift from 3-4:30pm. So we decided that would be a good amount of time to ski for Aspen's first time. I really thought Aspen would take to skiing really well because she's my more adventurous and wild child. But it was a complete disaster.
I have never skied at Alta before, so I had no idea what this lift was like. My dad thought it was a great beginner hill because it is long. He complains that the one at Brighton is too short and you spend all day in line. But we had to leave for the resort around 2pm and so Aspen missed her nap, so she was tired before we even got started. Once we got on the lift it just kept going and going. Isaac and I were worried and wondered what we got ourselves into. At the very top of the mountain the wind was blowing and it was a blizzard (it dumped a foot in the valleys that night to make a nice white Christmas). Aspen was bawling and saying she was cold. We tried to quickly get her off the very peak where it wasn't as windy, but the damage was already done. She just kept screaming "I want to go home" and "How do we get back to the car?" I kept trying to explain that we had to ski down the mountain to get to the car, but she didn't want to do that. So I had her between my legs and was trying to get down as fast as possible, but the hill had a million parts that leveled out and we weren't going fast enough to ski over them so we had to walk down half the hill pulling the girls.
Sophie had a great time and tried skiing herself a lot. She would fall down every 10 seconds, but she was always laughing and having fun.
It took us 50 mins to get one run in, and Aspen was crying almost the whole time (unless she was between my legs and I was skiing fast). So I took her back to the car for some hot chocolate while Isaac took Sophie up for one more run. Then I went for one run by myself right before the lift closed. It was weird skiing conditions because there was quite a bit of powder by that time and my skis just stuck to it. Plus it was getting dark and with the storm visibility was terrible and my depth perception was non-existent. Anyway, it wasn't the greatest experience, but we'll have to try again under better circumstances.
But Christmas day was great. I love watching the excitement on the kids faces as they open their gifts. We decided to have a more laid back and smaller Christmas this year because we decided to build a house. But with presents from Grandparents and sibling exchanges we still end up with a ton of stuff. (Also we decided to buy my dad's old car a few days before Christmas for Isaac's present.)
This year I was trying to focus more on giving than receiving. So I took each child to the store individually to pick a present for their siblings. I really wanted them to put some thought into it and pick something they thought they would like. This turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I would have to remind them every 10 seconds, "we're looking for something that Luke would like" etc. Also, they can only see the very bottom shelf at the store, which either has really expensive things or junk. But I tried my hardest not to influence their decisions too much. I'm sure it will get easier as they get older.
On Christmas morning we opened presents at home. We had to rush quite a bit in order to make it to church, so the kids didn't get to play with their toys much.
Isaac carved me a cool statue of Christ. He took way too long working on it (because he always procrastinates until 2 weeks before Christmas), so I got mad at him for ditching us so much. But it turned out really good, especially for his first carving attempt.
Then we went up to Grandma Karla's house for dinner. The kids had fun playing with their cousins. Karla made each of the girls a cute doll with some clothes. She also made a cute car mat for Luke. It was a lot of fun.
Here are some random pictures of a squash helmet we made while cutting up a squash we grew in the garden this year. That thing weighed 20 lbs and almost broke the girls neck when Isaac put it on, so he had to help hold it for the pictures.
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