December 13-19: Christmas routines

December 13.  Kimball's piano teacher offered us some free tickets to the symphony for the Here Comes Santa Clause performance.  It was really fun for the boys to see Abravanel Hall and hear the symphony.  Although it was only an hour, they were bored about half way through.

Our elf, Pippen, was hugging Baby Jesus today.

December 14.  Sunday was our cousin gift exchange.  John and Jill made a delicious pork roast with rosemary.  We also attempted a nativity, which was just a little chaotic.

December 15.  Monday was Stanford's preschool Christmas program.

December 16-17.  We have developed some fun routines for the Christmas holiday.  First thing in the morning the kids get to eat a chocolate from calendars they got from Pippen the elf on December 1st.  Next they like to see what is new in the computer advent calendar from Nana and Papa.  In the evening we open one of the Christmas books I have wrapped.  We are loving these small moments of celebrating Christmas together.  I love to see the pictures that the kids draw.  Below is one of Kimball's.

December 18.  On Thursday we spent the morning running errands.  Stanford refused to go to Preschool like he does nearly every morning and I was too tired to fight him.  I also let him wear his old tiger costume which is size 24 months.  The triumph of the day was fixing the vacuum with a new belt.

 December 19.  Kimball used the blocks to recreate the 12 days of Christmas.  It's hard to tell, but in there are 12 lords a leaping, 11 ladies dancing, 10 drummers drumming, 9 pipers piping, 8 maids a milking, 7 swans a swimming, 6 geese a laying, 5 gold rings, 4 calling birds, 3 french hens, 2 turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.  (He would refer to the partridge as a "tar pidgeon" until he could remember it correctly).