December Fun, Part 1

We've been having a lot of fun this month, trying to get Lennon as excited about Christmas as possible and enjoying all the activities of the season.

Parade of Lights

We took Lennon downtown to see the Parade of Lights the first Saturday in December. We were running late, so we didn't get a spot all to ourselves, which meant that we were standing between a fence and a huge crowd behind us. Lennon was not thrilled about the crowd of people around us, but he really enjoyed the parade, especially the lights and the marching bands. We will definitely go again next year, we will just go extra early to stake out a spot all to ourselves.

How come Santa is always at the end of the parade? The parade was about 15 minutes too long and Lennon was ready to go, which meant the tears came just in time to see Santa. Although, he did stop crying when he saw Santa, his face didn't really show it!

Cookie Decorating

We got together with all the kids to decorate cookies. Unfortunately, Lennon was teething really badly that day and decided he wanted to scream and cry for hours, which wasn't fun for anyone! There are now 7 kids between all of us (ranging from 2 months to almost 3) and there were at least 2 kids crying, screaming or in timeout at a time (Lennon was always one of them). So because of the extreme crankiness, Lennon didn't decorate any cookies, so we will be doing that this week and I will be posting pictures of that soon. The rest of the kids had fun going crazy with the cookies, frosting and sprinkles and making a great mess. I don't know about the kids, but all us moms were exhausted and I'm sure slept very well that night!

Silas (with Huck watching in the background):

Ashlee and Harper:

Tree Cutting and Santa
We went up the mountains with the Halder, Dow and Perlman families to cut down Christmas trees, though we ourselves didn't get a tree. The volunteer firehouse in Buffalo Creek hosts an annual fundraiser for all of the tree cutters by offering Chili and Santa, among other goodies.

So all the kids got their chance with Santa--Lennon wasn't thrilled, but he didn't cry like I was expecting him to (I feel like this is Lennon's trademark face).

In the firetruck:
Lennon had fun in the backpack, and everyone left with great trees!
Lennon loves candy canes--he's gotten several throughout the month and then we bought a package for decoration around the house and he always has one in hand. Unfortunately, it didn't take long to learn how to open them.

Lennon enjoying the Christmas tree, and his new hammer that he got from his Aunt Beka and Uncle Jared:

Lennon loves the musical ornaments that my grandma made me each year for Christmas as a kid. The music boxes have gone dead in a few of the ornaments and the working ones will soon follow with the amount that Lennon plays them!