12 Days of Christmas Continued...

 

 Here is our four calling birds,

a.k.a. four cans of chicken in this cute telephone booth :)

 

I didn't take pictures of the five golden rings, aka doughnuts, six geese a laying, aka eggs and bacon, seven swans a swimming, aka soap for us to use after swimming in the lake with the swans, and eight maids a milking, aka a gallon of regular milk, and one of chocolate milk. 

 

Here are our Nine Ladies Dancing:

 

Tonight, we received crowns and a Burger King gift certificate for 10 Lords a Leaping.
 

We anxiously await our 11 pipers piping and 12 drummers drumming. 

In other Christmas news, I helped out with Natalie's Christmas party at school last week.  I dreaded driving over there because it was the day we had a huge snow storm all day long, and even Kimberly's bus got in an accident on the way to school - no one hurt, thank goodness, but it sounds like there were several buses struggling that morning.  We live in a very hilly part of east Layton, so it is very difficult for buses to maneuver around here on snowy days - the elementary bus for Natalie and Alicia was almost an hour late!  Anyway, by the time the party was about to start, the snow had let up a bit, and the plows had been through most of the side streets, so I braved the roads an was glad I did, because we had a blast:

 

 Even Megan got to join in on the fun:
 

She was working so hard tying up each fabric strip that she didn't dare look up for a picture!

 

 Since we've had a ton of snow of late, we enjoyed a rousing rendition of the chicken and fox game in our backyard after some big snow falls last week - we spent a good hour and a half playing...good times, for sure.

 



These pictures just do not do it justice. Because of the huge backyard, it is a ton of fun to play, and very exhausting!

 

Now, to end this post with one of our absolutely favorite traditions every year at Christmastime: 

This is our favorite advent calendar - 

 

 Marian, John's sister, and now my dear sister and friend, made it for us several Christmas's ago, and the girls LOVE - and I do mean Love, putting up the cute items every day.  They fight over whose turn it is, and sneak extra pieces on when no one is looking just so they can have an extra turn. 

 

Lastly, if you are wondering where the heck our Christmas letter blog post is (because I've simplified my life by doing away with cards and stamps), alas, I have just begun working on it. Oddly, I haven't had a desire to work on it this year, probably because I've already blogged about everything we've done this year, so I don't want to bore you with a summary repeat of the year, but I do like to do one for our own family records, so it is coming...though it may be a New Years letter!  Stay tuned :)