Family Pictures

Over the holidays, we were able to spend lots of time with Travis' family and my own family. We took family pictures with both groups- and they turned out pretty cute... except for my unruly children, of course! I love that these pictures are both so different! We took pictures with the Pitchers up at Sundance ski resort, and pictures with my family in my sister Mary's driveway in Arizona. 

I love this cute picture of Travis' parents with all their grandsons. We loved having James and Finn visit (from Perth, Australia) and the boys loved spending time with their only cousins.

 Look at all those beautiful, tall blond people! Sometimes I still feel like a little hobbit when I'm with my in-laws!

Family pictures, take two. 

My siblings and I. My little sister Katie is only 10, and is the boys' favorite human on the planet- except (maybe) for Travis. My cute sister Mary is 8 months pregnant here (although she's currently a few days past her due date, and we are all anxiously carrying around our phones- waiting for the text that tells us she's in labor!). And my handsome brother-twin Jack, who is 18 and surprisingly tall next to all his shorty-sisters.

We loved being together over the holidays- even if we didn't get pictures taken in time to send out a christmas card. Maybe i'll send out Valentine's day cards this year instead...


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Dreaming of a white Christmas

Our Christmas was practically perfect. We went to bed on Christmas Eve with presents beneath the tree and sticky-bun dough waiting in the fridge. I still felt a bit heart-broken that we didn't have even a flake of snow on the ground, but the excitement in our house was such a treat. The boys fell asleep in their beds with visions of sugar plums in their heads, holding perfectly still to hear the tinkle of bells on Santa's sleigh. At about 4am, Micah tiptoed into our room. 

"Mom, wake up!" he whispered. "There's a surprise out your window! Look! It's snowing outside!"

I don't know why he was awake and peering out his window in the middle of the night, but I can just picture him waking up, and hoping for a glimpse of that jolly old elf driving his sleigh across the sky. Instead, he saw snow. Perfect snow! White and thick, clean and beautiful, light and warm, cold and heavy and everything Christmas morning should be. 

When Grey woke, he whispered "Mom, do you think Santa came?"

"I don't know! Why don't you go check and see?" 

He tiptoed out of the room slowly, and came sprinting back a few seconds later, "HE DID COME! There's a bow and arrows for me, and my stocking is full! Quick, wake up Micah! Come on!"

After presents, we headed to Travis' parents house where the snow continued to fall thickly and left us with the perfect White Christmas. We had an amazing week since, and I promise to post more about it this week. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Auld Lang Syne.

From our home to yours:

Good Tidings of Comfort and Joy. 

From the Hands of Babes

Children are so in-tune with the world and are so often profound and sweet in unexpected ways.

I made these Nativity puppets a few years ago, based on ones my mom made for us when I was a kid.  (see the original blogpost {here})
I love them more than all the other beautiful, old, handmade, expensive, or sentimental Christmas decorations in our home. Because with these puppets, every day, my children tell me the story of Christmas over and over again. They are quick to claim the most desirable puppets of Mary and Joseph, followed by the Kings, Angels, and then the animals and shepherd.
They often ask me to narrate the story while they act it out and they add the sweetest dialogue:
"Mary, you are going to grow baby Jesus in your belly," says the angel.
"There's no beds left at this hotel!" says the inn-keeper.
"Hello Baby Jesus, I love you," says the shepherd.
"There's a new star, I want to follow it!" says the wise man.

The story of Christ is the greatest story ever told, and I am especially fond of this chapter- the tale of his birth.
If you haven't seen this lovely video yet, watch it! It was a nativity program from a few weeks ago, featuring lots of Christian YouTubers and musicians. It's lovely. It probably made me cry.

Christmas Spirit

Whether you are having any trouble getting into "The Christmas Spirit," or if you're already full-throttle Jingle-belling and Hallelujahing - these videos are for you.
Last night for family night, we watched these two sweet Christmas movies on YouTube and I would encourage everyone reading to spend ten minutes today and do the same.

The first is the story of The Nativity. It's the best version I've ever seen portrayed on film.

The second is a good reminder for all of us that Christmas isn't about the parties, the trees, the turkey, or even the gifts. (Maybe Christmas perhaps, means a little bit more.)
It's about the Savior. And as many times as we try to tell ourselves that, it's still easy to forget.






And I'm off Facebook, as your probably know. So if there are any awesome Christmas videos that are trendy right now, leave them in the comments. I can always do with an uplift. :)

Photo a Day: Dec 22 - 28

This week was lovely, but it must speak for itself, since I don't really have time to sit around and blog. (Vay-cay!)
And I hate using my sister's laptop. So posts may be sparse this week…

Sunday: Grey.

 Monday: Making Cookies with my boys.

 Tuesday: Christmas Jammies!

 Wednesday: Christmas at Grandma's house. // Thursday: My love and me.

Friday: On the road. // Saturday: We've reached Paradise!

Merry Christmas from the Pitchers!

Please don't feel sad that I didn't mail you a card. I literally did not mail a single one.

Photo a Day: Dec 1 - 7

This week in photos is so adorably brothery and wintery. It was a good week. Even though I was a bit stressed and frustrated, and really, really tired every night by 8:30 (sorry your wife is the lamest ever, Poor Husband), every day this week was a good day. 

I don't know if you other moms do this, but the moment my husband gets home I want to give him a recap of the whole day (whether he likes it or not.) Sometimes it goes like this:

"Micah pooped his pants twice and Grey emptied cereal on to the floor, and they both spent an hour in timeout, and of course nobody took a nap, and I'M GOING TO KILL THEM unless you take over right now and let me take a hot bath."

And sometimes it's like this, "We went to the library and both boys peed on the potty there! Then our friends came over and the boys slept for two hours so I could get dinner started and work on a quilt, which is why I'm feeling happy. And look! I did three loads of laundry, which are already folded and put away!"

Even though most days are not nearly so perfect, this whole week has been a lot closer to the good end of that spectrum. I sure love my silly, happy boys. And I love them the most when we are all in good moods. 

 Sun: After church Grey fell asleep on the couch in the middle of a peanut butter sandwich, something that almost never happens!

 Mon: Things are getting frosty around here! // Tues: My Micah loves the snow.

 Wed: They have the same sense of humor: the kind that thinks farting on command is hilarious. (Is this a normal skill for boys to develop?)

Thurs: Getting ready to head out the door. // Fri: They wouldn't sit with Santa but they took over his chair for a silly picture.

Sat: Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree. How lovely are thy branches.

Our Stocking Advent

I love, love, love advents.
I love them as decorations, I love the daily reminder to read scriptures of Christ during the holiday season, I love getting little pieces of candy, I love the expectation and excitement of remembering them.
They just amp up Christmas.



If I said that I started planning this advent in July, that would be a lie. Let's just say that I've been thinking about since at least last Christmas. And as my knitting abilities improved, my desire to knit an adorable advent increased.
I'll include some more info and links throughout this post, but the pattern to knit these easy, awesome, extremely forgivable stockings is free on Little Cotton Rabbits {here}. I seriously loved making them. Even making 24.
So, here's way more information on making these than you could possibly want:



Making the Stockings:
I started knitting these stockings in July or August. Not just because I was anxious for the heat to subside and for it to be Christmas, but also because I knew I'd need a long time to knit them.
I am a mediocre knitter at best, and only half-way understand patterns (Google taught me everything besides the basic knit-stitch). For the first few stockings, each one took a couple days of figuring, knitting, unknitting, and reknitting. By the fourth or fifth one, however, I had gotten it down and could knit one in just 2-3 hours.



That seems like a long time, but if we watched a movie in the evening, I could easily start and almost finish a stocking. The only thing that was hard was paying attention to the design, and if the stocking was plain or striped, then I didn't need to think about that either.
I usually get bored knitting after a while, and leave things in the middle of being finished and these were the perfect size that I could finish it without getting bored, and each one was different and often an experiment so they were fun to knit.
I actually never even finished! I only have 22 done! Someday I'll finish them, but right now I've moved on to new crafts and am in more of a sewing mood, than a knitting mood.
I knit them with number 5 size needles, and regular, cheap Lion yarn. The gauge is different than pattern, but they just turned out a little bigger, but still proportional. Each stocking is about 6 inches long, although they seem much smaller than that, because it's at a slant. (The top to the heel is about 4-4.5 inches long.)

Inside our Stockings:
Scriptures:
I started by finding about 20 scriptures about Christ or his birth. The majority of the scriptures are prophecies about his birth, and towards the end they include the actual tale of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the wee King of Kings.
Lots of advents I've seen just have a verse or two per day, but I really like reading the actual stories and backgrounds from each scripture, so many of ours are longer - even chapters.
I also included a couple other things, like talks or videos about The Savior - I'll link to all of them. The verses are from the Holy Bible, as well as from the The Book of Mormon, which is another testament of Christ and holds many stories and prophecies of Christ. If you don't have a Book of Mormon, but would like one {click here}, or you can read the stories I link to below.



{Read the Book of Mormon online}
{Read the Bible online}
{The Living Christ}
{The Tabernacle Choir & David Archuleta: A Wondrous Christmas} 
{Video: The Christmas Devotional}
{Video: Christ's Birth}
{Because He Came: a talk by Thomas S. Monson}

I wrote the scriptures on popsicle sticks, which I had dipped into cheap acrylic paint. To dry them, I filled a deep, wide bowl with rice and stuck the sticks in it, paint up. Because of that, there are drips on some and they're all uneven and wonky. But I don't mind.


Candy and treats:
Some of the stockings (but not all) will include candy. I haven't put any candy into them in advance. I just slip it in the night before, so my kids don't eat it all at once! Mostly, I think it will just be mini-candy canes.
The boys get to take out the candy and scripture stick. They get to hold their candy until we're done reading, and then if they're good, they can eat it. Yep. Before breakfast.
I also wrapped about a dozen Christmas books, and some times instead of candy they get a little tag that means they get to each unwrap a Christmas book! Then we read them together.




They're not new (in fact, everything that wasn't a hand-me-down I bought via Thriftbooks or garage sales), and I will use them throughout the years, probably adding to the collection as they grow. It's just fun to unwrap presents! And books seem new if you haven't seen them for over a year.
(If you don't buy kids' books from Thriftbooks.com yet, start! Sometimes they're a little abused, but my kids will abuse books anyway, so I'm happy to buy a three dollar book I don't feel guilty letting them have. Also, no shipping fee, ever.):
Some of our favorites above are:
The Polar Express
Santa Mouse
The Christmas Story
How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Activities:
I also wrote out a list of activities to include in some the stockings, but haven't figured out how to go about including them. Since my kids can't read, I've just been announcing it. "Oh, today we're going to read from Isaiah and later we'll make Christmas cookies!"
Any suggestions? I think if I write them on popsicle sticks (for example), I'll slip them in the night before with the candy. Just because it's hard to know at the beginning of the month which days we'll want to watch a Christmas movie, or have enough snow to go sledding with Daddy.



Displaying the Stockings:
I had a hard time figuring out how to hang these, but ended up just sewing some thick, canvas-y fabric into a band and pinning it to the wall. I used regular ol' clothes pins to hang them, but might come up with something cuter someday.




What do you think? What are your favorite Christmas traditions?
Do you have any children's books to add to our stack? I'd love it to grow. Christmas books are my favorite.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - Over the River, and Through the Woods

To Grandmother's house we go! 

We went to my parent's house in Nevada for Christmas this year! It was so fun. We loved spending time with my sisters and brother, and my parents had a crazy new puppy, too!

My sister Katie. Can you believe that she's already almost 8? When I started this blog, she was only five!

My parents got this labrador/collie mix named Jasper for Christmas. He's almost a year old, and he's giant and hyper! Grey warmed up to Jasper quickly and would chase, pet, and push him, but Micah was terrified of him. He even learned to yell, "NO BITE!" every time Jasper looked sideways at him.

 The boys only felt safe looking at the dog through this gate. But then they realized that I wasn't standing next to them. Micah flipped out a little...

 I insisted that we try to get a group picture of my brother Jack, sister Katie, and the boys - all wearing the hats that I knit them. Travis wanted me to try to photoshop him out, haha! Sorry I didn't make you a hat, dear!

And, you may not believe it, based on my sad lack of pictures... but there were three other people there too! My Dad and my sister Mary, and our almost-sister Charné. 

I did get these iPhone pictures though....

Is anybody else obsessed with how handsome my brother Jack is? Come on! I can't get over it.