Santa’s Village

Preschool Sing Along, Hanukkah Party and More December!

December 16, 2017 by Rebecca Whitehead

The twins had been practicing all month for their preschool Christmas sing-along and we were excited to come see their performance and all of the super cute pajamas! Even though they practiced with the hand-actions and sang all the carols ad nauseam at home, they were less than enthusiastic to perform in front of everyone! They looked tortured most of the time.

Putting on our happy faces when all the kids are in complete meltdown mode.

Samantha and Amelia’s less-than-enthusiastic Christmas carol performances! It was a long show with seven other songs beyond these, but they were all pretty much like the following, so you get the picture.

Even though Meredith was in the audience cheering her on, poor Amelia was feeling completely overwhelmed by the end and started melting down. I read my preschool sing-along post from last year, and apparently, it was Samantha who had a meltdown and threw herself into Daddy’s arms that year! I guess they are taking turns.

Last year:

Pouty elf Amelia.

It’s okay, sister elf!

Last year by the preschool tree:

A number from last year’s preschool sing-along:

Another fun preschool event was the annual Santa visit, storytime and milk and cookies! Samantha said she told Santa she wanted some new pajamas and chalk. Incredulous, Santa asked her if she wanted anything else and she said that was it! Amelia said the same thing minus the chalk (despite the fact that they already have 10+ pairs of pajamas between the two of them and we usually let them unwrap new pajamas on Christmas Eve anyways!)!

I’m sure Santa was feeling bad for these clearly underprivileged children! When they were looking through a catalog earlier in December, I asked the twins what they would like to ask Santa for, and after bypassing all the toys, they fell in love with these old-fashioned silky nightgown sets in purple and pink. So that’s what they told Santa! Samantha added in the chalk because a few months’ prior, Meredith broke all of our chalk in half and Samantha was super upset. I never got around to restocking on chalk, so she added that in her Christmas list as well!

Samantha and Santa.

2016:

Amelia and Santa.

2016:

2017:

Preschool Christmas crafts.

Amelia was super excited to give me her snowman mug and hot cocoa kit.

On a cold and drizzly weekday evening, we also went to visit Santa at the local Santa’s Village. I stood in line for a ridiculous hour and a half, while Jake took the girls around to get hot chocolate, cookies, watch the trains, listen to the carolers, watch an outdoor movie and look at the decorations. Once I saw the insane line, I would have left immediately, except that the twins were adamant that Meredith needed to see Santa and we didn’t have anything else going on that evening, besides being warm at home and not being stuck in the rain. Still, next year, I think we’ll stick to the preschool Santa visit.

Samantha and Amelia again told Santa they wanted pajamas (and chalk for Samantha), and Santa winked at me and added in that maybe he could bring them a few extra surprises! Noooooooo, Santa! Pajamas and chalk sounds like a great Christmas to me! Meredith was a little starstruck, so Amelia spoke for her and told Santa she wanted a personalized baking apron just like the ones they have because Meredith didn’t have one. That meant an unexpected last minute shopping trip for me…I mean, Santa… that week!

2016 Santa’s Village:

2015 Santa’s Village:

More Christmas fun! Our town has a house-decorating contest and some neighborhoods are super coordinated and went all out. We explored a few of the extra decked-out neighborhoods and lighting contest winners with Parker, Maple, Phi and Michael. One fun neighborhood had hot chocolate and cookies for sale with proceeds going to charity and had their very own Grinch greeting all the kids.

Fortunately, our immediate street does not require everyone to go crazy for Christmas. This was an experimental year since it was our first Christmas in our new house.

Grandpa came into town from Utah and we went to see Disney on Ice with Noah and his family.

I thought the show was amazing, but the twins were pretty much there for the popcorn. They’ve never really been into shows. I’m glad I didn’t shell out more dough for the Nutracker this year!

Being goofy with cousins at Great Auntie Lynn’s and Uncle Steve’s for a Hanukkah dinner and gift exchange.

Attack Noah!

Grandchildren with Great Grandpa Leonard.

Meredith must have eaten 20 latkes single-handedly.

Bring on the goodies!

Great Grandpa and the Great Grandkids.

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Christmas Tagged With: Christmas 2017, Christmas activities 2017, disney on ice, Great Grandpa, hailey, hanukkah 2017, house Christmas lights, Maple, neighborhood decorating contest, Noah, parker, preschool Christmas crafts, preschool Santa visit, preschool sing-along, Santa's Village

Santa’s Village

January 1, 2017 by Rebecca Whitehead

After returning from Hawaii, and before we left for Utah, the girls had another chance to talk to Santa, in the hopes that their requests for a vet kit with kitty and doggy (Amelia), castle (Samantha) and fruity candy canes (both girls received some from teachers at school and from then on eschewed the peppermint versions in favor of strawberry) would be realized.

We went out to dinner with the Nguyens before seeing Santa, and the twins and Parker were in the silliest moods, bouncing all over the booth seats and having a grand time. It’s always a crazy time putting five kids five and under together in close proximity in a waiting/eating situation, but fortunately, we had great company. Parker has always been so patient with the girls, from the time they were 18 months old and barely talking, and it was fun to see them all chatting now that they are a little older and have the most random conversations.

Whatcha ordering, Maple? Mmmmmm…. shrimp pesto pizza sounds delish!

The aftermath from the babies:

This was our third annual time going to our local Santa’s Village with the Nguyens and Meredith and Maple’s first time there. Meredith kept wanting to pet Maple who looked like a cuddly bear in her adorable faux fur coat.

2014: The girls were not even two yet and still used their Wubs.

Last year, we ran into Michael and Parker, while Phi stayed at home with newborn baby Maple. The girls and Parker had an in-depth chat last year about how all the baby business was going since they were soon-to-be big sisters themselves.

Once again enjoying their hot chocolate, one year later:

Meredith was fascinated by Frosty and other interesting life-size stuffed animals. I would pay money to get inside those baby heads and see what they are thinking sometimes!

One of my favorite pics ever!

The twins miraculously didn’t notice the cookie decorating station this year… phew. Between parties, treats from school, baking at home, and Christmas festivities, we were on sugar overload this Christmas.

2014: Santa and Mrs. Clause smartly placated the terrified twins with candy canes for the picture.

No one cried and the twins were rewarded with candy canes from Santa. Meredith gave Santa a wary look at first, but stayed calm being held by Mrs. Clause.

Not every Christmas activity we’ve been to in the past is one we’ve turned into a tradition, but being local, free and simple, Santa’s Village is one that’s here to stay… at least while the girls still believe in Santa!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Christmas Tagged With: meredith and maple, Nguyens, parker and twins, Santa, Santa's Village

Christmas Nativities and Santa’s Village

December 18, 2015 by Rebecca Whitehead

It seems that all the late nights we’ve spent out at Christmas activities in the freezing weather (i.e. 50 degrees) have about done us in, I think, and the girls and I have been chilling together on the couch this week with stuffy noses. Jake has been the sole survivor!

A few Christmas activities we did last week:

We met up with the Wrights to see a live nativity in Ladera. Animals and hot chocolate… need I say more?

The true Christmas miracle was that none of our four toddlers burned themselves or lit anything on fire during Silent Night.

Behold the power of fire.

A photographer there asked to take a bunch of pictures of the girls. This one ended up in the local section of the OC Register! Not sure why they chose to only include Amelia instead of both of the girls, but Amelia was sure excited!

Our December nightly outings continued with going to the Santa’s Village at the community center. Samantha and Amelia’s two all-time favorite Christmas songs are Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph, and lo and behold, who was there to greet them?

Starstruck!

Speaking of celebrities, it was a special treat to see Parker there, who has been working overtime being the best new big brother ever to Baby Maple! Samantha and Amelia had an in depth chat with him to find out how the baby thing was going and what they should expect in a few months.

Doing their best gingerbread impressions.

Gorging on candy canes at last year’s Santa’s Village, 2014:

Since we had already met Santa this year at the twins club event where we didn’t have to wait in line, we opted to just wave to Santa as we walked around instead of waiting.

Last year’s Santa photo will suffice.

The girls were content just looking at all the fun decorations.

Cookie decorating never hurts either.

Try some, sis!

While keeping vigilant for Frosty and Rudolph sightings, we watched some of the classic old Chipmunk Christmas movie while sipping hot chocolate.

Zombie Amelia selfie. Not sure where the other child is…

Over the weekend, we met up with Amy, Keriann, Crystal and Sheela’s families to see the Follow the Star nativity show and creche exhibit put on by one of the local stakes. We barely made it through the show (fortunately only 20 minutes) before the girls started melting down, presumably from the unusually chilly evening and the fact that they ran out of hot chocolate.

Fun fact: all three of Crystal’s girls have played the baby Jesus in this show in years past!

It was a lifesaver having Lily there to keep the girls entertained during the show.

The girls bundled up. Chelsea, London, Kennedy, Jadyn, Addison, Samantha and Camdyn.

During the day, the girls have kept busy singing Christmas carols at music class, doing somersaults choreographed to Christmas music at MyGym and making Christmas crafts at art class. My favorite so far has been the Naughty/Nice monitor we made in class. It has a little arrow we can move to either the Naughty or the Nice side of a paper plate– theoretically great for instant feedback. The only problem is, the girls think it’s hilarious anytime they do something that warrants the arrow turning to the Naughty Side and have started trying to get their arrow there on purpose.

Showing off our reindeer hats.

It’s a good thing we’ve had a lot of fun activities going on to bring in a little Christmas cheer after everything seemed to hit the fan all in one week! Bandit tore his ACL and has had to be on modified “doggie bedrest” which he has not been too excited about. I can’t feel too bad for him since the girls have been such good caretakers and he’s been completely pampered.

On top of dealing with the joys of dog ownership, we of course had to have a slab leak two weeks before Christmas in which five gaping holes had to be torn out of our downstairs walls by the plumbers trying to find the leak.. the same walls we just painted and had new baseboards put in three weeks ago (obviously HAD to be these ones). No major damage to the house (unfortunately…would have loved to have an excuse to replace our floor downstairs), although my heart goes out to our neighbors who had a slab leak at the same time and whose kitchen was basically totaled in the process. It all gets crazy at Christmastime!

Good thing the girls don’t seem to mind all the chaos. We showed them our mistletoe and they are really great about remembering to give lots of hugs and kisses!

Spreading the Christmas cheer!