A night in Bethlehem

Our ward had the best Christmas Party this year!  It was themed "A night in Bethlehem". We all dressed up as if we lived in Bethlehem the night Jesus was born.  We mingled around the market to 'purchase' our dinner, (with coins we were given) and even had to pay our taxes! After we were done eating, we followed Mary and Joseph outside, and were able to see a live nativity, and sing Christmas songs.  It was so neat!

Naturally I couldn't find my camera, so here are some pics that we took with the phone:

All dressed up! 



Some of the Market -The bakery, and the fruit market

The pita market

The meat market

These markets were built by the Tabor City branch, they were nice enough to let us borrow them

We even had a well in the center to get our water from!
(a little friend from the ward was serving the water)

The missionaries were dressed up as the Centurions, they collected our taxes as the night progressed. (We were given money when we got to the church) 

They also had a dreidel shop set up.  Santa was in there for the kids to visit.  They had the kids come into the room in small groups where they would sit and have a story read to them. It was "Teach The Children", a cute story about all the symbols of Christmas. It listed things like the tree, candy canes, presents, lights, etc. And explained what they meant.  It then went on to explain how Santa is also a symbol of Christmas. He represents family fun, and the joy of giving and receiving, but he is not the reason we celebrate Christmas.  After the story the kids got to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas.  When they were done visiting with him, they got to go into the dreidel shop where they were given little burlap bags to fill with all the symbols of Christmas.  The girls were so excited!  They even got a dreidel to take home.

Ben kept going and giving Santa a high-five while the story was being read

Maddy telling Santa her biggest wish for Christmas... Some swimming goggles. Good thing we live at the beach!  Those things are hard to find during winter!

Our little Sarah was too bashful to say anything... I'm surprised she didn't burst into tears!

Ben and Santa had a stare-off.  Then he quickly got down.  I was hoping to snap a picture while he was still in his costume, but it was so hot in that room, and Ben was getting flushed and sweating, so we took it off!  So our Santa picture shows off those chicken legs and his onesie!

Here are some adorable pictures of Ben. I think I should dress him like this everyday....

Running around the market, showing off his cuteness

Behold!



The Nativty

The youth put on a great Nativity for us. After the presentation, we sang some carols, and the kids got to take pictures with Mary and Joseph.  Unfortunately I missed Maddy visiting Mary, so I have no pictures...

What a great party! We had a blast, and are grateful to everyone who worked so hard to make it such a fun night.  It was great to have a visual reminder of why we celebrate Christmas. 



Christmas Baking

I wanted to start some holiday traditions with the girls this year. With family being so close, we tend to just do whatever they are doing.  We had already built a gingerbread house, so  I thought it would be fun to bake some gingerbread men, and some other fun holiday sugar cookies.

The girls really enjoyed rolling out the dough, and cutting out the shapes.  I realized however, that I am a control freak!  I couldn't stand the girls getting flour every where, or touching things in the kitchen when their hands were covered in sticky dough!  I really had to try very hard to just let them have fun.  If the gingerbread man wasn't shaped just right, who cares? Right? ( I need counseling.) Its just a cookie!  Its going to be eaten for crying out loud!

Aside from my internal meltdowns, we were able to bake some cute cookies. After all the cookies were baked, we invited our friends over to help decorate.  It was lots of fun!

Cutting out their gingerbread men

Poor Ben is always banished to the highchair! You can see him way in the back!

Rolling the dough all by herself

Tada!

Sarah's turn to roll the dough

All the kids!  From left to right: Sarah, Ben, Mikaela Atkinson, Maddy, Tayte Atkinson
Time to decorate!

 Now for the decorating!!

Once the gingerbread men were decorated, we moved on to decorating the sugar cookies. 

Time to enjoy the hard work!

Thats my girl! Who needs to wait until the cookies are done when you have frosting...

So. Many. Cookies!

I think I was cookied out when we were done!  I'm so glad I baked with my girls. And even more glad we got to have fun with friends!

Our Gingerbread House

 We decided to get creative and make a gingerbread house, to kick off the holiday season.  We had so much fun together! Joseph was so cute with the girls.  We put Ben to bed and let the girls stay up late. They watched while Joseph and I assembled the house, then got busy decorating.

Apparently you are suppose to wait three hours to decorate the gingerbread house once its assembled...
We didn't have that kind of time! My girls wanted to put candy on it now!

So we got started...

Really they just wanted to eat the candy...

But we pressed on!

Sarah was losing patience by this point

But it turned out great when we finished!

Maddy even took a picture of Mommy and Daddy. Pretty good for a 5 year old standing on a chair!

The Dentist

Maddy went to the dentist the first week of December for her routine teeth cleaning. No cavities! Yay!  I had Sarah and Ben with me, which was not fun! (why do I put myself through such torture?)  After talking to the hygienist, we decided to squeeze Sarah in for her first teeth cleaning. She is a very shy little girl, and I wasn't sure how she would handle it, after all Maddy freaked out completely her first time.

But then I turn around to find this:

Maddy sat down beside her and held her hand, and told her that everything was going to be just fine.

And wouldn't you know, Sarah sat there and let them clean her teeth, without so much as a wimper. If she was unsure she would just look at Maddy, and that was all she needed! Good thing, because I was wrestling Ben the whole time!! What a good big sister.  I was so proud!  Oh, and Sarah has no cavities either!

The Crazy Lights

After we left my Uncle's we headed to Richmond to spend the rest of the day. He took us to a live nativity at his Stake Center.  It was really neat!  It was progressive... We started out in a room with the shephards. After a scripture was read we were lead to the next room where the Wise Men were. We again listened to some scriptures being read, and then we were brought to see King Herod.  Then we were brought into the final room where Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus were. Mary and Joseph sang a beautiful duet too! It was really well done. After the Nativity the kids got to color pictures They also had Nativity's from all around the world that were on display too. Plus some wonderful music was performed.  We are so glad we were able to be there!

Later that night Andrew took us to "The Crazy lights'"  I'm not sure that I have ever seen so many lights on one house! The kids were amazed.  It was so neat!  The owners of the house were standing outside where you could talk to them.  They had a sign in book and also handed out candy canes to everyone.  This house was also featured on TLC, for the amount of lights...

Crazy Right!!

A grand total of 172,298 lights, and 603 handmade decortations

These pictures don't do this house justice!  It was incredible!

The girls were loving it! ...and their candy canes!

Ben wanted to scale the fence...

 People were driving by in Limo's!  There were so many people!

  You can check the house out on Christmasonwendhurst.com

After we came back from seeing the crazy lights, the kids put on their Christmas Jammies and hung out for a little bit.  I was only able to snap this picture before they scattered!

Left to right: Sarah, Abbie, Jake, Maddy, Noah

We were planning to return home to South Carolina after church on Sunday.  However, I got a  frantic call from my younger sister saying that my dad was in the ER, because he was showing early signs of a heart attack. I was grateful to have been with my two older brothers when recieving such scary news, and we decided that we would go ahead and leave for home.

Dad had many tests run on him, and was transferred from the Ambulatory Care to Grand Strand Regional Medical Center where they ran more tests and kept him for the night.  Everything came back normal, except they did find some tendonitis in this left arm. They attributed the rest of his symptoms to dehydration.  Scary!  But we are so relieved that he got a clean bill of health and was able to go home the next day!

I am so glad that we were able to take this trip and see some old friends, my Aunt and Uncle, my brothers and their families and my Grandma!   There is nothing quite like family!