Season Kick Off!

This weekend the holiday season officially started in full swing!  One of my favorite Christmas traditions is to attend the Nativity Exhibit put on by our church by my parent's place.  It is always amazing and this year did not dissapoint. We had a great time looking at the thousands of nativity exhibits (while hanging onto WR for dear life around all the breakables)

 My nephew was singing with a little choir when we first arrived.  If you look close you can see him in the middle in front of the tallest girl.

 This Barbie nativity in the kids room was Al's favorite!

 The kids had so much fun dressing up, making crafts, eating treats, sipping on hot chocolate and watching a Christmas movie.

 Some one wasn't a fan of the group photo ;)

 Couldn't get him to smile for the life of us even with me.  He sure was cute though.

 JA loved coloring his stained glass nativity.

 AL loved etching out her angel!

 So much beauty all in one room.  It is so neat to look at the nativity displays from all over the world.

 I wish I had gotten a better pic but I LOVED this one I came across hanging in the hallway.  I might need to track one down for my house.

While the kids walked around looking at the nativities they played an "I Spy Game" checking off different items from their list.  They were sent home with a prize and this morning opened up the sticker nativity they had received.

 JA hung his master piece on the wall in the play room.

 

We spent the morning in the madness of Costco (gah) and then home making some paper ornaments, playing and watching a Christmas movie.

 This evening was our ward (church group) Christmas party and it was a blast.  While waiting for dinner the kids went around to 3 different rooms and made a nativity ornament, a reindeer candycane and then decorated a star sugar cookie.  They loved it.  One of the highlights of the dinner besides spending time with good friends was the fact that they had each table send two adults to get the food for the entire table and served it "family style", no painfully long buffet line ups and hungry kids getting grouchy waiting for our tables turn to eat (pure genius)!

 They had a beautiful program with the youth acting out the Christmas story with music and whole group carols to go with it.  Such a beautiful spirit to it.  I love that our first weekend of holiday festivities were focused on the birth of Christ.  The perfect start to our month!