Christmas Count Down

This year since the girls are getting older and know certain things.  I wanted to keep the spirit of Christmas going all month long.  So I decided to put a little slip of paper in our Christmas Advent Calendar so that each day we would be doing something "Christmasy".  The first night Jake and Jadyn came over, we had dinner, and then Jantzyn read our first slip.  Everyone opened their matching Christmas PJ's and learned we would be doing something every day.  I knew we wouldn't be able to get together each day, so I would send the slip picture to Jadyn each day so she and Jake could do the things themselves.  We did lots of fun Christmas things, along with spiritual and service things too.  Overall it went really well and I think everyone looked forward to seeing what we would do each day!

Day 1 our kickoff party!  We opened Christmas Jammies and played would you rather Christmas version.

 Our cute little family....

 now the real us!!!

 One of the favorites was a hot chocolate bar.

 We also had a day to help dad and mom put up the Christmas lights.  Jantzyn was the only one around for this day but she loved being able to get up on the roof and help!

 One of my favorites this year (and ended up being the girls too) was each picking a name off the angel tree for our ward and using their own money, picking out, and wrapping a gift for the child they chose.

One day was hug or kiss someone under the mistletoe...I did this one so I could have my Christmas kiss ;)

We also had a couple nights of picking favorite Christmas stories and reading them together.

We wrote Talen and Jamie on a couple of the nights.

We walked around the temple and the Gardens on one of the nights (this night only Jantzyn could go with us but the others all either went with friends or each other).

 

 We also went to the live nativity at Tuachan.  It was Jake's first time and I know he would like to go again.

We played a game one night and then the girls unwrapped the Movie Christmas Story and we watched it together. 

We also had a night of playing Christmas games. This was Christmas Charades.

Another night of watching some of our favorite Christmas movies.

We took around gifts to all of Dad's home teaching families.

We also had a day of making Christmas treats (of course i forgot to take pictures...I was too busy baking).

 Then the next day we took the treats to Grandpa Cowley for his birthday!

We surprised the girls (and Jake) and took them to see Moana.  They loved it!!!  It's Jantzyn's new favorite Disney movie.

We also had our annual Losee family Christmas dinner and party.  Then the next night we had another impromptu one with more games, movies, and food.  

On Christmas Eve we had our own little family dinner then took the girls to look at Christmas lights.  It was raining when we went but made it even more magical.

This is the car that we followed around most of the night (I'm sure they thought we were stocking them).

 the three girls ready for bed in their Jammies.

Some of the other things we did were:  write notes to each other and stick them in their stocking, read the nativity, sit by the fire pit and sing carols, and watch the First Presidency Christmas devotional.