How Still we see thee Lie

This was my favorite Christmas season ever! Seriously. I can honestly not remember a year where I've had so much joy and enjoyment. The kids are now both old enough to really understand and and enjoy and we were lucky to be able to do some many things with them. So many. I actually kept a folder on my phone dedicated for Christmas so that I could remember everything.

Instead of keeping in chronological order like I usual do, this post will be more like a "month update"and be a jumble of the entire Christmas season from Thanksgiving to the end of the year. The reason I'm doing it like this is because I want to try to capture the "feeling" of the month. However, I'll still keeps things like the Christmas Even party and Christmas Day together

The Christmas season officially begins when the first batch of Candy Cane Cookies comes out of the oven.

This year, I made the first batch the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and I ended up making a total of 7 batches. I can usually get between 10 and 12 cookies per batch depending on how big they are (every cookie is a little different)... so yes... that is A LOT of cookies!

Here is a Christmas card this year (the brown around it is not part of the card, it's just the table where I took the picture)

and the answer is yes, Spencer DOES have Santa and a reindeer dabbing on his sweater

I had forgotten how crazy it was to take the kids out in the snow. Between gloves, coats, hats and scarfs it seriously took up 15 minutes to leave the house every time we went anywhere

 As we were getting all the Christmas decorations out, we came across Spencer's old "Stomp out Loud" tape... yeah, I'd say the Little Guy enjoyed it.

 I made this for Katelyn to store all her bows in the bathroom... I'll just throw it out there that although, I absolutely love it, I did not make it big enough. She has so many bows now!

 Julie invited me to go the Cookie Exchange with her this year. It is a cool, exclusive party that a sister in our ward throws every year, and it was so much fun! Not to mention, we got so many cookies out it

 Can we please take a second to talk about the "Light the World" campaign the Church put on this year. It was so amazing to see how many people took part and shared stories on social media. I truly think that it was one of the things that made Christmas so amazing this year. I took a picture of the Little Guy to share with one of my favorite scriptures.

I let him pick where he wanted to take the picture and told him to do what he wanted. The result was perfect

Celebrating Tia Stefani's birthday

 And Grandma Mary's

 Coloring at the Ward Christmas Party

 The Little Guy joined the Primary to sing a couple of songs and yes... I cried

Random picture of the kids enjoying their Happy Meals. Yes, I feed my children Happy Meals from time to time. It is a whole thing that stems from being from Argentina

Watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (cartoon version) for the first time

 Here is a list of all the Christmas movies we got to enjoy this Season

• Christmas with the Kranks
• How the Grinch stole Christmas (cartoon)
• Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer
• The year without a Santa Claus
• How the Grinch stole Christmas (Jim Carey)
• Santa Claus is coming to town
• Rise of the Guardians
• The Santa Claus
• A Christmas Story
• Home Alone
• Elena of Avalor: Christmas Special
• Toy's Story that Time Forgot
• The Santa Claus 2

Watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. The Kids were actually really good throughout the whole thing... although, that may have to do with the fact that it was the day after the cookie exchange and we let them eat as many cookies as they wanted

Katelyn's first day of nursery!

The annual Swenson Christmas Eve Party

 Getting ready for the Nativity

 The Little Guy was Joseph and Katelyn was an angel... So CUTE!

 Everyone that made it to the party

 Kid's unwrap it game

 For the adult version you had to put on a hat, scarf and gloves before you could even begin unwrapping

 and the reason anyone even comes to the party.... the white elephant game

 Grandpa won the game with what was by far the best gift

When we got home from the party, the kids and I made a batch of candy cane cookies for Santa. The kids loved making and shaping them themselves

 I mean... look at those pjs they got from Tia Alaynah! (She got us in the name draw)

Before bed, we sprinkled "Grinch Dust" outside. The Little Guy was very worried (and a little traumatized) that the Grinch would come steal out Christmas

Christmas Day!

I made the scarves for everyone... how cute do they look?!

 Reading Katelyn's new book (a present from the Little Guy)

 Can we talk about the snow this year for a second. Boy did we have a picture perfect white Christmas. On Christmas day it had snowed and again and as soon as presents were done, Spencer and I went out there to shovel.

 The problem was that (understandably) the road had not been plowed which meant that we were not able to get the cars out and had to walk to church. Of course we weren't going to miss Church, Daddy, Grandpa Mark and Julianna were all singing with the choir for the Christmas Program

 We really din't have to wait very long to talk to Nate, he called about an hour after church. Adam and Alaynah joined us via Skype too

 As soon as we were done talking to Nate, we went to the Tita's. We were really worried that we were not going to make it because of the snow, but in the nic of time the roads were plowed and we made it out there with not problems. We had the traditional Christmas milanesas and then played with Abuelo's new VR. Dang that thing is cool!

 Then it was canasta time! Spencer won... like always Spencer won

Back to random order for the days after Christmas

The Little Guy got a set of Special Forces units that all had small guns. Rather than just getting rid of the guns as I originally planned to do, I decided to hot glue them on

 Julie enjoying a left over milanesa sandwich

 Julianna took time from her busy "holiday season teenager" schedule to play in the snow with the Little Guy

Then at the end of the month... This goober turned 4!!!!!!! We celebrated by inviting the family to meet us at Chick-fil-A (the Little Guy's favorite)

Here are the Little Guy's 4 year stats:

HEIGHT: 3' 1" 2%
WEIGHT: 25.8 lbs 0%
HE CAN: use 4-5 word sentences. Catch a ball. Cut and paste. Dress and undress. Jump and hop. Pedal a tricycle. Draw people. Enjoy jokes. Knows 4-5 colors. Play well with others

Like I said earlier, this was really the perfect Holiday season. The kids were such joys and it was truly a time to remember the Savior. It is going to be really hard to try to top this next year