M is for McBride: The days leading up to Christmas!

First off - if you want to subscribe to our blog, or get an email when I post, there are some links on the right. Not sure I will keep putting the links on FB.

Alright! Here is an awesome picture Cade's sunday school teacher posted on the ward Facebook page. I've been taking a hiatus from FB, but when she tagged me I got an email. What a crazy group of kids she had to deal with every Sunday! ;)

The last full week of school before Christmas Break started with Dan leaving for the Midwest Clinic in Chicago. Monday-Friday!

So what'd I decide to do? Sub for 4 days and add a few more performances in there to make the season busy and bright ;)

Monday night I played piano for Tex Hill's choir concert. I've included a little clip of them singing because they're just so good! I really enjoy working with their director and the kids are awesome to work with too!

Tuesday night it was finally Alex's turn for some holiday music. It was his first band Christmas concert, and they let those kids really get in the spirit with decorations and Santa hats galore!

Can you see that cute trumpet player waving at me? :)

After his concert we did a quick drive through the Windcrest neighborhood and their famous lights. These houses really go all out! You don't want to go on a weekend night or it could take hours to drive through.

Then we celebrated his concert with "dinner" and some delish hot chocolate at IHOP.

Wednesday and Thursday were COLD (I'm sorry, 21 in the morning in any city is cold!) and busy only because I was working all day and running the kids to various activities after school. I was lucky enough to be subbing at Cade's school for his band director (who was also at Midwest). That meant I got to hear his small ensemble play some Christmas tunes for the students as they came into school.

Wednesday it was 27 on the way into school, and Thursday it was 21!

Friday was the day I finished all of my shopping and prep for Christmas, and after school the boys had piano lessons and a fieldtrip to Urban Air with alex's school. I think their teachers are NUTS for taking all of the performing arts kids out to Urban Air on the day the school lets out for Christmas Break. They stopped bouncing off the walls at 10pm and we headed to the airport to pick Dan up from his trip to Chicago. Now our break could finally begin!

Christmas lights on our house! The ones on our bush are white, even though they look lime green in this picture.

I've always wanted to put together one of those holiday treat sampler plates for people, so on Saturday we let the baking commence! We had various dipped pretzels, buckeyes and our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

We started a puzzle. This one is various cereal boxes :)

Saturday night we did our annual Christmas dates with the boys. Awhile back we got a little tired of the "Santa's Workshop" presents the boys would bring home. I mean, it's awesome that you send them with some money to school and they come home with wrapped gifts for mom, dad and brother, but you can only have so many #1 Dad mugs and trophies. We started taking each kid out on a date and they would buy something for the opposite parent and sibling, and then the next year we switch kids. This year Cade and I went out to Mod Pizza for dinner and did some shopping for Alex and Dan. I really enjoy this one on one time and working together to shop locally for each other! We even picked out something for Carson :)

Sunday we opened one of our gifts early so we could get the max use out of it during our break. Guitar hero has returned to the McBride household, and now the kids are old enough to play along! They're lovin' it! Dan won some major points for thinking of that gift!

Guess what happened on Monday, two days before Christmas?? Possibly one of the best gifts ever- Cade finished his last Merit Badge to earn his Eagle!!! That means everything is done in time for him to finish! There's still a few steps to make it all official but the biggest part of it is DONE!

Then before we knew it, it was Christmas Eve. All that was left of our Christmas traditions was to decorate our own cookies (for Santa of course!), and spend some time as a family with popcorn and a movie or two. We decorated in the morning and went to Jumanji in the afternoon. Santa delivered some Christmas pajamas at a friends house for their annual potluck and then spent a little more time as a family before it was finally time to dream of sugar plums and presents to come. Look for an awesome blogger Christmas present post tomorrow and have a very Merry Christmas!