While Mom's Away

 The Saturday before Christmas I took off to Bozeman with a friend for the day and left Chris alone with the girls. I didn't do anything extraordinary but went to the grocery store with out kids and it was really nice.  The day was made even better by arriving home and Chris was just putting dinner on the table.  Major bonus points for him.

Later on I was looking at the pictures on his phone and I couldn't believe everything they had done during the day.  They started the morning off doing chores and playing outside, decorated cookies, cleaned the garage, rode Hank, and went for a drive and saw a moose. Apparently they had a good day too and maybe I should leave more often!

Christmas 2014

Our Christmas this year was pretty low key.  Sort of.  Since we are now down to four weeks before little man joins our family I didn't really feel like packing up and traveling anywhere so we decided to have our first Montana Christmas. 

  The girls were so excited for Santa to come Huntley started asking if she could go to bed around 6.  Luckily we were able to put her off until 7:30 and then she woke up at 11 extremely excited that Santa had came.  (She barely missed Santa.)

 Seven 'o' clock the next morning some very excited little girls woke us up and couldn't believe all of the presents under the tree.  We opened gifts, facetimed with family, and tried to make our very own knock off Kneaders breakfast.  I only nailed the syrup which I guess is okay since that's the best part.

  The rest of the day the girls played with toys, Chris spent the day running in and out of the house chasing a couple coyotes that kept teasing him, and I cooked and cleaned and wondered what the heck I was thinking when I invited 16 people over for Christmas dinner.  Afterwards it was worth the work and I'm really glad we've made such good friends to help us celebrate our first Christmas here.

The one thing I asked for out of the day was I wanted to take a family picture.  We seriously struggle and from now on I'm just going to insist on "funny face" pictures since they are the only ones that semi-turnout.  At least I have something to remember this day with my favorite people.



Holiday Cheer

 Last week Pais and I were at our weekly library date and I was chatting with some of the other moms.  The topic came up of all the Christmas crafts and goodies they had been making and I was like "well I give Hunt a pitcher of water every day and make her crawl under the tree and give it some water" and that has pretty much been the extent of our holiday craftiness.  I felt kind of bad.  Luckily Wal Mart came to the rescue with a six dollar gingerbread kit and then I didn't feel like such a Grinch of a mom.

 

The Christmas Stroll

Our town is the coolest.  Seriously.  Each year for Christmas there is an annual Christmas stroll.  All of the business down town have activities for the kids, Christmas lights are sparkling, Christmas music is blaring, sleigh rides are running, Santa is there, 4-H kids are acting out a live nativity, and the whole thing feels like an old fashioned Christmas movie where everyone is walking around wishing each other a Merry Christmas. It was magical.  The girls made crafts, treats, and I found out Huntley knows everyone in the town.  The one thing they wouldn't do is sit on Santa's lap.  Yes my six year old was crying like a two year old.  Luckily we were able to jump on the sleigh ride right after and immediately make her happy.  So if you're looking for a place to visit to get into the Christmas spirit, come here.  You won't regret it.    

Breakfast with Santa

I have a friend who is pretty awesome.  So awesome that she throws a breakfast with Santa party every year at her house for all of the kids in the community.  It is a small town, but still she lets her house be run over by 50 plus kids and it was complete chaos and she says it's her favorite thing to do every year.  Nuts.  But I'm glad she's nuts because my girls had a blast.

 

  When we first got there both girls clung to my legs and were constantly on the lookout for Santa.  The way they act you'd think the jolly old man was going to snatch them up and throw them in his sack.  Luckily after some time and realizing she had friends and her teacher there and Santa was no where in sight Hunt calmed down and turned into her regular social butterfly little self.  (I seriously wonder how long it's going to take me to not be weirded out by being at activities with Hunt's teacher and principal.)

 

We had lots of yummy food, made some ornaments, listened to the principal read stories, sang carols, and then Santa appeared with a reaction from everyone similar to Buddy the Elf except my kids immediately running to me and holding on with a death grip.  After a few minutes of watching Hunt realized Santa was giving out presents and the only way she was going to get one was to toughen up and sit on his lap.  She lasted approximately five seconds but she did it. 

 Pais on the other hand still would have nothing to do with him but Santa was nice enough to give me a gift to give to her. 

After all of the kids have a chance to sit on Santa's lap they get to open their presents all at once.  Hunt got a nerf gun (which is the present I brought and I seriously can't believe the odds of getting our own present when Santa had fifty to choose from.)  Paisley got one of those rubberband bracelet loom things.  She immediately became extremely popular with all the little girls between the ages of 8-12 who kept trying to get her to trade.  Even though she has no idea what it is she held onto it with everything she had because if other people wanted it then it obviously was something worth keeping.  Now that it's all said and done I should have encouraged her to switch.  Hunt is obsessed with figuring out how to make them and wants me to constantly help her and I am dumb.  I can't figure the stinking thing out no matter how many times I read the directions.  Six weeks to go until baby and I get a brain again!



First Sledding Trip

This post is to document Harvey family history.  For the first time since having children six years ago we were able to go sledding and only laughter could be heard instead of screams of terror. 

Hopefully little man ends up being braver than his sisters so we don't have to wait another three years before this happens again.  

Huntley's Native American Program

Huntley's Kindergarten class had a "Native American Program" right before Thanksgiving and invited "all of our relations."  (I should have included a copy of the invitation because I still laugh when I think about it.)  They danced and sang to about ten different native songs and it was pretty cute and the kids sang loud and knew all the words to all of the songs.  Both of my primary counselors have boys in Hunt's class and we spent Sunday discussing how we could convince the school music teacher to come be the primary chorister because we only had to sing eight songs for the primary program and we spent a year learning them and they didn't sound even half as good as they did for this.  Anyways the program was cute and I included a few pictures that yes Hunt looks good in but pay particular attention to the kid in the red shirt standing next to her.  That kid was hilarious.