Christmas!! :)

Last semester was SO crazy. We literally had FOUR different viruses that continually overlapped and our entire family ended up being sick for a straight 2.5 months. It was awful. Then combine that with Jeremy being busy doing 17 graduate credits, and then all the kids took turns barfing the week of finals and we were just pretty much done with it all. lol. Needless to say, we were very much ready for a three week break from school. We spent two weeks down in Hurricane at my parent's house for Christmas, New Year's, Bridger's birthday and his baptism. So it was still busy, but good busy!

We decorated our tree at home right after Thanksgiving! We also started a new tradition called, "The Giving Manger." There is a little wood manger, some short pieces of hay and a little baby Jesus. During the month whenever someone does something kind they put a piece of straw in the manger so Jesus has a bed at Christmas, like a gift to Him, it comes with a sweet little book, too. We loved it!! We also had an FHE lesson on the symbols of Christmas and made some homemade ornaments and laminated them to put on the tree, they are cute. :)

It's a long time Brown Family tradition to do Christmas Jingo on Christmas Eve, all the kids love it! One of their gifts is always a new pair of pajamas from Grandma Brown to wear on Christmas Eve, which is so fun. :)

After Jingo we had a short Christmas Eve program where people shared talents, read stories, and we read about the birth of Jesus in the Bible and sang some Christmas songs to end it. 

A few other pictures from our Christmas break!

A few days after Christmas we took the boys to a big park in St. George and they absolutely loved it! It was pretty cold, so we didn't stay a super long time, but we still had a blast. It's nice having the help to keep track of all of them. Even with his squeaky shoes Benson was hard to keep up with! lol. :)