'Twas the Night Before Christmas (and then the Big Day!), There was a nativity, presents, and a pinata - Hooray! (December 2017)

So Christmas Eve this year was on a Sunday, which made things a little bit different.  We had 1 hour of church and then got together with a couple of families in the ward for a Christmas Feast/Program.  Since the church is your family when you're away from family, it was nice to get together and celebrate a little bit.  Good times.

Our family has never done the traditional "Nativity Scene" while reading from Luke 2, so I'm glad my kids got a chance to have this experience.  Love my angel, sheep, and shepherd.

Our hosts also put together a pinata.  It added a cultural flair to our Christmas Eve. ;)

When We came home we had our traditional opening of the Sister Gifts.  Kate had been asking me all month to buy her a zuit suit (footed pajamas) to wear on Christmas Eve but I had been dodging her because I knew Lise was giving them to her.  Lise even got a matching pair for herself and put it into a HUGE box.  It couldn't have been better.

Aly got Lise a new water bottle to continue her sticker collection on and a Niceville sticker to get it started.  Perfect.

Kate got Kylie some battery operated twinkle lights to decorate her bunk bed and some fingernail polish.  

And Kylie got Aly the silver bar necklace she'd been wanting.  So everybody was happy.  The excitement had begun.

After opening their one and only Christmas Eve Gift, we had our white stocking tradition where we each wrote down our gift to the Savior for the year and put it into his stocking.  Next it was time to put out some cookies and the reindeer food/glitter so Santa could find his way to our house.  Then off to sleep!

So, since I am blogging about Christmas in February, I decided to try a little experiment by asking everybody what their favorite three things were that they got for Christmas.  It was interesting to me how many of them had a hard time even remembering what they got for Christmas (me included!)  I know I say this every year, but I really think I need to go with a "less is more" approach next year with less presents and focus on other aspects like having experiences and serving others during the Christmas season.  We'll get there . . . 

So anyway, here's everybody's top 3 (or 4) gifts for the year:

(and p.s. despite not remembering what they got, the pictures do show that everybody was pleasantly surprised Christmas morning, so that's gotta count for something, right?  All my hard work wasn't for nothing, right? right? ;)>  I was also happy to note that 3 of the 4 girls listed the present they got from their sister in their top 3.  Nice.)

Chris is happy with his jelly bean pooping reindeer. 

Chris

1. DNA testing Kit

2. West Point Blanket and Tie

3. Walking sticks/poles

Aly

1. Adidas Jacket/pants

2. U of U shirt

3. Luggage Tag

4. Bar Necklace

Lise

1. Chacos

2. Vineyard Vines Shirt

3. Water Bottle & Niceville Sticker

Kate

1. Bean Bag

2. Zuit Suit (footed pajamas)

3. Legos

Kate got a tent to put in her bunk bed.  Cool!

Kylie

1. Watch

2. Camera

3. Tent

4. Legos

Stacy

1. Kitchen squishy mat

2. U of U shirts

3. New George Foreman Grill (with removable washable plates!)

Matching PJ's and Dad photo bombing in the back.  Definitely the sign of a good Christmas.

Getting in the Spirit of Christmas - December (2017)

Chris and Aly rocked it!  Aly didn't know they were doing the full 10K until she got there, but she plowed through and did great!

The first weekend in December we kicked off the Christmas season with Aly and Chris running the Jingle Bell Jog 10K and the rest of us performing in the Niceville Christmas Parade.  It always makes for a fun, exciting morning.

Lise and Kate were parade dancers for our Church float.  They rocked it!

I was cast as an angel this year.  Lots of fun turns and spins.

Kylie was in the parade with her Twinkling Twirler Baton Group.  So cute!

I was having issues getting into the spirit of Christmas this year because it was so stinkin' warm outside.  But we did our best.  We hit a couple of Christmas light displays - the downtown Niceville Christmas tree and the Geek Lights on the Corner (some guy's front lawn where he has set up a light display choreographed to music.  Pretty cool). 

When you need help getting in the mood for holidays, kids will always be there to help you out.  Kate took it upon herself to make some mini Christmas cookies and loved dressing "Christmasy" every chance she could.  Below she is wearing "her most Christmasy outfit."

I told Kate to get a plate for her doughnut.  She improvised by using Santa's cookie plate that was already on the table.  Nice.

We had some friends invite us over to make full on, decked out ginger bread trains for FHE.  Super fun.  Those trains are legit!  (And I totally cheated by not making the right kind of frosting but instead hot gluing our trains together and using store-bought frosting.  Oh yeah, engineering skills at work! Hahaha! ;)> )

This is Lise out caroling with the Youth in the Ward.  Hooray for Youth Programs keeping things festive.

Lise's Drama Kids Club performed some skits from the show "The Office."  The fire drill was hands down my favorite.  Love seeing those mini actors at work.

And finally there was Chris' 4th Battalion work party.  The Theme was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" with kids in PJ's and breakfast to boot.  Lots of yummy stuff going on.  

Love the oozing chocolate fountain. 

Can't miss a chance to sit on Santa's lap.

A lady in our battalion painted this cutout for pictures.  Hello amazing!  My kids and I had a little too much fun with it I'm thinking.

Well, there were definitely enough festivities going on.  In addition to the ones shown there were also cookie exchanges, going to an escape room with the Young Women in the ward, ward Christmas parties, school parties, friend & extracurricular Christmas parties, lunch with friends, neighborhood parties, and the 1st Presidency Christmas Devotional.  In the end I think I realized that getting into the Christmas Spirit was more about the memories you make and the people you spend it with than the weather.  (Maybe Christmas, perhaps, doesn't come from the Snow.  Maybe, Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. ;p)

Quotes of the Week and a Pre-Blog Flashback

First, let's just throw this out there:

Dad - Calm your  tooshies down.

Lise - Well, my tooshie just started to par-tay!

And so it did.

You know that song, "I love Rock 'n' Roll, so put another dime in the jukebox baby"?  Well, we were driving along in the car and I was singing along to this song when Lise said, "Oh!  I thought it always said, "I love Rock 'n' Roll, so put it all together in a 2 lb. baby."  What?!?  Anyway, so we laughed about that for awhile.  Next thing I know Lise takes it to a whole new level by making a poster out of it to put on our fridge.  Nice.

Next, the new Taylor Swift album.  Not a huge fan of her new style/image, to include one of her new songs, "Are You Ready For It". But anyway, that song came on when we were driving in the car one day and Kate just starts busting up because right after she says "are you ready for it" there is some major base pumping going on and Kate says, "Man it sounds like farts - are you ready for it?"  Hahaha."  Then Lise chimes in, "Oh man it does!  I can't believe she didn't think about that before she released this song."  We were all busting up over that one for the next few days.  

And here is Kylie dressed up as the super hero "Stormy".  The glasses were part of her secret identity.  Total awesomeness.

And Finally, I was telling this story to my family in the car and they said I needed to include it in the Blog, so here you go: 

The Tale of Stacy and the Haircut.  

(Dum, dum, dum!)

The year was 2003.  Chris had just returned from his deployment to Iraq followed by us moving to Fort Benning, Georgia for 6 months so Chris could attend the Captain's Career Course.  We had just finished unpacking and started getting settled and I needed a haircut.  Nothing too fancy; I was still in my crazy "mom bob" haircut phase.  These were also the days when I still got haircuts at places like Fantastic Sams or Super Cuts and all I needed was a trim.  So I decided to just drive off post down the main street of town until I saw a salon.  How hard could it be?  (Also please bear in mind that these were the days before Google and smart phones and such things).

So, yeah, driving down the street I see a salon and pull up.  Easy.  I walk inside and everybody is just staring at me.  I'm a little confused as to why they're staring so I say, "Um, hi.  I need a haircut.  Do you not allow walk ins?"  They're still looking at me weird but say that they do take walk ins so I sit down to wait for a few minutes.  As I'm sitting there looking around I realize that I am the only white person in this place. At the same moment it occurs to me that African American people have very different hair texture than I do, and therefore, different hair styles.  But at this point I am too embarrassed to just get up and leave so I just sit there and wait.  The haircut itself was an interesting experience.  The guy who cut my hair was really nice, and did a fairly decent job, considering, but he just kept "petting" my hair and telling me how soft and silky it was. ;p  And he kept burning my scalp while blow drying my hair.  Anywho, it was super awkward and I think that may have been the beginning of my going to a little higher end salon.  It would have been crazy/funny if I had come out of there with corn rows. ;)  I told my family that it just goes to show that I am not racially prejudice at all  because I can go to get my haircut at an all black salon and not even realize it until 1/2 way through!  Welcome to the deep South Stacy! 

Here I am, rockin' the Mom bob hairstyle. (heeheehee)

So there ya go, a Pre-Blog Flashback.  I think the main reason my family wanted me to put this into the Blog is to show that the craziness known as Staceroo and Her Zoo, may, in fact, have originated with Staceroo herself.  I don't deny it.  And since I didn't start this blog until after Kate was born, there was obviously a lot of craziness that happened before then as well.  Maybe Pre-Blog Flashbacks will become a regular thing on Staceroo and her Zoo.  Maybe not.  It seems hard enough just to keep up with what's going on in the present.  We will see. . . .