Candlelight Christmas

Sometime around the end of November I won a family pack of tickets from a local radio station to Candlelight Christmas at This is the Place Heritage Park.  For those not familiar with this special park, it is where several original pioneer building have been relocated.  Mostly during the summer months volunteers in Pioneer Era clothing will reenact events and tell you about pioneer life and the historic buildings.  I will state it right here, I think it would be fun to volunteer one summer to "work" as a pioneer.  I could even dress up my little girls as pioneer children!

On Saturday, Ed and I went out on a double date with his brother and wife to Candlelight Christmas and had such a good time.  It is geared towards families and I think in a few years when Lucy is old enough to walk and stay with us I would like to take them.

I loved learning about a simpler Christmas that would have been celebrated by the pioneers.  Often they would have only one Christmas Tree for the entire village.  

We learned out the first stockings and the story of St. Nicholas.  And made several crafts, which I brought home for the girls.  We put together the bird food treat (for the birds) and we will put out the magical reindeer food on Christmas Eve.

There were live reindeer to see as well as Father Christmas.  I'm actually grateful that Olivia wasn't there to see Father Christmas.  It looked like some guy dressed up and not even trying to fill the part.  I'll keep our Santa for now.

I really enjoyed the dancing although on one of the dances I lost my partner.  The women would move one place to the right after each round and on one of the rounds my partner walked off.  I ended up sitting out the rest of the dance.  It was soon followed with the Virginia Reel.  I would have loved to stay longer and dance but I was worried about getting back to Lucy before it was too late.

Overall it was a great night and I look forward to doing it again in the future.

(Thanks to thisistheplace.org for the photos!)

More Snow

Another snow day!  I was surprised to wake up to more snow this morning after we were told we probably wouldn't get much more.  This time at least a good foot fell and naturally we had to get outside and play in it!

Our House

Our poor snowman.  It was bogged down with all the new snow.

We have arrangements with the neighbors to plow our driveway and sidewalks.  I love that I just have to shovel a few places like in front of the mail box and the steps leading to our house.  The plow pushed the snow up to the end of the driveway causing a "mountain" as Olivia called it.  She had such fun playing on her mountain.  

Perfect for sliding down

More sliding fun

Olivia

Snow

I was so happy to wake up to snow this morning!  It's been raining for the past several days and literally no snow left from the rain.  I love having a white Christmas and now my hopes are restored.  Hopefully it sticks around for a few more days.

Olivia and I went out to play in the snow this morning while Lucy napped.  I love how our snowman turned out.  I made the carrot nose, coal eyes and buttons, and corncob pipe a few weeks ago out of wood.  I'm hoping to make a black felt hat and find a better old scarf to ad to our snowman kit.

Family Christmas Party

The Sunday before Christmas we always have a family Christmas party at my mom's house.

Lucy and Olivia playing with their cousins while we wait for everyone to arrive.

We had a nice little dinner with a homemade Minestrone soup, homemade Chili, veggie tray, rolls, and tons of desserts.  I brought my flan and there was a red velvet cake and a coconut cream pie.

After dinner we played Christmas Bingo.  Olivia did a great job listening for the object to find and placing a button on the square.  Lucy wanted to be a big girl and put down buttons too.  After a while it was difficult to know which squares we really marked off and which ones Lucy helped with.  Certainly a game we'll play again as a family.

Lucy loved packing a bag around.

My mom always makes some homemade things for Christmas.  She crochets beautifully and this year made the girls new winter hats and a small scarf that buttons.  The teal for Olivia which is a beautiful color on her.

Lucy in her new hat and scarf.  She really did not want to wear it.  She was more interested in the Snow White baby that she also received.  

Olivia loves her new hat and scarf as well as the new doll.

All the girls together with their homemade goodies.

Pet Vaccinations

Sam

Saturday was an extremely busy day for us.  It started out with an hour drive to Salt Lake to the local Humane Society.  That is where we usually take our pets for their vaccination shots because it costs so much less then most veterinarians.  The only problem with that is that the Humane Society told me at our last visit that I could not bring back our dog, Sam, unless I had him sedated.  You may recall my post on that most interesting visit.

Once at the Humane Society I needed to pick up the sedative pill for Sam.  I was asked how much he weighed and with a sigh told the receptionist between 40 and 50 pounds.  She looked at me with a questioning face and repeated what I said adding for a Cocker?  Well yes, my Cocker Spaniel weighs exactly 46 pounds, 11 pounds over weight.  Poor thing, for a dog he is considered obese.  But with his knee replacement, bad hip and collapsed trachea it is impossible for him to exercise.  When it snowed earlier in the month I threw a few snow balls around for him to chase which resulted in him coughing up phlegm for days.  Exercise is not something that we can do often with him.

Missi

I had expected the sedative pill to nearly knock him out and was a little nervous when it didn't.  Thankfully it mellowed him out.  There was no barking and no yelping when he received the shot.  In fact, he acted like a normal dog.  The thought crossed my mind that it might be nice to keep him drugged just so he can be a happier dog.

While at the Humane Society our two cats also received their vaccinations.  Nothing exciting from them except for the chorus of meowing from the back of the car for the two hours worth of driving.