Life and Times of The Johnston family: Lights, Elves, Christmas Cookies and More!

Man we had a crazy fun week last week! Monday Devin had Speech Therapy which he is so rockin'! She finished up his year end testing, and did some fun things with him. Monday night Elizabeth had gymnastics, I gave them notice that this would be her last month at The Little Gym. :( Tuesday as soon as we were done with dinner we went to Temple Square and it wasn't nearly as crowded as our last attempt! We watched the Nativity story and stressed the importance of it during this time of year, and that it is the true reason for the season. At the end President Monson speaks and it was so touching to hear Elizabeth suck in her breath, turn to me and say in innocent excitement, "That's our prophet! Thomas S. Monson!! He's talking to US!" Oh how I love my gorgeous girl!! Then we just wandered and took in all the beautiful lights, and Nativities. The batteries in our camera died toward the end but se la vi. It was a great night, and really left us in the right spirit of Christmas. Wednesday night some sisters from our ward provided us with tickets to A Christmas Carol: A Musical at Pioneer Memorial Theater, they even provided babysitting! (can you see why it's so hard to leave this ward?! It truly is the most amazing ward in the world!! In fact it's less like a ward and more like a big family!) Tony and I really enjoyed the show...It was AMAZING! And we really enjoyed the time alone. And our kids actually even behaved themselves...for the most part, so that was a relief to me! Thursday Devin had OT and feeding therapy in the morning. Dani had a lot of fun just playing with our handsome little man, and feeding therapy went pretty well too. That night we went to Gardener Village and saw all the fun and silly elves, we did the little scavenger hunt, which isn't nearly as hard as the witches hunt, but just as fun! At the end the kids of course got their free cookies, which even came with a cute little Christmas ring! It was a very fun night! Friday morning my mom came and picked up Elizabeth and took her back to her house with her cousin Daniel whom she was watching while Eric and Jen saw a movie, that night Elizabeth helped Nana and Papa pick out "the most beautiful Christmas tree EVER!" and Saturday morning she decorated it! Meanwhile back to Friday with Elizabeth at Nana's, after Devin was down for his nap I pulled out Christmas presents and organized them, wrapped Elizabeth's and Devin's presents from us, and I even got Tony's presents wrapped and under the tree! Go me!!! That night we did some much needed grocery shopping. Saturday morning we had tithing settlement, we went to Dessert Star to get our Christmas present(season tickets), we even made a stop at the bank and were still to lunch at Sizzler's with my grandpa Holbrook early! Lunch was a lot of fun, I got a New York Steak with broccoli, which unfortunately thanks to baby messing with my tastes....was a no go(Tony definitely benefited though!) And our kids ate really good so I'll take it! We had a good time visiting with family, I ended up filling up on rolls mostly, but they are really yummy rolls! After we stopped by the condo to get some things then headed up to my parents house, we only had to go back once for forgotten things ;) Then Tony and my dad got to work in the basement getting to work on the two bedrooms they're building. Jen came up with Daniel so my mom and I and her got some good visiting in. We spent the night, as it was a pretty long night(we knew it would be) Then got the kids in their church clothes and ready, headed home, Tony and I got ready real fast and made it to church in time for Nursery and Primary. Sunday night we had our niece and nephew over to help us decorate Christmas cookies and watch a Muppet's Christmas Carol as is tradition. They had breakfast for dinner with us then got to decorating cookies. They had a lot of fun with it! Elizabeth was getting pretty artistic with her cookies this year...but Emily takes the cake for most effort put into decorating her cookies! It was a very fun night!!

Light at Temple Square!