Life and Times of The Johnston family: Festival of Trees Week!

Monday Dec. 2nd was decorating day for the Festival of Trees, so Tony stayed home with the kids while my parents and I went and got our Autism tree put together. It went quite smoothly actually and came together very well and we were done by noon! After we went to lunch then came home feeling quite accomplished!
Tueday Devin was supposed to have OT but he wasn't sounding very good so we rescheduled, that day was of course the biggest snow storm of the year because my dad, the kids and I had to pick up Jen in Bountiful and my mom from work in Salt Lake and drop the kids off at the Nester's in Taylorsville then go to opening night of the Festival of Trees in Sandy. It took long slow hours to get that all accomplished! But we got to the Festival just as the bidding was closing so we got to see the two nice women who bought our tree for an automotive shop down in Kearns. It was such a relief to know our tree sold and during bidding none the less! We wandered the isles of trees and the gift shop, picked a something for each of the kids, went and got a sandwich and cookies with punch, made one last stop to look at our beautiful tree then Tony and I headed off to pick up our kiddos. Wednesday Elizabeth went to Bravo daycare but Devin woke up with nasty pink eye, so he and I went to the doctor to get him medicine. Thursday Devin was supposed to have his evaluation with a behaviorist, but since he still wasn't feeling well we rescheduled that as well. That night was Elizabeth tumbling and scout meeting. Friday morning my mom drove the kids and I back to the Festival of Trees so the kids could go see Santa and do the fun things in the kids corner, and they had a really good time! We saw Santa first and Elizabeth was so excited to talk to him and tell him that she wants a My Little Pony stuffed Fluttershy. She was way cute with him. Devin whom I did not expect to want to sit with Santa actually did, I think Elizabeth's enthusiasm helped him. He never looked at Santa but she did sit with him and say ya to him and it's a good think Santa is magical or else it would have been really hard for him to understand when Devin ever so softly whispered to him that he wants a Mike the Knight castle for Christmas. In the end after some camera trouble on their end they still got some super cute pictures of them and they even gave us a Night Before Christmas book to make it up to us....oh and Devin tried to give Santa his candy cane back! He never did eat it. We then went over and my mom bought some tickets for the kids and they did fun things, crafts games and such. All Elizabeth cared about doing was making a teddy bear for a little girl who has to be in the hospital because she's so sick. So that's the first she did, and she was very proud of it, and hoped it would make a sick little girl smile. Then she did other things, as did Devin. After the tickets were gone my mom got us scones and chocolate milk...yum!! Devin just drank his pediasure...stinker! It was a great outing!
Saturday we went to my Aunt Julie's house for a Christmas lunch party with my dad's dad and his half sister was there as well. It was nice to be together with family and visit and eat.

Festival of Trees decorating day...it starts out pretty much a great big mess...

And then just like that it's all put together and looking good!

Some pictures of the kids playing in the snow...Devin has an aversion to it so he barely made it off the patio, but they both managed to have fun in their own ways!

Just some Christmas fun!

We joined the group of Elf on the Shelf owners this year and despite the hate a lot of people seem to feel towards this poor little elf, the kids really really love waking up every morning to find Freddy...he's not naughty, he doesn't make any messes he merely observes and reports to Santa at the North Pole every night, then finds a new place to sit and watch, it's a glorified where's waldo and we love it!