Sights, Sounds and Smells of the Holidays

 I'm sort of behind on posts for the month of December (actually, I can post as little or as much as I want, so technically I've never really behind, right?), so pretend we didn't just have Christmas.  We have some great friends here, and we've had an abundance of great treats, service rendered, carolers, parties, etc.  We received a bag of "Christmas smells", that has been simmering on the stove, which makes the house smell fabulous.

We gave our neighbors fresh local Mandarins and sang them a Christmas carol.  The citrus is blooming everywhere, so we are loving all the amazing produce that comes this time of year.  These mandarins are AMAZING, btw.  We love them so much, we've gone through 50lbs in the last month!  Yikes, good thing they're good for you.  Mary's orange tree is full, so we snatched some of those when we were over there too.  

We made homemade graham crackers, 

and homemade green marshmallows, so our friends could enjoy......

S'mores!  I didn't get a picture of the final presentation, but they turned out cute.  I had a bag of marshmallows, crackers, and Hershey bars all tied together with a cute bow and tag.  We tested them out, just to make sure they tasted OK.  They definitely were OK!  I ordered these s'more roasting baskets to go with them, but they were on back order, so they didn't get them. 

Grant helping clean up the marshmallow mess.

 We've had some beautiful sunsets lately.  The weather has been amazing as well.  Noah keeps asking why we don't get snow for Christmas.  We tell him that's why we live here, and that's how we like it.  

A sweet family in our ward offered to watch some of the primary kids, so the moms could do any last minute shopping.  They had crafts, treats, shows, and games all set up for the kids.   Of course Noah and Grant cried when I left them, but they had a great time.  These gingerbread guys were one of the crafts they did.  I went grocery shopping while they were there.  I know not that exciting, but grocery shopping is usually an awful event when I have the 3 kiddos with me, so grocery shopping solo was a peaceful experience.  :)

When we were out delivering goodies, we went to one of Adam's counselors house (Chris), and he had tons of nutcrackers on display.  Noah has a new found interest in nutcrackers this season (probably because they learned about them in school), so he couldn't get enough of all his nutcrackers.  Chris let him borrow one for a few weeks (the small one), and then he brought Noah his very own nutcracker (the big one) on Christmas day.  Noah was so excited to have his own nutcracker.  Chris also came over last week and raked our leaves and mowed our lawn out front.  He said he wanted to help out Adam, because he knew he was so busy.  I almost cried watching him do service for us.   And on Christmas Eve someone put luminaries up our driveway and porch, and we still don't know who it was. It was a fun surprise to come home to. I feel sort of guilty when other people do things for us, because there are so many other people that could use it more than us; however, it makes me realize how happy it must make other people when we do service for them.

We have such great friends. I feel so blessed.