{little friends, nikolaus and relief society dinner}

Oh...it is SO overwhelming to blog when you are so far behind and have SO MUCH TO WRITE! I have put it off the past few days for that exact reason and now I am even MORE behind. This week has been extremely packed full of stuff...fun stuff. We started out our week by hosting our monthly dinner with some of our good friends. We have been getting together on a monthly basis for almost 3 years now and it is so fun to see our little ones grow up together. They are such cute little friends!! Love these pictures of our kiddies! We were smart this year and met at our house at 6 and fed all of the little ones FIRST and then got them set up downstairs to play while we ate. It was so nice to sit and visit and have adult conversation. :-) We also enjoyed Marie's OH-SO-FABULOUSLY-YUMMY hot chocolate that has become a tradition for our Christmas get-together the past few years. It is HEAVENLY!!! After we ate, we brought the little ones upstairs again so that they could open their presents. We picked families this year for gifts so that each one of our kids would get one gift from one of the other kids. They had so much fun opening their gifts and playing with them for a while afterwards. We had such a great time.....what a blessing it is to have such good friends!

Yesterday, we celebrated Nikolaus here at the White house. Nikolaus is the German Santa Claus and comes on December 6th and fills your shoes with treats and gifts.

The kiddies' shoes were lined up by the front door the night before and Kaden was SO EXCITED for Nikolaus to come. he is seriously SO MUCH FUN this year! He really GETS it and gets SO EXCITED about everything. His eyes completely lit up when he saw that Nikolaus had come and brought him a new Leapster game, his favorite cereal, fruit roll-ups and "mini Kit Kats." LOL! He just about DIED when he saw the new personal DVD player that Nikolaus had brought for him and Seneca to share. He was even SO EXCITED for all of Seneca's stuff. LOL! Seneca was so cute and so happy about her new little doll with snap on clothes. :-) After they finished look at their stuff, Kaden gasped and looked across from their fun goodies and said, "MAMA! Nikolaus even filled yours and Daddy's flip flips with mini Kit Kats!" LOL! Last year Nikolaus put the extra treats up in our cupboard and when Kaden saw them, he looked at me suspiciously and said, "HEY...those are the same treats that Nikolaus brought us!" He's a smart little stink. So this year, Nikolaus decided to give all of the extras to me and Chas so Kaden wouldn't get confused.

LOL! Gotta love that last picture above. Kaden put his head in his hands and said, "Oh MAMA...NO MORE PICTURES!" LOL! Classic! On the way to school yesterday morning after all of the excitement of Nikolaus morning, I put 4 little stockings stuffed with treats into the mailbox for Christian's kids. When we got back from school, we opened the mailbox to find my absolute FAVORITE Marzipan FROM GERMANY, with a cute note wishing us a Happy Nikolaus as well...written on the back of a MAILBOX FULL slip. LOL! He even wrote, "Don't you love my cards?" on the piece of paper! So funny. That Marzipan was gone in a New York minute. HEAVENLY! Speaking of Marzipan...and Germany...I booked my flight this week, for my 2 week trip to Germany in the spring! WOOOHOOOOOO! Can't wait! Anyway..Nikolaus was definitely a fun day. I love celebrating Nikolaus...and the kids definitely do as well. How lucky are we that Nikolaus still comes to visit us here in the States! ;-)

Last night, I was able to go to our Relief Society Christmas Dinner, and had such a great time. Each of the dinner tables was decorated by different ladies, and I volunteered to be in charge of decorating one of them. It was so fun coming up with fun ideas for the table. I am really happy with how the table turned out.

I purchased a red courderoy tablecloth on clearance at Walmart and used my awesome green quilted table runner that I bought at The Village Quilt Shoppe a few weeks ago. Before setting the rest of the table,  I sprayed my tablecloth and runner with my Scentsy Autumn Sunset Room Spray. It smells so awesome and festive. Then, I set the table with my gold chargers and some cute red paper plates I found at Target. For the center of the table, I used my metal wiggle trees that I bought at Rod Works last year. They looked so fun, especially with my "Merry Christmas" metal art that I also purchase at Rod Works. Next to the trees, I had little white gift boxes filled with warm vanilla lipgloss (in the old fashioned metal lipgloss cases that have the lids that slide off. Remember those? So fun!) and mini vinyl board magnets that said, "Wise Men Still Seek Him." Oh each plate, I also had a little bag of Andes Mints. Here is a fun picture of the the cute ladies that ended up sitting at my table!!

We had such a great time. I was so excited to be able to meet so many new people and get to visit with some other neighbors that I just haven't been able to talk to in a long time! MAN, we have some really fantastic people on our ward. During dinner, they shared a few Christmas stories and then turned out all of the lights with only a single light shining on framed pictures of the Baby Jesus, while they played "Away in a Manger." It was really neat. After dinner, everyone made gingerbread houses...and there was more visiting. It was a blast. It was so nice to just sit and mingle and get to know so many great ladies that I had never had the opportunity to talk to up until last night. At the end of the evening, the Relief Society Presidency presented us with a wonderful Christmas gift - the new Relief Society lesson manual for the next two years, that they had spiral bound for all of us. So awesome!! After the dinner, I ended up going over to Jewels' house and ended up chatting with Jewels and Darren until almost midnight. I just love them. Again, I just have to say how seriously seriously BLESSED we are to have so many wonderful friends! Life is so good!

Oh, I have SO MUCH MORE to write....but I am so exhausted, I feel like my head is literally going to fall off. LOL! So many more fun things to share...and will do so tomorrow! Stay tuned for an update about a fun night TONIGHT...and FINALLY, my treasures found at Quilted Bear!! Until then, make today a GREAT ONE! 

Comments

[wendy sue]

Heather, I just love to read about all of the fun things you do...and I truly admire your enthusiasm and energy!!! :O)

[StevieK]

I love your table setting. It's very fun and just makes you smile! Your party treats for the gals are fabulous! It's so cool that you celebrate Nikolaus with the kiddos. I think it's important for children to learn about other cultures. Too funny about Kaden's comment last year. Kathy told me the other day "Yeah I knew about Santa when I figured out your handwriting. I probably had a few good years yet to believe". Geesh! Made me feel terrible. Have a wonderful weekend!!!

[Brandi]

i have been trying to wait patiently for the quilted bear post, but i seriously have been dying to see this!! your table looked fabulous!!

[Bobbi-Jo]

Such a fun table you decorated. I bet the sisters were thrilled! How did they decide which table they sat at? I would have been lining up at dawn to get a seat at yours! :) Thanks for sharing the fun tradition of Nikolaus. I love learning about new traditions (or old ones tee hee hee). And I'm SO excited to get my hands on the new Joseph Smith RS manual. Thanks for the sneak peek!

[Laurie]

What a completely fabulous tradition! I haven't heard of that before. Your table turned out amazing at the RS dinner. Great job!

[Marcy]

Can you adopt me? tee hee. I want to live with YOU!! lol You do such awesome fun creative things.

Great Work!!

[bettyannmangh]

glad your head didn't fall off, great idea to spiral bound that book, it's hard to keep them nice for even one year, i didn't even know we are studying that next, how exciting!