Live Nativity

Last year, we started the tradition of participating in the Live Nativity at our Stake Center. Luckily, Brett chatted with the right people and we got a spot for late this evening. It's such a special time to be together and remember the true meaning of Christmas! Love it! This year, Liberty wanted to be Mary. Unfortunately, they weren't able to get any animals this year. The kids were a little bummed but... things happen sometimes. And it was still a special night. We are so grateful for our Savior and the chance we had to share his story with others on this special night!

Since we needed another wiseman, one of Brett's Seminary students, Kreston joined us. It was fun to chat and spend with him (and his mom). Nice people!

After our shift, we enjoyed some hot chocolate and cookies. Glory even scored an entire box that was leftover since it was almost over. (plus she's got s super sweet smile) Wahoo! Fun times!

Caldwell Christmas Eve

For the last several years, our friends, the Caldwells, have thrown a Christmas Eve Party for those without families close by. We were lucky enough to be invited this year. It was super fun to spend time with friends. They had tons of people come. {I was whimpy and didn't take a whole lot of pictures. I always kick myself when I do that but oh well... next year, right?}They had lots to eat and plenty of room to spread out and enjoy ourselves. Their home is beautiful. 

We'd never been up there before so the adventure beforehand was a bit scary! LOL It decided to be a WHITE Christmas which made us very happy! It dumped several inches of snow on us within hours of the party starting. Driving up a Montana mountain in the dark (no street lights) in a minivan was literally putting our lives on the line to make it there! ;) So worth it though! 

We all ate and visited with some friends. The kids got to play cards and ping pong downstairs. Brett & I joined Allie & Brian in a few carols at the piano before we left. What a great night!!!

Christmas Eve Puppet Show

Victoria & Glory made us Golden tickets and put on a special puppet show for us in the playroom doorway. It was silly and a bit violent for a Christmas show. LOL But I love their creativity! Cute girls!

Gingerbread cookies

Every since Gingerbread Fred- Glory has been asking to make Gingerbread Men Cookies. Today we finally fulfilled her request. Not sure anyone is going to end up a huge gingerbread cookie fan but it was a fun project to do together. Merry Christmas!

Later during our Christmas break, we got around to decorating them. By then- almost all of them were in pieces but we made it work!

Christmas Prep

I have been LOVING my new house and the opportunity to decorate for the Holidays again. Seriously, I am in LOVE with my house. I realized that I didn't take pictures of everything but here are some of my favorites: Merry Christmas!!!

And Christmas Cards make me so HAPPY!!!

The kids set up their tree downstairs and put all their ornaments on it. Super fun!

Smørbrød Party 2: VT

I had planned to have my Visiting Teaching Companion & all our sisters with their families over to our house for Scones this evening. Unfortunately,  two of them got sick so we adjusted plans. We made another batch of Krumkaker and a few more sandwiches to enjoy a Smørbrød Party: Part 2 with the Stranges and the Browns. So fun! We had a fabulous time eating and chatting and laughing! Great people! [even if Brett and I are WAAAY old! LOL]

Smørbrød Party 2014

We decided to start up our Smørbrød Tradition here in Helena. {Check out our past documented parties from 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009.}
As a brief explanation- if you aren't brave enough to check out all the past info about it. LOL--
Smørbrød is pronounced Smurd-a-bra. The word smørbrød in Norwegian means "buttered bread" or aka the Scandinavian open face sandwich. Every year growing up, my Bestemor (Norwegian for grandmother) had a Smørbrød party around Christmastime. A couple years prior to my documenting phase of our lives, we started our own Smørbrød Party in Fargo. It's a tradition that our family loves & wanted to share with our new Helena friends!

MENU

We always have tons of Scandinavian food and desserts. There's open-faced sandwiches of every kind. . We made ones with crab salad, chicken salad, goat cheese, tomatoes and egg, ham, turkey, chicken, Munster cheese, Gouda cheese and pepper-jack cheese. We love trying all the different breads. We had wheat, white, pumpernickel, a couple different ryes, and a fancy red & green white bread.
For dessert I, of course, made Krumkaker. We love it! I made small batch of Berlinikranser. {Both of which were done with the help of Brett at 2 am the night before. We are CRAZY!}  The kids helped make brownies and we found some rosettes at the last grocery store we checked. It turns out that Helena is not very strong in it's Scandinavian roots. LOL
We also always have hot chocolate with home-made whip cream. Yum! Last year, we bought a family sized hot choco maker. It is so fabulous! And let me tell you- we get sooooo many compliments on our hot cocoa even though it's the generic kind made with water from Walmart. There's just something about it heated & frothed from a dispenser that makes it FABULOUSO!

FESTIVITIES {TALENT SHOW}

Along with the food, we have added a few of our own traditions to the evening's festivities. Tonight was a night of some amazing talents. LOL
Brett made a set of pipe chimes several years ago. We love pulling them out with a group of friends and trying out our musical abilities. ;) We rocked it! I think?
The little ones even put on a concert of their own with our "Elf" microphones. They were quite the hoot.
We had a budding model in our midst which wouldn't get off the bench until I took a million pictures of her. Cute baby!
And there was even a little hula-hooping going on in the cold backyard. Talent galore, my friends!

AND... it's not a Seamons Party if you don't get a few shots of the families. Oh how I love pictures of people! Thanks guys for joining us! We love you all! Until next year...

3rd-5th Winter Program

Mrs. Nelson also highlighted some individual talent during the Prelude Program which was held between Glory & Victoria's Programs. We knew quite a few friends in this part. Such talented people we know! Way to go, girlies!

Then it was Victoria's time to shine in her performances of Noel, Northern Lights and Hip Hop Reindeer. She takes her roles very seriously so she was pretty nervous. They did a great job! Way proud of you, Sis! [I went to take a closeup pic of her beforehand but she wasn't quite dressed up yet so we decided to wait. But then we forgot. Oops!] It was awesome that we knew someone in every grade level. It made listening to all of them more enjoyable because we had a vested interest. ;) What a great day!

P.S. The kids all got out of school after the concerts. Victoria had her friend Sophie over for the afternoon. People think they look a lot alike {besides the glasses} so we always giggle when they get together. So cute! They played some game today where the bad guys were afraid of RED. Silly girls!

K-2 Winter Program

Glory had her Winter Program this morning. Mrs. Nelson (music/band teacher) does such a great job at making sure every class has unique songs and tons of fun. It was a great day of musical talent. Glory was so excited and did a great job! She loves all the songs from the program- even those others performed. She's such an animated, fun-loving girl! Luv ya, Sis! You sure did "JINGLE"! ;)

After the K-2 classes performed, they were dismissed to go back to their classes. Glory & 2 other friends were the only ones who stayed for the rest of the day. They got to watch a movie and eat lunch in their classroom. [It was better than sitting through another 2 hours of concerts. LOL] Liberty got to help with the SRO Bake Sale so we enjoyed a few treats while we waited for the next part to start.

Winter Concert Fiasco

We attended the Montana City Middle School Winter Concert tonight. Justice & his friend, Bryson have been practicing for weeks for a Trumpet Duet. Justice was super nervous but they did a fabulous job! It was fun that we knew so many people in the concert. They had singing, dancing, piano soloists, trumpets, violin duets, and some pretty funny commentary. It was a pretty impressive night...

...until halfway through- some commotion on the front row quickly turned the night into quite the fiasco!!!! At first, we thought someone's Grandpa had fainted from the heat of so many people in the room. But within a minute or so- we realized this would not be the typical Winter Concert. One of the teachers started doing CPR within minutes of the grandpa hitting the floor. He had a heart-attack was lying dead on the floor. Wowzers! They tried to clear the bleachers and took as many kids as possible out of the room. However- none of us could leave so that the ambulance wouldn't have to fight the traffic of a parking lot full of cars being emptied. They continued CPR, took down the gym door so they could get the stretcher in all while we stood shocked against the back wall. When his heart finally started beating and became somewhat coherent- the ambulance with the EMTs showed up. As soon as they got him up and out of the room, they canceled the rest of the concert for the evening. There was some scared, sad and mad kiddos in the back room. We chatted about how it was probably the best call for the evening. Especially because if it had been someone in our family- we wouldn't have wanted to finish out the concert. Most of them understood but still a little sad about how hard they have worked all year to prepare for tonight. Here's what we missed-

Quite the adventure. The man survived though so that was a blessing for sure. It was probably a blessing in disguise that he was there when it happened. The next day they did discuss that they may do a makeup concert sometime in January. Guess we'll see.

Gingerbread Fred

Glory brought home a friend to join us for our weekend fun. His name is Gingerbread Fred. He participated in our Family's 12 Days of Christmas Party.
Here's what Glory reported to her class about her friend's visit--
I loved to play out in the snow with Gingerbread Fred. We dressed him up so cute in his snow clothes and I loved his clothes!!!  I also loved it when he changed our calendar. It was fun playing in the snow with him and watching a movie with him. I loved to see him ride on the sled with me. The Go-Kart was pulling us and we said Yippee! When we came in to warm up, Gingerbread Fred chose whip cream in his hot chocolate but I chose marshmallows. But that naughty Gingerbread Fred, he got into our container of Vitamin ms and ate WAY more than his share. It was funny when he got into the jar and I might have helped him eat some. ;) I wanted to eat the whole jar but I couldn't because my Mom said not to. I loved playing with Gingerbread Fred. It was fun playing with him. 

Beer, Boobs and Beads @ the Coils

We were fashionably late to the Coil's for their 7th Annual Ugly Sweater White Elephant Party. We LOVE this party so we didn't want to miss it. We left our Ward Party after dinner to make it out there in time for the White Elephant part. Luckily we made it for the sweater judging and a group picture or two. Guests included Coils, Sanders, Lays, Stovalls, Fuhrimans, Fifes, Binghams, Christensens, Guymons, Schoenfeld, Bywaters and us. Fun people!

Here's the sweater winners this year. Schoenfeld in his gorgeous elk/deer- too small sweater. (It was a deer until he flexed. LOL) And Fuhriman in his National Lampoon's Christmas outfit! Too funny!

The White Elephant Game is always my favorite. Oh. My. Heavens!!!! The things people find! LOL It seemed that a lot of gifts had a theme of poop and pee, for some reason. There was the "Bumper Dumper", the PooDough and Hunting TP, the Poop Soap, Subtle Butt, Pee Pockets and the "I Pee in the Shower (and so do you!)" T-Shirt. Pretty funny! But the most hilarious to me was that the Fife's family received Beads, Boobs and Beer. So hilarious! [See left top picture] Steve got a Redneck Boob Kit which consisted of a big bag of pink balloons. ;) Heather brought the a bunch of girls some"beads" so Kris got beads and a big can of Bud Light. LOL

I had slacked and was just going to do something simple for my gift but then I decided at the last minute to get to work and make something "personal". A couple years ago at a White Elephant Party, I got a Jane Fonda Workout record. I decided to use some selfies that Shay had taken with my camera and make it the "aka Shay Coil" record. I included leg warmer, tights, a headband and a workout shirt. I added a couple people to the playlist as well- such as "Bow" Stovall, BMan Seamons, Dr. Andy Coil, and Micah the Rockstar. Shay LOVED it!

Brett and I ended up with some pretty awesome gifts. We got the Couple's Travel kit. And some cookie, hot choco and an Ugly Sweater Card Game. We loved them!

Thanks for inviting us, Coils! We love you Party!

Toast to Muffy

Sad, sad, sad day! We took some Henry Weinhard's over to the Albertsons parking lot to make one last toast to Muffy. ;(
Our poor suburban gave up the ghost yesterday and we sold it to the junk yard for $150. Never good timing but it is such a bummer! Goodbye, dear friend that lasted probably way longer than you should have. You will be missed!

Ward Christmas Dinner

We had a couple things planned tonight but wanted to support our new ward in the Christmas Party. So we went for the dinner part. It was  super yummy! The Jensens did a fabulous job. The youth all dressed up in white and black (with some red) to serve the dinner. It would have been fabulous if we hadn't been dealing with a teenage tantrum all evening. (I thought they grew out of  tantrums when they were 2?) Even if I wanted to pull my hair out or put "her" in timeout- I am glad we went to support the Ward & celebrate the season with them.

PJ Party

A bunch of my girlfriends got together tonight for a PJ Bday Party for Kris. We all wore our PJs (ok... some of us wear pjs) and brought treats to share. We planned on watching a movie but instead spent the entire night and way into the wee morning hours just talking. Ok--- talking, laughing until we cried and coming up with a million insides jokes that I can't share here because it's a family channel. LOL Gotta love girlfriends and late nights!!! 

I'll never looked at my bead necklaces, squirrels or my bath mat the same again. ;)

Harriet Tubman

Victoria's class did oral reports on a famous person. She choose Harriet Tubman. She did a great job! And looked super cool.