The Walkers: Countdown to Christmas

The Christmas season is in full swing at our house! We've had a lot of fun the last couple of weeks going to parties, doing different activities, and doing all our fun family traditions in preparation for Christmas. Get ready for picture overload :)

Our customary Christmas countdown chain!

Here are the kids having a movie night in their Christmas jammies, we watched "Epic" :)

Caught this rare pic of the kids snuggling, it was so sweet!

At the beginning of this month we got DUMPED on with snow and then it got super cold so we couldn't really play in it (lame). However I did get some pics of the kids one day helping shovel the snow with Daddy. I hope the weather we've been having means we get an early spring.....please??

More pics of the snow

Isaac decided to start off the Christmas season by throwing the remote at our 40" flat screen TV.....it went instantly black and it is toast. I cried.

Getting ready to go see Santa in their Christmas outfits. The Provo Towne Center charged $18 for a very crappy quality picture with Santa so I did not include that picture on here (-_- grrrr)

Just a little taste of what Isaac is like most of the time, lol.....didn't want to cooperate

Finally got one :)

After seeing Santa we took the kids to see "Frozen".....it was very cute!

Isaac playing with our new Little People Nativity set.....I saw it at Walmart and couldn't resist!

Nunes/Martindale Christmas Party 12/8/13

Boys hanging out watching football

This was the day we got family pictures taken (see previous post).....I thought this one with Malea and I turned out cute :)

Nice pic of Ben, haha.....you can see it on Malea's face that she was not feeling well

Cute girls Malea and Sienna, they are best buddies!

Kids opening their presents from Grandma and Grandpa

So you know how I mentioned earlier that Malea wasn't feeling well? Yeah so we got hit with stomach flu.....every single one of us got it over about a week and a half period. Malea started it and it went through to Isaac, me and then Keith. You can just see on Isaac's face how crappy we all felt. Thankfully it was only a 24 hour bug and I just keep thinking how glad I am that we got it now and not during Christmas!

Malea's stuffed animals fell casualty to the stomach flu....thankfully I was able to wash most of them in the washer

My mom and step-dad have been doing a "12 Days of Christmas" thing with the kids this year so they get to open a different gift every day. The first day Malea got a darling jewelry box that had her name engraved on it.

Isaac got a cute little train that spelled his name.....can you tell how excited he is about it? lol (in his defense, he had just woken up from a nap)

Some cute ornaments we got from the 12 Days of Christmas....

Martindale/Oldroyd Christmas Party 12/14/13

Every year we do a Gingerbread House competition.....this year I had big intentions to do one and then I ended up getting hit with stomach flu so I decided to do this "ginger bread house" instead.....I thought I was pretty clever :)

This one was the winner.....Monsters, Inc. theme! Very cute and clever

Some of the other entries

This was my Grandma "M's" Nativity set, I think it is so beautiful (I may or may not have hinted to my Dad that I want to inherit it one day)

Isaac in an affectionate mood :) So cute

Kiddos doing a craft while the grownups talk

Playing our traditional gift exchange game.....every year we decide on a $10 gift ahead of time and everyone brings one, we then play a dice game where if you roll a 7 or doubles you can exchange your gift with someone else. It was fun!

Kids getting their stockings from Grandma & Grandpa

Dad in his nice little Elf boxers he got from the gift exchange game.....it included a copy of the DVD "Magic Mike" (LOL!)

Random picture of Isaac with marker on his face.....just thought I'd throw it in there

The week before Christmas break, Malea's school did "Spirit Week" where they had a different theme each day.

This was Malea on "Best Dress" day:

(Could you just die from the cuteness?!?)

Pajama Day:

Crazy Sweater Day:

(We went to the dollar store and made it ourselves)

Crazy Hair Day:

(I thought it actually turned out kind of cute and not crazy, haha)

The last day was "Dress like Christmas" day so she wore her Mickey Mouse shirt that I posted earlier.....they did some fun activities at school that week, including a "Polar Express" party where they made a pretend suitcase and passport out of paper and pretended like they were on the Polar Express. So fun! Here she is with her face painted:

Here were some treats we gave Isaac's teachers (he has lots of teachers at school because of all the aide's plus the bus driver and her aide, as well as the speech therapist):

A little ornament I made with our family picture :)

The dental office my mom works for does a party every year where patients can come see Santa and have some donuts and hot chocolate.....my kids wouldn't get close to Santa but they did get some cute balloon animals!

Isaac got Buzz Lightyear

Malea got a snow man

Me and the kids making gingerbread houses......note to self, don't buy "whipped" frosting, it DOES NOT hold them together! Oh well, live and learn! We still had lots of fun.

All of us laughing because Isaac's house collapsed....once again, don't buy whipped frosting!

L to R: Malea, me, Isaac

One of the 12 Days of Christmas gifts was an "Elf on the Shelf".....a lot of people make fun of it but we have had a lot of fun with it! Our elf doesn't do anything too extravagant but here's some pics of where we have found him so far:

Stealing some M&M's out of the jar:

Hanging from the fan....

And holding baby Jesus :)

Almost done I promise.....

At my internship I decided to organize a Food Drive as a service project with the Latinos in Action class. I didn't really know how well it would be received but I have been absolutely amazed at the response! We made a goal of 300 lbs of food and I think we got that much after 2 days! We were able to collect well over 1,000 lbs of food in just a week! It was so awesome to see. We also made it a competition between the 7th period classes, which I think made all the difference.

The picture below is from the last day of the food drive.....this was how much we got on just one day! We pretty much doubled what we had before! It was awesome!