First annual Ugly Sweater White Elephant party

Chace and Rachel Norton came up with the idea to have an ugly Christmas sweater and white elephant Christmas party. They put it on...we just had it at our house :). We had 17 adults over and it was a lot of fun. We had a quick finger feast before hand with some delicious food that everyone brought and then the fun began.

So finding/buying an ugly christmas sweater is actually pretty hard. They are either super expensive or you just can't come by them. So we decided to hit the thrift store in town and then with craft supplies I had, I literally threw Curtis' sweater together. He won!! I think it turned out pretty good. I wish I had taken better pics of it because its rather funny. It even has a full on reindeer head with jingle bell antlers on the back. And to add it all, he had his hair cut in a bowl style. Really classic!!

Ridge with Trakken (sp).

Here's all the couples...the brains of the party: Chace and Rachel. Chace's sweater was hilarious too...women's vest

Sam and Amber and Sam's sweater had a working stocking :)

JT and Jen

Us...yes its a bit creepy and Ridge just had to be in it too.

Cambree was feeling left out in all the picture taking

Mark and Jaelynn (so glad they could make it last minute)

Michael and Whitney

Ryan and his lovely 'date'. Don't you just love his all natural sweater?

Seth and Kamron

McKay and Jarica

All the guys.

It was a lot of fun. I am hoping this will be an annual thing. This group just makes anything like this a blast. Thanks Chace and Rachel for a good time!!

Polar Express Party!

It was time once again for my Polar Express preschool party. This is by far my favorite party of the year. There's just something about the time of year and seeing the kids all excited and in the spirit of it all. Plus, this year was the first time in my new house which meant more space which was WONDERFUL!!

This year I made a cardboard train for the kids to 'get in'. It was a lot of work but worth it I think. Some kids were still disappointed that it wasn't a real train that moved though ;)

Here's Brecklynn all ready for the party to begin.

Here's the train. It was actually too long for the room...

Part of the set up

Train tracks to the train...

All the kids ready for the ride

We had chocolate milk and doughnuts

We made magic reindeer food and had a book exchange. Every year it cracks me up with the book exchange. Kids just can't grasp the concept of what seems to be a simple thing. They all kept getting upset that they weren't opening the gift they brought and that someone else got their gift. Pretty funny.

Then of course we had to have Santa come. The kids loved him. Well almost all did. He was so good to the kids. Brecklynn wanted nothing to do with him though which made me sad because I couldn't get a picture of her with him, but maybe next year.

Here's the whole group-all minus one who sadly ended up sick this day. So now we're on to celebrating Christmas and enjoying a 2 week break. I really love what I do. Yes there are hard days, but nothing is greater than teaching little kids!!