Pie Party and Wassail Party

Pie Party

Two days after Thanksgiving, we had a pie party! (Shout-out to the Hill family! We copied their pie party that we attended in Sac town last year). Everyone brought left-over pie from their Thanksgiving meals. We chowed down and played games. It turned out to be a really fun (and loud) night.

We ended up with pumpkin, lemon marang, chocolate silk, and rassleberry pie along with pumpkin cake and tons of cookies.
Jeremy let all the kids play on his drum set. They were in heaven.

My friend Leighsa and her daughter were in heaven with the babies! Dallin on the right.

Wassail Party 

On Saturday Dec 21, we had a wassail party! A wassail party is where you sing tons of Christmas songs together around the piano and eat cookies and drink wassail, which is a yummy drink like apple cider. Maybe you've heard of the song "Here we come a wassailing among the trees so green!" (Shout out to the Shea family! We copied their wassail party that we attended in Provo during xmas of 2006). 

We had a great group of friends that came. Jeremy and Cole made the wassail. It was AMAZINGLY delicious. And people actually sang songs together!

 Okay, so I admit that it was mostly the moms that sang. The kids mainly played in the basement and roamed in and out of the singing room as they got more cookies and wassail. And at one point I caught the kids and dads in the family room watching a movie, haha. 

BUT there were several times during the night that most of the group participated in the singing. The songs that got the most people involved were Jingle Bells, Joy to the World, Silent Night, and the top winner...Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. The kids also loved Picture a Stable in Judea and we had a pretty awesome round going with the Shepherd's Carol. I loved being able to  

sing songs that you usually don't get a chance to hear or sing during the holiday season. (Doesn't it seem like on the radio they always play the same 6 or 7 Christmas songs, none of which have anything to do with Jesus!?) 

Some of our songs put the babies right to sleep, including Bring a Torch Jeannette Isabella and Oh, Holy Night.

Other songs had Tanner very overwhelmed. 

Meredith loved how we were able to do something "that you only see happen in movies." 

One of Tanner's little buddies.

Dallin was all smiles most of the night.

Here's our little family at the end of the party, including our two adopted kids for the week- one by me and one seen in the mirror taking the picture. (More stories to come about how we got to keep these two amazing kids for 9 days!)