Getting Ready for Christmas

 

Seeing Santa at the Madden's Christmas Block Party.

Re-building our Lego Winter Village.

Building the Alpine Lodge as our newest addition to the village.

It even has a little outhouse.

Earlier in the week we visited the El Segundo Candy Cane Lane.

The big neighborhood Candy Cane Lane is in Torrance, but we didn't want to go so far this year.

We saw some beautifully-decorated houses.

This Christmas village with model trains was fabulous.

All dressed up for Church on Christmas Eve.

Going to see the lights on the Temple on Christmas Eve.

Universal Studios Party

 

We were so excited to be back at Universal Studios again this year for our Activision Holiday party.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was our first stop.

We rode Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey inside Hogwarts (Jeni and I took turns sitting with James).

It's a late night out at Universal so Aubrey stayed at home with the Ashcrafts. It was really cold out tonight.

We had some hamburgers and treats at Krusty Burger.

We also picked up 2 Lard Lad donuts and some Butterbeers.

It's a bit of a walk, but we went down to the lower lot to Super Nintendo World.

It was all so brightly-lit and colorful.

We saw people running around playing the side games but we went straight to Mario Kart.

I love the design throughout the line queue.

Even though there was no line in these rooms (and the park was closed for the Activision party), once we got to the end, it was still about a half hour wait before we got on the ride.

It's a fun ride, but I heard that the wait times are 2-3 hours on a regular day. The half-hour wait with "no line" was enough for this to be a one-time ride for us tonight.

It was fun to come back to Universal Studios this year. With Microsoft buying out Activision, this may be our last time.

Ward Christmas Party

 

After Christmas at Nana's, we drove back home in time to catch our ward Christmas party.

The kids all dressed up in costume and put on a Nativity play.

As Joseph, Evan kept his BYU beanie on underneath his headscarf.

James was a shepherd, Aubrey was an angel, and Hailey was a sheep.

Early Christmas with the McClellans

 

Nana has her Winter Village set up under the Christmas tree.

We have several of the same sets at our house, but Nana's village is definitely larger than ours.

First off, Nana prepared a game for everyone to play.

You get 3 tries to get a ball in the pocket.

Each ball corresponds to a gift bag of the same number with a gift card.

Everyone got to play through 2 rounds until all of the bags were claimed.

That was a lot of fun; thanks Nana!

Even little Aubrey played. (She ended up just ignoring the cue ball and knocking her ball in directly).

Passing out presents for everyone.

Jewelry for Hailey.

Gabby's Dollhouse Legos for Aubrey.

James is always glad to have new weapons in his daily battle against the invisible ninjas.

Everyone had a great time together.

These boys love building Legos.

New dress-up for Aubrey.

Hailey's going to use that for her art supplies she carries with her wherever she goes.

Cute.

New book for Hailey to read.

James is going to start his Pokemon adventure.

Ah, the teenager on Mom's phone.

Evan can't leave a perfectly good Lego set unbuilt.

James is joining in with his own Lego build.

Ooh, that's a nice, big Lego dollhouse you got there, Aubrey.