Christmas 2008

We had a very Merry Christmas here at our house, and hope that all of you did at yours. My parents came in for 6 days and I loved it! Christmas eve found us doing last minute things like making cookies for Santa and wrapping gifts. The kids all got their traditional PJs and a new addition from my mom...she made them all new pillow cases too. We had a late night as we attended midnight mass with my parents and didn't get everyone in bed until 2. On the plus side they did sleep in until 8. The kiddos were all very excited to see Santa had come and brought them a new trampoline. During the night my sister had also arrived around 4am, so she was here for Christmas morning too. Funnest part of that was when she fell asleep and we got her with Addy's new makeup set:blue looks good on her right! As the day wore on the kids played with their new toys, Dave and I set up the trampoline, we all worked on the huge feast of a dinner, my cousin Eden came over, and we just had a good time. Christmas night Dave and the kids left for Dallas to visit with his family. Leaving me to a quite house and my family. It was fun! I went bowling with Laura and Eden, and very surprisingly won the first round! I took a picture of the score board because I couldn't believe it:

The following days I spent with my parents hanging out, reading the second book in the twilight series, making a day trip to Kingsville, and fixing things around the house (Thanks for all your expertise Dad!). All and all a very relaxing, calm, and quiet few days. Thanks for my break Davy!

A Letter to Santa

I just got this in an fwd email from my Mom and really liked it. So I thought I'd share.


Dear Santa,

I've been a good mom all year. I've fed, cleaned and cuddled my children
on demand, visited the doctor's office more than my doctor and sold
sixty-two cases of candy bars to raise money to plant a shade tree on
the school playground.

I was hoping you could spread my list out over several Christmases,
since I had to write this letter with my son's red crayon, on the back
of a receipt in the laundry room between cycles, and who knows when I'll
find anymore free time in the next 18 years.

Here are my Christmas wishes:

I'd like a pair of legs that don't ache (in any color, except purple,
which I already have) and arms that don't hurt or flap in the breeze,
but are strong enough to pull my screaming child out of the candy aisle
in the grocery store.

I'd also like a waist, since I lost mine somewhere in the seventh month
of my last pregnancy.

If you're hauling big ticket items this year I'd like fingerprint
resistant windows and a radio that only plays adult music, a television
that doesn't broadcast any programs containing talking animals, and a
refrigerator with a secret compartment behind the crisper where I can
hide to talk on the phone.

On the practical side, I could use a talking doll that says, 'Yes,Mommy' to boost my parental confidence, along with t wo kids who don't
fight and three pairs of jeans that will zip all the way up without the
use of power tools.

I could also use a recording of Tibetan monks chanting 'Don't eat in the
living room' and 'Take your hands off your brother,' because my voice
seems to be just out of my children's hearing range and can only be heard by the dog.

If it's too late to find any of these products, I'd settle for enough
time to brush my teeth and comb my hair in the same morning, or the
luxury of eating food warmer than room temperature without it being
served in a Styrofoam container.

If you don't mind, I could also use a few Christmas miracles to brighten
the holiday season. Would it be too much trouble to declare ketchup a
vegetable? It will clear my conscience immensely. It would be helpful if
you could coerce my children to help around the house without demanding
payment as if they were the bosses of an organized crime family.

Well, Santa, the buzzer on the dryer is calling and my son saw my feet
under the laundry room door. I think he wants his crayon back. Have a
safe trip and remember to leave your wet boots by the door and come in
and dry off so you don't catch cold.

Help yourself to cookies on the table but don't eat too many or leave crumbs on the carpet.

Yours Always,

A MOM...

P.S. One more thing...you can cancel all my requests if you can keep my
children young enough to believe in Santa.

Just for FUN

So Timmy's hair is getting kind of long, and I happened to have some wash out red hair goop sitting in the bathroom...I just couldn't resist. Here are the results:

What we have been up to...

The past 2 weeks since Thanksgiving have seemed to fly by! So much has been going on, another week seems to pass before I know it. So in a shortened version here's what we've been up to...

We've put up our Christmas tree, and most of our decorations. We decided to skip outside lights this year, so it made it a little quicker.

We made ginger bread cookies one afternoon:

We've done lots of stuff around the house, including a "clean out" of the toy box. We also hung up a new quilt rack shelf:

We went to the ward Christmas party and the kids got to meet "Santa" of course I forgot my camera, so no pictures. The next night we went to the stake Christmas music program. It was very nice, Dave and Rick sang a duet...very pretty if I do say so. They sang a song I hadn't heard before called Guard Him, Joseph. Again I forgot my camera.

I got these made up for some of our Christmas cards:

I designed a new header, which I'm printing up for some of the other Christmas cards.

We went fishing one afternoon, lots of fun, but no fish.

We did this ginger bread tree as a family project this week. We had the kit, but it would be very simple to do on your own. It was just star shaped cookies stacked from largest to smallest and then decorate.

Timmy went to the doctor for more ear infections, and his now doing much better.

We had friends over for a campfire and smores. Lots of sticky fun!

Jimmy recieved an award at school for showing citizenship in his classroom.

Addy somehow had an accident, she tells me she ran into the wall. Anywho, she split her lip in an extreme way. We went to the er for many hours and she got 2 1/2 stiches in her lip. I say 1/2 because they started on a 3rd and she flinched so they stopped. She took it very well, Dave says. Much better than her Mom. I panic in bloody, broken, my babies crying situations. So thankfully Dave left work to come sit at the Hospital with us. He then stayed with Addy for the stiches and I left to get Jimmy from school. She is looking much better today other than the fat lip.

And as I was writing this post I got a call from the school nurse to come pick Jimmy up, he had a fever. When I got there they informed me on top of his fever he was complaining of a sore throat, and FYI 2 kids in his class have been reported with strep this week. So now we are off to the doctor to get him swabbed and tested.

Oh the joys of life!

Update the time is now 4:30 we have returned from the doctor and Jimmy does have strep throat...ick! Here is hoping the rest of us don't get it!

Thanksgiving Post 2

Thanksgiving evening we loaded up and drove to visit with my family for the rest of the weekend. The drive seemed extra long that night as the kids whined. But we got there and all was well. We had lots of fun with Mom & Dad! Addy baked cookies with Nana, and Jimmy built a fire with Papa. We met up with some old friends at fun "rocket" park. And I got to go shopping! All and all a very fun few days!

Thanksgiving Post 1

Better late than never...right???

The kids went up to spend time with Nana & Papa as soon as Jimmy got out of school 21st. I drove them half way and then enjoyed a quite car ride home by myself. The days they were gone seemed to go by so fast, I didn't get everything done I had planned on. But I did get a lot, so I'm happy with it. They had TONS of FUN! In fact when we went up on the 25th to see them, they didn't really seem to care that we were even around. Oh well. We then spent a few days there with Dave's family and had lots of fun! It was really neat to see their yard, it actually looked like fall there with all the leaves piled up. We had a good visit with everyone and really enjoyed our Thanksgiving.