Christmas '08

This year, Christmas actually seemed a little more relaxed than years past. Not exactly sure why since we still did the same routine. We open presents and have breakfast here at home and then sometime in the afternoon we head to Nana's house for more presents and dinner. My dad lives close to her so we usually go to his house to visit after dinner. Naturally, the kids had a blast and got lots of cool things. Emma is getting more into opening things and was trying to help Hailey with her stuff too. Anyways, here are a few pictures from the day.

The tree after Santa's visit

The stockings were laid out on the couch with care...we have a chimney but it is downstairs and we don't use that area!

Kayla's ultimate present....a gift certificate for Tangles Salon and Day Spa to get her hair done by my friend Sue

One of Eli's ultimate gifts from Darlin...it has this little alien with a UFO that sounds like the Jetsons vehicles!

Eli's ultimate, ultimate gift...a Nintendo DS. This is the first game system we have purchased for any of the kids!

Emma with her baby doll from Santa. Whenever you would ask her what Santa was going to bring her, the response was always "Santa's gonna bring me a baby doll"! So naturally that was what he had to do! The funny thing was that I went out one night to buy this thing and promptly showed JR and the big kids because I thought it was too darn cute. Eli is getting to the age now where he isn't sure if he believes in Santa or not. So he immediately looks up at me when she opens this thing and says something about me getting it but how can it be from Santa! Oops! And the really funny thing about this doll is that it says 5 different cheers and my 12 yr old has all of them memorized and moves to go along with them! I swear Kayla plays with this doll way more than Emma!

Hailey with her cool Peek-a-blocks from Darlin

Eli with his Nerf Vulcan from Nana....he also has a Nerf bow (he calls it his big, bad bow) so I have seriously been dealing with not just Eli playing with this thing....his father has been playing too! They love to have wars with them and we all get stuck in the middle! I even got ambushed one day by JR when I came in the front door.

One last little gift from Santa! This was at the end of the day when we finally got home from Nana's. Hailey under the tree with a portion of loot collected throughout the day!

Oh Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas tree, how beautiful I think it is without ornaments! Hee hee

We put our tree up last Saturday and just before we put the ornaments on I realized I had to leave to go babysit. JR thought we should decorate as a family so he had the kids wait to do anything else. Well as I sat and looked at the tree on Sunday I really thought it would be fun to go with a color scheme on this tree since it is white. I also decided I don't like our current topper or tree skirt. However, I am not willing to buy anything until it all goes on clearance after Christmas! So the kids are protesting not decorating the tree but I am riding it out to see how long I can get away with this! :)

And yes I see the picture is blurry....couldn't really tell you what I was doing when I took it!

44 Days

I learned earlier today (thank you Jerrie for your countdown widget) that we have only 44 days until Christmas! I don't know how that happened. My friend Valerie says it must be because we have had such nice weather. We really have. Up until this week it has been warmer than usual. As I said before, we didn't even have to wear jackets on Halloween! I obviously knew it was coming but I didn't realize just how quick! The funny thing was that a friend and I were just giving another friend a hard time for having her tree up already. Well geez, if I had realized just how close we were I wouldn't have said anything! I guess I better get busy......

Merry Christmas!

Whew did we have an exciting couple of days celebrating Christmas! And we are all tired from it and need some R&R big time! It started on Saturday when we went to JR's dad and step-mom's to exchange gifts there. We had to do it so early because that was when JR's little sister Katy was going to be there.

Then on Monday afternoon we went over to JR's mom and step-dad's house for gifts and a late lunch/early dinner with them. Emma wasn't really interested in opening gifts, she was having alot more fun running around the house and running down the hallway. Kayla and Eli made out with some pretty cool gifts! I made the mistake of telling my mother-in-law to get Eli moon shoes.....little did I know exactly what those things are......they are basically platforms suspended by gigantic rubber bands. Strange and a little dangerous looking but I am sure Eli will have a ball with them! Kayla has found Aeropostale to be her new favorite store and she got a couple of gift cards for that store so we will be shopping soon!

Christmas morning is always done at home with just us so we get some family time to ourselves for a while and it also gives the kids a chance to enjoy some of their gifts here at home. There were lots of ohhs and ahhs and Emma losing interest again but the kids did have a great time. Then later in the afternoon it was off to my mom's house for some more presents and dinner. One of Kayla's presents was a cell phone and we decided to hold off all day long on giving it to her. After dinner and everyone settling down a little bit we called everyone back in to my mom's living room and had Kayla stand in front of JR as he presented her with her phone. (sorry I was so focused on getting it on tape that I forgot to take a snapshot to share) Her reaction was awesome! She was pretty convinced that she was never going to get one in her life but as she looked back on certain conversations and comments we have made it all kind of came together for her. And her reaction was well worth the wait too! After all that JR and Eli went home because they were tired and had things to play with at home and my brother Carl, Kayla, Emma and I all went to my dad's house for a short time. Oh and as I was walking JR to the car I notice there is a huge wrapped gift sitting on my mom's driveway. It took my brain a few minutes to process that it wasn't there when I got there and that it was wrapped so it wasn't their trash can or something weird like that. Turns out it was a gift for me from JR - it was my washing machine to go with my dryer! That was supposed to be a tax return purchase but my loving husband decided to do it early! And I think it was just in time because I had washed a load of towels that morning and there were still soap suds at the bottom of the machine after the load finished!

It was a long couple of days but lots of fun and great to spend time with family. It was nice seeing my brother since he moved to Oregon just over a year ago we don't get to see him very often. The only people missing were my step-brother and his family from Alaska.

Before the madness......

Emma opening her first gift

Eli's toolbox loaded with tools....which were used several times today

Kayla and her Aeropostale sweatshirt

Even the animals get presents in our house.....just look at that concentration on his new Kong toy!

Emma's comment when opening this......"oh cool!" - you think she pays any attention to her siblings?!

Kayla and her beloved Chris Brown CD

Eli and his new bike from Nana and Grandpa

So as I was looking for pictures to put on the blog I realized that I got the reactions on video for all the really good presents. One day I will share with you once I figure out how to do it!

Out with the old, in with the new

This year as we unpacked our Christmas tree we discovered that the base was broken when it was repacked (not by us) sometime after Christmas when it was in storage. Only 1 point of the 4 was broke so we were able to rig it. Well yesterday Emma decided she wanted to tug on the tree (she normally doesn't touch it at all) causing it to start to fall towards her. JR was sitting right there so he was able to stop it and it went the other direction. It teetered and broke 2 more of the points of the base and left it laying (not just leaning) against the wall. I wanted to get a picture but JR already had it taken down by the time I got around to it. Anyways, when we found that the tree was broken we decided we would get a new one after Christmas (to hopefully catch a good sale) but this just rushed it along. JR has wanted a white tree with blue lights for several years now and I decided to cave on the white tree bit. I really do like it. Of course this is also our first tree that cost more than $20! The white tree we found was on sale for $50 cheaper than we expected it to be so that made for a nice surprise. And when JR took it out of the box this afternoon we found that it was pre-lit (not something we really wanted but it will work) with white lights and he put strands of blue lights so we have a versatile tree! Mood lighting!

So now we say goodbye to a tree that was good to us for 5 or so years (can't remember exactly when we got it, my mom gave it to us because she got a new tree and this one was bigger than our sad Charlie Brown tree).

And now for the new tree. These show you both lighting effects - blue or white. There isn't a picture of it decorated but I wanted to just give you an idea of what it looks like. We didn't use the same topper which is fine because I didn't like this one anyhow. It will probably take me 2-3 yrs before I find one that I like....I always have a hard time finding one that is decent.