Merry Christmas

Christmas morning the older 2 kids were up around 7 am. I had them wait until the younger ones started waking up which was about 20 minutes later. Of course the kids couldn't wait to run down stairs to see the presents.

No I didn't make my kids dress up on Christmas. This was taken a couple Sunday's before. This was the best of them.

Hayden

Brenton

Payton and Kennedy

Talmage

Hayden

Hayden

When I asked my kids what they wanted for Christmas, this is what they said:

Brenton (almost 13) I don't know surprise me.

Payton (9) Zhu Zhu pets but you probably wont be able to get them unless you pay a whole lot of money on Ebay or Amazon, so I probably wont get them. So I have made a list and have color coded the things I really want one color and the things that I like another color and the things you don't have to get me a different color. I wonder where she gets that from UHHH Jon the king of lists.

Kennedy (7) Boots and a snap on bottle cap necklace like Sonoma's.

Talmage (6) Cheez-Its. I had to have him explain that one to me. He wanted individual size Cheez-Its to take to school for snack time just like his best friend Grant. O.K. I said but what else do you want. I don't know I really want Cheez-Its.

I didn't even ask Hayden because he is 3.

So I had some thinking ahead of me. But, Kennedy did get her boots and bottle cap necklace. Talmage got a big box of 36 individual bags of Cheez its to last him for the next couple of months for school snack time. Payton got the thing on her list that she really really really wanted Zhu Zhu pets (this gift was for both Payton and Kennedy) thanks to my sister Christa who called Target, Walmart, Toys R Us, and Learning Express every day until we got the hamsters and the all the play house sets. Also thanks to my mom and dad who went to a couple places with us since they had a limit as to how much we could get. It is nice to be able to get the kids what they really really really want and not have it cost too much. Then I am able to buy some more things and they think they really hit it big. I know that wont be the case for long when there is cameras, ipods, cell phones, certain brands of clothes etc.

We headed over to my parents house around noon for breakfast lunch. I love Christmas breakfast with the sausage, bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs, hot chocolate, clementine oranges, and moms famous Cinnamon rolls with extra icing. Then we opened up more presents from the relatives. We brought over our Wii and hooked it up to the upstairs TV so the kids could try out the new games they got. Morgan and Taylor straightened Payton and Kennedy's hair a week ago and loved it so they had them do it again today and Taylor even straightened my hair. I know I can count on one hand how many times I have straightened my hair because I had to have my hair blow dried straight and that would make it kind of poofy and would take a while to do because I have pretty thick hair. So I was more curious than anything to see what I would look like.

Me with straight hair

Then it was time for the traditional bowling from 4-6 pm. My dad reserves half the lanes and invites our whole ward to come. I think we had a bigger turn out than last year.

Payton

Kennedy

Talmage

Brenton

Hayden, by the way he did great he didn't even need my help the whole time and his ball never got stuck half way down the lane due to a slow roll. He really had some power rolls.

The kids eating their traditional Christmas dinner of cheese pizza and fries.

The rest of us go back to mom and dad's house for left overs. Then we played a game and called it a night. We didn't make it a late one about 9 pm we headed for our house to put the kids to bed at a somewhat decent hour.

Christmas Eve

Every Christmas Eve, we spend it with Jon's side of the family. This year the festive started at 11:00 am with a brunch at Thomas and Melanie's house. We had 2 different kinds of quiche, Sticky buns, Scrambled eggs, fruit salad, potatoes, OJ, and a variety of fancy hot chocolate. Everything was yummy. Then it was on to the presents. The kids opened gifts from the relatives and took off to play with their new gifts.

All the cousins minus Cory and Elizabeth

Hayden and Elizabeth fighting over the Doctors kit

Talmage with his new basketball and hoop to hang over his bed

As I mentioned in a previous post, I only made two gifts this year and they were for Thomas and Melanie and Ma and Pa Hansen. I made (with the help of Jon) tile board pictures of the temple they were sealed in. I got the idea from my sister Cheri who did this at one of there Super Saturdays last year.

close up of the Washington DC temple for the Hansen's

same picture just zoomed out a bit

Boise Temple close up sorry about the flash for Thomas and Melanie

I ordered the pictures from the church distribution center. The pictures I like best of these temples were in bigger sizes than I had originally wanted to do. I wanted to do a 11 x 14 but the temple pictures in that size just weren't cutting it for me. So I went with the bigger sizes and Jon made the frame. It was fun to do and took some time but I would love to do this again. The in laws loved them too and said they looked very professional.

We left around 3 pm because Thomas and Melanie still had to do a little more Christmas shopping before the stores closed.

Since we got done at that time, we joined my family minus the Edward's to Christmas Eve dinner. I brought one of my new favorite vegetable side dishes Squash casserole. The kids had fun playing and the adults had fun playing games. Payton wanted us to start a new tradition to get pjs on Christmas Eve. My mom used to do that with us girls and I just never did I think because we always spent Christmas Eve with the Hansen's so I felt they already got to open presents. So all the kids minus Connor and Hayden (he has a ton of pjs already) got new pjs to wear. It was kind of late when we all got to bed. Luckily everything was ready to be thrown under the tree. All that had to be done was the socks.

It's sad to think that next Christmas Eve will just be us and the Hansen's and no other cousins to hang out and play around with.

Gingerbread Houses

Morgan and Taylor invited the Trebilcock and Tady kids over to build and decorate gingerbread houses on Dec 23rd. We were going to go with the graham cracker houses but Christa found an awesome deal at Walmart for gingerbread kits for only $3.00 each. They came with the gingerbread already cut out to shape, frosting, and decorations. We also brought over some other small candy that has been laying around since Halloween. We had four kits one for the Tady kids, my kids, Morgan, and Taylor. Brenton was at a YM activity, Connor wouldn't care about decorating and when I did small graham cracker houses for preschool a few weeks ago Hayden lost interest real fast, I thought it would just be Payton, Kennedy, and Talmage decorating it. Payton and Kennedy wanted to help Taylor so it was just Talmage decorating it with my help. They all had a fun time. Talmage decorating the back of the house

Payton, Kennedy, Sonoma, and Taylor decorating the girls house

Talmage attempting to do the frosting

The finished product

Talmage so proud of his work

Hayden with mom

The secret to having straight sides and a non sagging roof is hot glue. Yes, I hot glued the sides together and the roof. I didn't and certainly the kids didn't have the patience to wait for it to get hard. It's not like they are going to be eating the whole entire thing anyway and if they want to eat a little gingerbread just stay away from the sides. It's gross after a few days anyway. gingerbread isn't all that great to begin with let alone stale gingerbread.

After we got done, we headed over to Steak N Shake for some lunch and to use our free meals card before the month was over. I think everyone else had the same idea. It was after 1 pm when we got to Steak N Shake and that place was crowded. I guess everyone was out doing Christmas shopping and didn't feel like going home to grab some lunch so they all headed there. When I went to pay for my meal, I gave them my 2 cards that take off $8.50 each so $17.00 total. It is usually a big pain in the neck to use these cards together because someone who came up with this promotion didn't plan on people using more than one card per check so it is a big long deal. They usually have to split up the check. Some how the lady and manager that was there were messing up and told me I didn't owe anything. Bonus a free meal for me and 5 kids Merry Christmas to me. The least I could do was leave a good tip even though our service was way slow. Next month is the last month of free food. It was fun but it will be nice to go to other places when going out to eat.

Christmas music

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is the music. I love Christmas music. It makes me so happy. I love the fact that the day after Thanksgiving all the way through Christmas Day one popular radio station only plays Christmas music. It bugged me last year that they didn't play many Christmas songs about Christ. I know I could count on 1 maybe 2 hands all the times I heard a Christmas song about Christ and I was in the car at least twice everyday to pick up and drop off Talmage to school and there was all the shopping and that is the only channel I would have it on because of the Christmas music. Anyway, I wasn't looking forward to that part again. Luckily, this year I was very surprised when I heard in one day more songs about Christ than all year last year. They played a good variety of Christmas songs. There are however 3 Christmas songs that I must turn the station because they just bug me. Here they are

1 Last Christmas
Sorry Jon I know you don't mind this one I guess I would like it more if I was a teenager in the 80's.

2 So this is Christmas
I really don't mind hearing this one or twice a year but that is enough for me.

3 Same Old Lang Syne
This song I don't care if I ever here it again as long as I live.

The day after Christmas I am sad to get in the car and hear everything back to normal. I miss it already and it has only been 3 weeks.

A Stress Free December???

This December I'm not sure why had been very relaxing and non stressful. Usually I am up to my eyeballs in things I have to get done. Not this year. I didn't have a worry in the world. The kids wanted to put up the Christmas decorations and tree the day after Thanksgiving. I like to start the first week in December but since the kids were willing to help we went for it. Jon started putting up the tree and most of the kids joined in and in no time the tree was up and with lights and all. We did save the decorations for Family Home Evening though. They also wanted to help put the decorations up around the house. My first thought was I know I am going to drag all these boxes up and they will help with 2 things and then leave the rest for me. I was wrong and they helped the whole time and didn't take long at all to put things up. Christa and I did our traditional goodie plates for our neighbors and visiting/home teaching families . We made assembled and delivered all of them the 2nd week of December. It was so nice having that done early in the month. I also decided to give $$ to all the kids room parents so they could buy gift cards for the teachers so they could go out and buy something they really want. This was the best thing I could have done since last year I made things and hated every minute of it mainly because it took way longer than I thought it would. I did make brownie bites and PB Hershey kiss bites for the bus drivers which wasn't very time consuming. I also went to Kennedy, Talmage, and Paytons holiday parties at school. By the time I found out when each of the kids parties were the list of things the room moms wanted people to bring in was all full so I volunteered to help out at the party. Which was nice for me not to have to make another trip to the store. So in Talmages class I was in charge of the decorating sugar cookie station.

Talmage class party

I was a little late to Kennedy's class since hers started 15 before Talmage's was over. But the kids were kind of on their own and would go to one station and do that craft and then when they were done head to another. So I helped her and basically followed her around.

Kennedy class party

Jon and Hayden went to Connor's school. They were having a lunch for all the special needs classes and their families. Payton's party was the next day so Hayden and I went to that. And one of the stations was cookies in a jar. That was very time consuming and messy. It was nice to just show up and help out wear they need me. I also did all of my Christmas shopping here and there and got 98% of the presents bought before the kids last day of school and they were all wrapped as well. Jon and I went out one last time the Monday before Christmas and then I wrapped them so the next few days I could have fun with my family and sit and do things with them without thinking of a million things I should be doing because I am so far behind. I also made 2 Christmas gifts this year. Not like I make a lot of my gifts mainly make things for the teachers and bus drivers. They turned out way awesome. I will have pictures of those later. I also saved a lot of time and headache by not putting together a Christmas letter this year. Even though I love getting Christmas letters because for some that is the only update I get on them for the whole year. I decided to do a picture card and tell everyone to go to my blog and check what we have been up to this year. Not much from last year. I think that is why I didn't want to do it because nothing has changed since last year. The kids still like the same things as last year, Jon and I are still doing the same thing as far a work, church, and home. I guess I could have just reprinted last years letter on new paper and changed the kids age and called it good. Another thing that we didn't have this year was the business Christmas party. Since money has been a bit tight this year for the business instead of a nice dinner and expensive auction Jon and his partner Mike took his employees to Dave and Buster's for lunch and game playing. Dave and Buster's is Chuck E. Cheese for adults. They all had a great time and the employees were very surprised since they weren't expecting anything this year. Even though as I type this it seams like I had a lot going on it was all spread out over a month. I am going to remember this and try and have a stress free December every year and not have to feel like I have to make everything and do lots of things.

Church Christmas Party

December 11th was our annual church Christmas party. The dinner part was pot luck. You were supposed to bring your favorite holiday dish. I brought squash casserole (Yummy) and a spiral ham. I brought the ham not because it is a favorite holiday dish but because I thought most people would be bringing side dishes and salads and wanted to make sure there was plenty of main dish for everyone. The High Priests were in charge of some appetizers and the Elders Quorum was in charge of pies for dessert. I made 6 chocolate silk pies just to make sure there was enough pies because I was kind of nervous because after all they put guys in charge of food so who knows if they will even tell their wives. Luckily, Jon is the Elders quorum president and sent out plenty of email reminders so their was enough pies for us to take home 2 of our chocolate silk pies. Good thing they are my favorite. Then after the eating the Primary sang one of the Primary Christmas songs while dressed up as one of the many things in the manger scene. My girls were angels and Talmage was a dog. I didn't get any pictures of them because their were so many kids on stage and they were lost in the crowd. Here are a few I took after in the Primary room.

Payton

Kennedy, Payton, Sonoma, and Talmage

Then they had different people in the ward either sing or play an instrument that had to do with Christmas. Then the big guy himself showed up and of course all the kids went running into line. And of course, all the older primary aged kids were cutting in line so these little kids who were patiently waiting had to wait way to long. I finally couldn't take in anymore and had to go on the stage and make sure none of the kids cut anymore. I have already suggested that next year they should call the kids up by age starting with the nursery and sunbeams and so forth. That way some parents with nursery kids wont have to stay until after 9:30 pm to get their picture taken with Santa.

Hayden to scared to see Santa

Payton

Kennedy

Take a look at the awesome fireplace Jon made. He had made fake fires numerous times in those portable fire pits for Cub Scouts and Elders Quorum and was asked to do one for this event but figured a fireplace setting would be way better than our 3 year old tarnished portable fire pit. It turned out way awesome.

Talmage

I personally like last year when they had the kids separated from the adults during dinner and then bringing us together at the end, but the youth who had to help watch the kids and serve the adults probably didn't care for that to much.