Christmas Eve

We are so ready for Christmas this year. The house is clean. The presents are bought, wrapped and ready to be ripped open. Today is a day for us to have fun together.

Rich spent all morning baking. Yes, our roles are reversed in our home. He LOVES to bake the goodies every year, and he does an excellent job.

After the cooking extravaganza we hooked up our trailer and did a Christmas Eve sleigh ride with friends from our neighborhood. Next year we will have to have hot choclate and Christmas music.

When our sleigh ride came to an end, we quickly got ready and headed over to our friends house, the Blauers. We ate dinner with them and the kids played games. Karin is a good cook, and everything was delicious!! The kids couldn't hardly stand the wait for Christmas, so after dinner we headed home and had dessert with our other friends the Nazloos. The kids made reindeer food and spread it all over the yard, so the reindeers could find their way to our house of course. When everyone was gone and the kids in their jammies. Rich read the Christmas story. By this time the kids were done! They just wanted to get to their beds and lay awake thinking of ways to capture Santa Clause.

Today was wonderful, being with our little family and our friends. Those are the best things to have for Christmas.

P.S. Unfortunately my camera decided to crash today. During the hay ride to be exact. The worst day on earth to lose your camera, so I don't have too many pictures.

Visit to Santa

Carson has been begging me to go see Santa. So finally the night before Christmas Eve, we were out running errands and it was about 8:30, I decided hey why not swing by the mall and see Santa. The kids were a mess, Brookie didn't even have her socks on but it was late so I figured tonight would be the best time to go. There couldn't be any line and tomorrow would be a mob scene.

That is exactly how it was. We were in and out. We only waited in line for about 15 mins. Carson told him all about what a good boy he was, Nathan was interested in his reindeer, and Rylee didn't believe he was the "real" Santa. Brooklyn wasn't even terrified, she didn't mind at all. I am so glad we went tonight!

A new tradition

Ah, this is probably the funnest thing that we have done yet. This year we decided that the kids are old enough to start getting the "bigger" picture of Christmas and what it is all about. So, we gathered up all of our change had the kids count it out, and each one of them got $5 dollars.
We proceeded to tell them that it is much better to give than to receive, so each of them needed to get every member of their family a gift. Yes, the cat counts too. We also told them that they would not be getting anything from the store, and they were only to buy for others.
Rylee was so excited to get everyone something. She carefully browsed over the store to make sure that each member of her family got the perfect gift. She also was very sneaky, she really wanted her gifts to be a surprise.
Nathan definitely had a challenge. He saw many, many items that he wanted and had to have right now. Rich explained it time and time again. He also picked out some nice things, but wanted to tell everyone right away what it was.
Carson was the quickest shopper of them all. He decided that everyone wanted a can of silly string. He loaded up 5 cans of silly string into his basket and was done. Very good thinking Carson. However, we tried to explain to him that we needed to also get people "thoughtful" gifts. Something that the would use and enjoy. His realized that we were right. Brooklyn really didn't have a need for any silly string and neither did the cat.
That was the funnest trip that I have ever had to the dollar store. We will be making this a tradition every year!

But, Dad, I want what I want right now......

One can never have too much silly string.

Gingerbread House visit

The kids are finally out of school. Rich has work off until the new year. So we got together with some friends and went to the Ballantyne Resort, a very fancy hotel and looked at their gingerbread house display.

I have never seen such a display. Those were the best houses that I have every seen! The boys' favorite was the gingerbread dragon, and Rylee and mine was the pink castle one of course. All of the children had such a hard time keeping their hands off of the houses. Especially my little Curious Carson.

After looking at the displays, we went back to Janis' for cookie decorating extravaganza and pizza!

Boys Christmas Program

Every year the preschool presents a Christmas program, they always do a really great job. The boys were singing in the car, practicing all day. But for some strange reason, when it was go time, I didn't hear any singing. Any other parents have this problem??

Thank guys for the goodies afterwards. Brooklyn will just be napping through it.

I am the greatest little singer

Family Photo Shoot

When Brooklyn was born, we had her newborn pictures taken. I was foolish enough to think that we could also get a family photo at the same time. WRONG! My kids were horrible and we couldn't get everyone to smile. Our photographer was kind enough to re-shoot the family. Here our some of our favorites.

To have a look at all of our pictures that were taken go to http://www.harttohartdigital.myphotoalbum.com/ and go down to James family Photo session. Lindsay is the best!! Check out her biz, at have her take your pictures http://www.harttohartdigital.com/.

Christmas Darling

I am so glad that I had another girl! They are so fun to dress-up. I couldn't resist this cute little dress for her first Christmas.

Elf on the shelf

This year we started a new tradition. We invited "Gordo" our new elf into our home to watch the kids. Santa sent him from the North Pole. He watches the kids all day and at night he goes back to Santa and tells him how the kids did that day. The next morning he is in a new spot. Sometimes he moves several times a day. Sometimes it takes the kids several days to find him. It hasn't improved their behavior, but it sure has been fun. The mysterious ways of Christmas and it's magic is what the kids will remember!