All Things Christmas

Our Christmas was a whirlwind as usual. Despite our efforts to try to keep things less busy we were still exhausted by the time it was all over.

This is the Friday before Christmas. Every year we get a magazine from World Vision where you can order farm animals, food, clean drinking water, or medicine for a needy families in Africa. One night, sometime before Christmas, the kids were acting like spoiled brats, so we got out the World Vision magazine to show them pictures of kids who don't have food, warm clothes, medicine when they're sick, etc, to help them appreciate all of the blessings they have in their lives. There was a picture of one little boy who was sick and didn't have medicine and Lydia asked me about him every night. "Why that little boy don't have medicine?" On Friday I was getting things ready to go to my mom and dad's and I found her on the couch looking at the picture of the sick little boy with no medicine. So, we stopped what we were doing, got on World Vision's website and ordered the little boy some medicine.

We spent the night at my parent's house Friday night and had our Christmas with them on Saturday. Kirby was taking video, but I really didn't even get the still camera out, too much going on I guess. This is the one picture I ended up getting, Kirby and Clae playing Clae's new guitar from Aunt Sissy and Uncle Brandon.

We went to my grandparent's Saturday night and then went to Christmas Eve service at our church. Lydia fell asleep while we were at church, but Clae was still going strong when we got home. A little before 11:00 Kirby and I were waiting for him to fall asleep so we could wrap the last of their presents, we thought he was sound asleep until he came riding his new scooter out to the living room! He did go to sleep shortly after that.
Our Christmas at home Sunday morning.

I told Clae to SMILE, he informed me, "this IS a smile!" Ok.

Lydia got this "rope" also known as a robe.

Before church Christmas morning. I don't know what I'm gonna have to do to get that kid to be NORMAL in pictures!

All the kids minus Lydia at Nanny and Papa's Sunday afternoon.

I don't know why she refused to join the other kids. She needs a girl cousin to play with! (or I guess a sister, yikes!)

I guess that's it. My picture taking was very random, there's just too much going on to try to be on top of taking pictures. The kids, once again, got SO many gifts this year. We try to keep it very simple at home, but the grandparents haven't quite gotten on board with us yet! We really try to use this time to teach our kids about having a spirit of gratitude and to be thankful for all that they are given. And of course to teach them about the Giver of all gifts, Jesus.

Happy New Year to all!

Christmas Photo Shoot

We had a family friend come to our house to take Christmas card pictures for our business and for each of our families. Most of the pictures I chose to put on here are because of Clae and the faces he's making. He's so cheesy and so funny!

As I was looking through the cards online, trying to choose one to send out, I was thinking to myself, these pictures are all so fake looking. Everyone's smiling and happy, looking like the perfect family. The kids get along all the time, the parents have never had a disagreement about anything, and their house is always spotless. Give me a break! Then I looked at the picture that I chose to put on our card to send out and realized it looks EXACTLY THE SAME, like we're trying to paint some perfect image of our family. So, next year I think I'm going to take our picture right when we get out of bed, with dirty laundry and dishes in the background and the kids hitting each other. Then people will know what it's REALLY like at our house. But for this year, when you receive our card, you can continue to think we're perfect, just for ONE more year! Ha!

Anyway....back to the pictures.

Cheeseball grin from Clae, and Lydia was pretty much mad the whole time. We did manage to get a few smiles out of her.
Clae winking and Lydia watching him. Her tiny face is priceless in this one too!
A different cheeseball smile.

He was getting restless at this point, doing anything he could to keep himself occupied. In this case hugging Daddy.
It looks like he's kissing Kirby in this one, but he's actually breathing on him. Clae HATES the feeling of being breathed on, so now it's kind of a joke in our family. If you want to try to annoy somone you breathe on them.
Looking like a total goofball in this one.
So, those are the many faces of Clae and the things he does to try to keep himself entertained!

Winter Fun

This Christmas season has been the most fun one since we've had kids, by far. I always looked forward to the holiday season when the kids were little but once it got here is was more exhausting than fun. I would always try to do the usual decorating, baking, etc, while trying to keep up with my regular routine, usually on too little sleep and with two little kids who really didn't care about ANY of it. Then we would try to go to 87 different Christmas gatherings, the kids would go to bed late and get no naps. Two over stimulated and exhausted kids does not make for a festive time!

This year (so far) it has been MUCH better. First of all the kids understand this year what Christmas is and are looking forward to it. They actually remember making cookies last year and asked to make them again AND helped me make/frost/decorate them which makes it so much more fun for all of us. And, surprisingly, Clae is the one who is more in to all of it than Lydia. He is right there helping me with every step in the process. Lydia just makes a mess and licks sugar off of anything she can find! It's probably an age thing.

Just the three of us made cookies one day.


This picture does not do justice to how incredibly MESSY miss Lydia was. I had to give her a bath when we were done.

Playing in the snow with Daddy. We've had just the right amount of snow, enough to have fun in, but not too much that it's a pain to try to get out and go anywhere.

He was loading the gator with snow then dumping it.

My mom, sister and I have a baking day every year, we ended up doing it this past Saturday. Clae was the big helper of the day.

Lydia, not helping, just being cute!

Sissy and I with our Mint Mocha Frappos. Yum! We usually end up kind of overdoing it on our baking day, we were both about ready to throw up by the end of the day.

We ended up making monster cookies, peanut butter balls and almond bark pretzels. I had some other things planned but I was just getting over being sick, I had thrown my back out the day before, and the kids end up not taking naps, sooooo, that meant being realistic about what I could get done and it's wasn't nearly as much as usual. But we had fun and that's the main goal.

Friday I finished up all of my Christmas shopping except for a two things I have to get. We got our Christmas card picture taken last night, need to get cards sent out then I will be able to relax and enjoy the rest of the Christmas season...all two weeks of it!

Decorating the Tree

This has been my dream ever since we had kids, decorating the tree together. We didn't really do it together, I just set the balls out and let them have at it, they loved it.

As you will see in the last picture ALL of the ornaments ended up in one cluster and I haven't had the heart to rearrange them yet. I'm sure my anal tendancies will take over soon and I will put them on the "right" way but for now it puts a smile on my face every time I look at it.

They have several of their own ornaments that people have given them over the years. Next year I hope to get them their own tree and they can put all of their special ornaments on it. I know if I let them have their own ornaments this year they will just want to take them off all the time and play with them, so we'll just wait until they're a little bit older to do that.



The "cluster"

Weeds

My children are growing like...WEEDS! It's like I can literally almost watch them growing. They go to bed and their clothes fit and they wake up and they don't fit anymore. (A little bit of an exaggeration but not much).

My little mama's boy is getting so much more independent everyday. On one hand it's a relief, but on the other it's kind of sad. I realized the other day he isn't going to be my baby for much longer. He's almost FOUR, that doesn't even seem possible. Pretty soon he's not even going to want me at all. AND his hair is starting to get darker, I've always thought he would end up with dark hair like his dad but I'm just not ready for it to happen quite yet. The thought of not having a blonde baby boy almost makes me want to cry.

I'm not as concerned about Lydia growing up, girls tend to stick a little closer to there mommies. But she is growing up so fast too. She has a bit of an attitude which I'm told is fairly typical for a girl. Kirby thinks it's because she gets told how wonderful she is all the time! Maybe so, but I just can't look at that face without telling her how beautiful she is multiple times a day, forgive me!

So, this is all just hitting me all of a sudden, and I'm a little sad that my babies aren't babies anymore. I guess maybe that means it's time for another!?

House

Our house is...DONE! Well...for the most part, there are still a few little things Kirby needs to do and I have TONS of organizing to do, but we are 99% complete.

We moved the laundry down to the basement and now we will used the laundry room as an office. I did not take a picture of the office because it is still a DISASTER, it's where most of the mess has accumulated and where I have to do most of the organizing.

The staircase is the biggest change, we have had no railing the entire time we've lived here which was a major safety hazard especially with little kids. We are thankful that no one ever got hurt over the years.
This has always been a straight drop off, so we never really went upstairs at all, but we really didn't have a reason to since it wasn't finished anyway.

The mantle is finished, ready for stockings to be hung in a few short weeks!

The ceiling used to be a "natural" color but we painted it white.

The loft, an area that NEVER got used before because it wasn't finished. Now it's the toy/play room. Eventually we will get some funiture and it will also be a TV room. And it's the only room in the house with carpet. We have wood or tile in the rest of the house and it is much easier to keep clean, but it's nice to have one area with carpet, it's so much cozier.

I was going take a picture sometime when all of the toys were picked up, then I realized that would be never, so I went ahead and took a picture of it in it's natural state. (the daycare kids also nap up here)

So, this is it! Feel free to stop by anytime to see it. (Kirby is allowing me to have visitors now!)

Trick or Treat 2011

These are the best pictures I could come up with because as usual Lydia wanted nothing to do with her costume, so it was a little tricky to get a good picture of her or one of them together.

Lydia was an Owl and Clae was obviously a cowboy. He was supposed to be a UPS man but he refused to wear that costume, so he came up with his costume almost all by himself.

We thought he was watching out the door for trick or treaters but then we figured out that he was really checking out his reflection in the window!

The only picture I managed to get of her with her hood up

Consoling his sister because it's just SO rough having to dress up in a costume!

Hot Air Balloon

(Sorry the spacing is all messed up, I tried to fix it but it didn't work)

We got Nanny a hot air balloon ride for her birthday!

All of us watching it being aired up

Nanny said the fire was so close she was afraid all of the hairspray in her hair was going to catch on fire!


say "bye bye"

Clae, Lydia and Abraham all cried because they thought Nanny and Papa weren't coming back! We went to Kelly and Tiffany's and we watched them all the way from Fairfield until they landed near Stockport. I think it was a pretty fun experience for them.