Christmas Past

There have been a couple of Christmas stories that should be written down. These stories are Brandon's stories and he's given me permission to post them on here.

The first story happened our first Christmas together. My birthday is almost exactly one month before Christmas and Brandon had given me a levi jacket that I just loved and that I still have. Then Christmas rolled around and I opened up all of my gifts from my wonderful husband to find that once again he had given me the same jacket. He had completely forgotten that he'd already given it to me and I had worn it quite a bit in that month in between:)

The second story happened during the next Christmas. Logan was just about 3 weeks old and my sister's and my mom have a huge tradition of going on black friday and shopping our little hearts out. Brandon and I had made our list of stuff we wanted and planned on me going. That night like most newborns do, Logan stayed up all night crying. Thankfully Brandon decided to go in my place. He had no idea what he'd gotten himself into. He was miserable. He HATES to shop. My mom and sister's dragged him around and were thankful for his help to lift the heavy stuff. Finally they ended up at Old Navy and Brandon decided to stand outside and wait instead of inside the store. He leaned up against the building and put his head back and closed his eyes. A few minutes later a guy came up to him and gave him a dollar and walked away thinking he was homeless.

These stories may only be funny to me and Brandon but I wanted them written down.

Christmas Eve and Christmas

What a fun Christmas we had this year. Brandon and I were both horribly home sick the beginning of this week. We recovered around Christmas eve time, although we still missed our family. We just got really busy into doing our little family stuff and having fun.

Christmas eve we made a turkey dinner with all the yummy stuff that goes with it. After dinner we frosted the sugar cookies for Santa and Logan and Porter drew pictures for him. Then they opened up a present from Brandon and I which was the traditional jammies. I decided this year to make pajama pants for the kids and they loved them and I had a lot of fun making them.

Here are our clean cute kids with their new jammies on. Porter woke up at 1 am asking me if we could go open presents. Then he woke up again at 6 am from coughing so hard he'd thrown up. We officially got up at 8:30. The kids opened their stockings while I got breakfast casserole in the oven and cinnamon rolls out of the fridge to rise. We then opened up our presents.

This was a picture we tried to take before opening up jammies. Just a classic picture of how my kids are in pictures, not an easy thing to get them all to sit still and smile:)
(This is Porter's picture for Santa)

(This is Logan's picture for Santa, and Santa didn't leave it lying around this year for him to find. Unlike last year when I left it out and he found it, bad experience.)

Christmas Morning

It was all Porter could take to have to sit and watch his sister bang on her presents and not try to open them. He would wait about .5 seconds and then go and rip it open for her. Olivia loved the paper and the cabbage patch kids that she got.

Logan's highlight of Christmas this year was, Lego's, playmobil set, and the wii.

Porter's favorite thing he got for Christmas was, car socks from his sister and Legos.

We hope that every one had a great Christmas and has a happy new year!

Tonights advent activity...

Family Picnic Night

I let the boys plan out our picnic dinner tonight and this is what they came up with. Lunchables, granola bars, cheetos, apples, soda, and for dessert Logan's gingerbread house he made at school.

It was a lot of fun and the boys loved it.

Olivia wasn't too fond of being stuck in her Bumbo and kept trying to wiggle out of it. She had fun nawing on an apple and if you want to be Olivia's best friend give her a cheeto.

Afterwards we went and looked at Christmas lights. There is this crazy decked out house that Brandon found. It was pretty.... amazing I guess. They had a full angel choir that was singing and everything had lights on it. Crazy! But fun to see!

Ugly Sweater Party Numero Uno

We threw our first Ugly Sweater Christmas Party this year. It was a lot of fun. We had 3 babysitters and had people bring their kids and had a kid party downstairs while the adults partied upstairs. Some people didn't want to get into the Ugliness of the party and wore normal cute clothes. But ugly or not it was still a lot of fun.

(Josh and Billie Vest and family)

Josh went to DMU with Brandon and works with him now. It was fun having them here, we don't get to see them enough.

(Craig and Aubree Hunter)

Craig was the winner of the UGLY SWEATER party. It was as Mary said, "like a quiet book for church." The objects on the front were interchangeable and kept more than one baby entertained.

(Aaon and Cheryl Elliott)

They brought a great white elephant present a XL barium enema, very funny.

After the party I realized that Brandon and I didn't get a full body shot picture. It was painful enough to get Brandon into this garb once that there was no way he'd do it again for just a picture.

(Don and Katie Kilpatrick)

We love having Katie and Don around and putting up with us even with the conversation turns to residency drama.

(Dan and Amanda Arrhenius)

They got a much sought after white elephant present Red Vine Licorice. But were nice enough to share with everyone:)

We played Catch Phrase that I had put together using words from Elf, A Christmas Story, and Christmas Vacation. It was a lot of fun. There were some great white elephant presents one of the "cool" gifts was some fake poop. When it was opened no one knew if it was real or fake. Our boys had so much fun playing with and hiding it from each other. They hid it so well that we don't know where it is. They can't remember where they put it. It was a great night with great friends that we hope to continue every year. And some day we'll have a house big enough to invite everyone we know:)

Highlight of a ward Christmas party :)

As always our ward had an incredible Christmas party. People decorated booths from places all over the world and had some incredibly delicious food. Brandon was in heaven. It was like we travelled on a real airplane and went through a real airport. Really it was amazing. One of the highlights for me is the simplest part of it, when the primary kids sing. So here's my kids singing. (Porter is obviously on the front row and Logan is standing behind the tall blonde kid who's in the front.)

The innocence of kids

Our dinner conversation went like this last night.
Logan: Mom do you know what I did today at recess??
Mom: What???
Logan: (giggling with pride) I chased ALL the girls at recess. I wanted to catch one so they would marry me!
Porter: I chased the girls in my class too!
Logan: Dad do you chase the girls at the hospital???
Mom: He better not!

Who says the media doesn't influence our kids?? :)

My little schmoozer

When I went to drop Porter off at school yesterday, his teacher came up to me and said, "You should have seen Porter in class yesterday. He was just staring at McKenzie during rug time, taking deep breaths and had goo-goo eyes. Finally he said, "Isn't mckenzie just beautiful?"
Oh, he's going to be a heart breaker that boy of mine.

Just a few pictures ;)

First off, Olivia's "Snaggle tooth." She has 3 teeth right now and is working on her 4th.

This one is for Grandma Bishop. She gave Olivia this shirt when she was born, and it finally fits. I love the face in this one. Oh she's fun!

Porter has found a love for the heat vent. It got really cold here in a short amount of time, and when the heat kicks on, it feels so good. Just ask Porter. He'll jump out of bed and lay on it if he's awake. Funny boy!

Olivia is learning a lot every day. She learned to wave bye-bye. She loves to clap for herself. She's trying to say "Hi." She'll make a high-pitched noise after I say it and then clap for herself. It's pretty funny.

Last week we went to Royal Oak's tree lighting ceremony. They had free hot dogs and hot chocolate, so of course we were there:) It wasn't as spectacular as I'd hoped it would be, but it was fun to get out with the family.

Olivia fell fast asleep during the excitement of Santa's arrival. She looks just like a sweet little angel.

If you can't tell by their faces, Logan and Porter thoroughly enjoyed their hot chocolate.

Olivia had been trying to get in here for a few days and finally was able to make it in. She was so proud of herself. It's the perfect place to play hide and seek in, her favorite game.

I know a lot of pictures of Olivia, but right now she's the one who's changing so much. This picture just shows her "true love" for her coat (heavy sarcasm)!

Even though we're freezing here in Michigan, we're trying our best to enjoy this time of year. Hope you are too.

Porter's Future Career

Could be in photography. He is constantly grabbing the camera and taking pictures of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. Here are a few that I thought were worth sharing.

Even while talking on the phone he's taking pictures. So if he's not responding to your questions this could be why:)

This Lego toy had about 10 pictures of it from all different angles. He is such a funny kid. We just love him.

"I need to blog..."

I've said this probably every night for the last week. Unfortunately my computer died, and I don't think I can recover anything from it. I should have listened to that little voice in my head that said, back up your pictures and files. Two plus years of pictures are gone and so are all of my scrapbook files that I spent so much time downloading and using. I now share Brandon's computer with him and it's not going so well. We don't share well with each other:) We seem to both need a computer at the same time. So let this be a lesson for those of you reading this. Save your files somewhere other than your computer. It's very frustrating to loose them! And then you might have to share a computer with your spouse:)
Onto happier things. Our family started a new tradition of doing an activity advent calendar. Every night we have done something Christmassy. I'm glad we started it this year because Logan may realize the truth about Santa quicker than I would like. He pays attention to commercials and asks questions like, "does Santa really give presents or is it just the parents?" or "Why is that Santa different from the other one we saw?" He's too observant.
I love this time of year! Broken computer or not:)

Pancakes with Santa

Tonight we went and were able to eat Pancakes with Santa for Porter's school. It was a free event and as adults going to this it was clear. But to my kids it was the best night of their lives. We walked in and Porter immediately walked up to the couch and plopped down next to Santa and just started chatting. After a few minutes he said, "umm, I was transformers." Got up and went and played.
Obviously Olivia didn't say she wanted anything, but I'm sure the wrapping paper and boxes will be the highlight for her. She didn't cry when she saw Santa so that was good.

Logan for some reason was really shy to go up to Santa. (Yes he does have a little tiny shy bone in him that randomly appears.) Finally after he ate the pancakes he decided he could go up to him. He went and at first just sat there and didn't say anything. Then he said he wanted Train Geo Trax and Legos, grabbed his candy cane and ran.

I love this holiday season and the excitement and joy I'm able to see in my kids.