Christmas Breakfast

In my family we have a christmas breakfast so after opening our presents we made the 40 minute treck out to my parents. We did a little nativity and William did not want to participate which is probably better since he is very particular about how it should go and I don't think the kids would ablidge.

Both the girls got to be the angel and Mary

Check out my nephew. He is only 7 months old and as big as my 17 month old!Here he is sleeping on his big sister Look at those lipsHere is his daddy opeining his gift from Mark and Ashley - a headstone for his baby that was lost about 16 years ago.
And he gave Mark and Ashley the rest of the money he earned for them in his Taco Bell. The total came to $1000.00. Can you believe that?

Here is my nephew going through and wearing his present from us. Dress up cloths. NOBODY like to dress up more than this kid. I also made his a CTR shield to go on a cape my mom had made. He had told his mom he wanted one. The other side is superman like Williams. I also put a scrapbook I made for him many years ago in a new binder because the one it was in was broken and I made a scrapbook with no pictures in it for his little brother. Now they can add whatever pictures they want.

William and Gracie got a shopping cart from my mom and dad and they will love it once we can take it back to the store because it only came with 2 wheels instead of 4.

Russ got a new sweater for church and I got a crop-a-dile! I have been wanting one of those for awhile. It was a beautiful morning. Also because I got to see a video I was in for the first time. To see more go here.

Should have won

My friend Mimi and my sister, along with others I know, love a series of books called The Mortal Instruments. When my sister started reading the books she almost stopped because the main Character, Clary, unknowingly kisses her brother. Others convinced her that he couldn't really be her brother and they are all waiting for book three to come out in March so they can find out.

Well the author of the book came out with a contest and the winner gets an ARC (advanced readers copy) of the last book. Connie had the genius idea to use the song "I Kissed a Girl" but change the lyrics to "I Kissed my Brother" and make a music video. The main girl Clary has red curly hair so you can guess who played that part.

Mimi came over for a few hours the two days before christmas and took photos of me and recorded me singing the "new song" and then stayed up all sorts of hours editing to send it in on Christmas. This is the first stop motion film she has ever done and I think it is soooo amazing.

Just so everyone is clear this is stop motion made only from pictures - there is NO video.

The song is funny - the video is funny. Enjoy.


We won second place:( But the author liked it so much she requested more ARCs from her publisher and got them, soooo we get one! Now I have to finish the first two books, I already started the first one.
I love watching this video and am excited for our next project.

Waking them up

Christmas morning we had a breakfast to go to at my parents and we wanted to open presents at our house first so we had to wake the kids up and Russ' parents came over to watch.

You can see the blanket lines on Gracie's face
I wanted a picture of them before they saw the presents, but Gracie just wanted to be held.

Here is William crawling in to see his gifts.

Opening his gift from Santa.

And he got what he wanted - Superman Jammies with a Superman cape But the cape on the back of the Jammies was weak so he also got a handmade one from me (made by Gma H) Here he is, as he puts it, filling up his cape. Basically making sure it flies behind him.

Here is Gracie inspecting her box from Santa. She was not interested in opening presents, but she was interested in them once they were out of the package.

Santa brought her some pretty necklaces.Then William opened the cake mommy made him... ...that came complete with a rotating cake stand that lights up and sings Happy Birthday. They both love it, and I knew they would.For Russ I finally finished the t-shirt quilt I started making him when we first got married. He also gets to buy himself a new GPS watch for running.
Gracie also got a shiny purple ball

and a little baby she can carry around anywhere.

Here she is trying to play with the cake and the ball at the same time.Then they opened the big present. The Kitchen! Apparently the fridge needed more than 2 coats of spray paint primer and 2 coats of spray paint. Arrggghh! Maybe we will repaint it, maybe we won't. But I did like my "wallpapering" job. Just scrapbook paper.I will have to take some better pics of this some time. Checking to make sure Santa got his cookies and milk.

Cooking up her pacifier.

Gracie's wooden elephant that was not hand made by me, but obviously hand made and purchased second hand.

Check out these cute Santa suckers from Gma and Gpa C.

Gracie and her sweet new slippers from Gma and Gpa C.

Santa only brings one present to each child and there are a few reasons for that:

1. I try my hardest not to get myself caught up in traditions that I won't be able to keep up if and when we have more kids or lets say something terrible happens like the economy fails.

2. I don't want all the credit for my hard work and thoughtfulness to go to some imaginary guy in a red suit. Besides William asked me flat out if Santa was real and I asked him what he thought and he said, "yes" so I said, "yes" and I feel guilty about it. If the subject comes up again he will probably know the truth.

3. With Christmas I think less is more. William asked for one thing from Santa and he got one thing and it made it simple and real(like). I don't like it when kids open a present, look at it, and then start looking for the next one to open. If they have a ton to open the don't even care about the ones they just opened. When William opened his gift from Santa he changed clothes and ran around for awhile before he came back for more and I love that.

The Eve of Christmas

We spent Christmas Eve at our home with some family members. My brother Clint and his family came. His wife's parents came. My sister Connie and brother Eric came and it was a lovely evening. We had soup and hot chocolate, did a small Nativity scene and went to the temple lights.

Here is Gracie not being able to resist the tree, as usual.

Here come Mary and Joseph on the donkey.

What a sweet little Mary she makes.

The wise man.Bringing gifts. and there is the Shepard - the best picture I could get of him.

The whole gang.First Mary was eyeing the goldThen she ran off with it.William was kinda having a hard time because he wanted to have Mary and he just sit and look at the baby with the baby in the manger. This is something Gracie was not able to do.Poor William was getting so frustrated and almost in tears when I realized why he was so upset and got the toy Mary to sit and look at Jesus with him (and removed Gracie from the room so she would not pick up the baby and take off with it.)After he sat like this for awhile he was ready to go to the temple lights (the others had already left) but he was not ready to take the costume off. So Joseph went to see the temple lights.

Looking at the manger scene and wishing he was in there.Then he had to come home and get in his jammies and when he did he heard something on the roof. We went outside and sure enough Santa (Russ) was on the roof! William loved it and after he went to bed the adult played a game called Apples to Apples and I wrapped presents. We have a video but it was so dark you can't see much but if you would like to see Russ as santa in years past you can go here.

We got everything wrapped and we were in bed before 2:00 am. I thought that was pretty good. Now all that is left opening it all! And other family festivities.