Christmas

We had Christmas here 3 days in a row and had a great time!  It was a bit nutty by the end, but we had fun :) 
 
Christmas Eve we celebrated with Uncle Andy, Aunt Emily, Grandma Dorothy and Papa Mike (Mat, Marbree, and cousin P were not able to come in town, but we did get to Skype with them while we opened gifts). We had a delicious meal and yummy goodies, the boys got to play outside a bit, we played Wii for awhile, and of course opened gifts :)  The boys got puzzles and books and craft stuff...hard to know/remember what all they got, since it was such a flurry of paper! 

Skyping with cousin P :) 

The boys with new pjs and one of their furry "cousins", Hallie (Andy and Emily's dog). 

Christmas morning Mike and Dorothy were over, and we opened stocking gifts before we headed off to church (our church had no Christmas Eve service, only Christmas morning).  We got home and opened up the rest of the gifts and had 2 delicious breakfast casseroles.  Z's big gift from us was a scooter that makes sparks, and the little boys big gifts were My First Leappads...one was a hand-me-down from Z, but no one knew ;)  The boys also got puzzles (and more puzzles!), games, books, craft stuff, sleeping bags, nerf guns, flash cards (the littles love them)...we already have so much stuff it was hard to need more.  We played the rest of the afternoon (while I tried not to freak out about all of the stuff ALL OVER the house). 

I made the boys a memory game with pictures of themselves.  They love games, they love cards, they love pictures of themselves.  You can't go wrong ;)

ARRRRR!!!! Merry Christmas, mateys! (A dollar spot buy leftover from Halloween!)

We made the boys haul all the presents in from under the tree in the living room out to the family room where there was more room. 

 Z was pretty pumped about the scooter. 

 What a mess! 

Monday we went to celebrate with Papa Dan, Grandma Dena, Aunt Maggie, and Aunt Emily (Jenny, Greg, and cousin A weren't able to come in town).  More delicious food, more awesome gifts, more playing with new stuff.  Papa Dan got "the boys" 2 marshmallow shooter guns...but I think he enjoyed them more than they did!  We also got a few more amazing handmade puzzles from Aunt Maggie...she is so gifted! 

Tuesday morning Mike and Dorothy took all the boys for 36 hours (merry Christmas to us!).  We dug our house back out, organized the basement, got a few picture projects done, and got our calendars finished and ordered.  And ate out every meal ;)  Notice the theme with eating?  Will be starting a diet again in the next week! 

We had a wonderful holiday and are beyond blessed! 

Nativity Sets

Aunt Maggie is a skilled woodworker, and we have often been the recipient of her labors.  This week she brought over nativity sets for the boys.  Each little boys has the same one (in their own color).  They are a bit difficult (even for me to figure out!) but the kids love them.  She made Z a really cool one that we will be able to use every year in the future.  It is a nativity scene, but it also has 25 pieces, so it can also be used as an advent calendar.  Again, it is a hard puzzle, so I think that I will probably have to number the puzzle for future use as an advent calendar.  Again, I couldn't get the last picture to flip...sorry. 

Christmas cookies

I got a great idea to bake cookies this year.  I know this sounds nuts, but one reason I was "sad" to not have girls is because I wanted to always have someone to bake cookies with.  (If you know Papa Dan, though, he proves that you DON'T have to be a girl to make awesome cookies!!!).  At any rate, I decided to bake with the boys.  Crazy woman.  We (I) made 5 kinds of cookies:  sugar, peanut blossoms, peanut brittle, Andes mint, and chocolate covered Oreos.  It took us the better part of a weekend to make them and (mostly) clean up the mess we made.  We took them all to neighbors, which was fun.  I let the boys help measure and unwrap kisses, and they decorated and stirred and rolled in sugar.  The boys enjoyed themselves, and I did when I wasn't panicking about someone dumping an entire container of sprinkles on a single cookie ;)

Letters

Today the chain said we were going to make Christmas cards.  I fully expected the boys to make cards or draw pictures for Grandma and Papa, or maybe some friends.  Instead, Z wanted to write a letter to Santa. 

We don't do Santa.  We have had numerous conversations this year about the fact that Santa isn't real.  We have told Z that some other kids think that Santa is real, so if anyone starts talking about Santa, to just kind of say "ok" if something comes up, or to try to get out of the conversation (no need for him to ruin it!).  We saw a Santa at Target, getting our tree, on TV...clearly, the man is all over.  But Z knows he is pretend. 

And yet, he wanted to write a letter to Santa.  I didn't push it, and he just put it under the tree.  Pretty cute. 

Here it is: 

Pretty impressive, I think.  That was written with NO HELP at all.  (Although he started the letter on plain construction paper and wrote totally uphill.  I tried to help him by drawing lines and showing him how to write straight and got "NO MOM!!! You're messing up everything!!!"  A few minutes later, though, Nate went in and suggested it..."Ok Dad.  Great idea!"  Ugh...)

But we didn't help at all with content, spelling, or handwriting.  I did ask him to date it, though.  Proud of my big boy. 

Christmas Tree

We debated just getting a fake tree this year.  It makes so much more sense in so many ways.  In fact, Dorothy brought one up for Andy and Emily over Tday, but they ended up not wanting it, so we have her old fake tree. 

But I couldn't do it.  We always cut down a tree with Dad growing up, and with Mom we always got a real one from a lot.  (Both Dad and Mom (when she was alive) moved on to fake ones once we were all gone). 

Last year the kids were sick and we had to go to a tree lot, but every other year since we have had kids we have cut down our own tree.  We went to a lot that we went to while I was pregnant with the boys.  We loved the tree we got and stayed beautiful the entire month.  So we chose Heritage Valley Tree Farms again.

It was a beautiful day, and the boys did great.  We got a huge tree...it didn't look nearly as big in the field as it does in the house!    

Wow, look at all the help Daddy got cutting down the tree :) 

We had a fun morning, and for the first time in 11 Christmases I had a willing and able helper to help me decorate the tree!!!!! We got home and put the little boys down (actually we all took about an hour nap), then Z helped me get the lights on. He was so excited to surprise his brothers.  He did a pretty good job hanging up the ornaments too.  What fun it was to have help! 

Here he tried to spell out Merry Christmas...and did pretty good until the the M...then he saw all the leftover letters and just kind of put them all up there at the end :) 

This is the very special red spider.  It was ours growing up, and Mom's growing up.  And I won it in the split of Mom's ornaments :) 

How can you go wrong wearing Santa hats?  The little boys spent about a minute out with the ornaments before I kicked them out because there were too many hands pulling out my pretties!  In a few years, though, they will be awesome, like Z was this year. 

M&M Trees

Today we made M&M Christmas trees.  It was a waffle cone (note to self:  next time get waffle cones that are flat on top, not curvy...) covered with icing.  The kids squirted in food coloring and I iced up the cones and gave them M&M's.  The boys did great.  While they all ate the M&M's and licked the icing, N spent the majority of his time licking off the icing and eating the M&M's...notice how few are actually on his tree, and how messy his face is ;) 

We ate them after lunch and after dinner (we made them before 9 am, as soon as they were all dressed and all their chores were done...they were pretty excited about it).  This was a fun one...one to repeat in the future!