December 2009

We had a lovely Christmas break. It's always so exciting and cozy to open up the Christmas tubs and get all of our Christmas stuff out every year! The kids loved playing with the Christmas hats...they especially loved putting them on their adorable baby brother and exclaiming at his utter cuteness! :)

We had some very special visitors stop by in December! Dave's Great Uncle and Aunt were in town and were nice enough to share a few hours with us! :)

We managed to make a few homemade gifts this year (not as many as I had hoped, though.) Above is a picture of the soap that Sebastian made for his cousin (we do a cousin gift exchange every year.) They smelled soooooooooo good!

The kids re-discovered this year the fact that Dave juggles a bit. We thought it would be fun to make him some stuff to juggle! The kids made the balloon (with beans inside) juggling balls, and I quickly sewed the bean bag juggling bags.

One day I let the girls all take turns taking random pictures with the camera. The above is one that Fiona took. We have LOTS of random pictures of obscure household views and items now. :)

We set up the Christmas tree down in the family room this year. Our living room is just a bit too full of stuff to find a place that totally did not block a window (I am not a fan of blocking windows...I need light!) and the fire place is in the family room, so it seemed like the perfect choice. We set it all up one Sunday morning before church with a fire going and Christmas music in the background....very fun and cozy! The baby gate worked well to keep Brighton out of the tree and later the presents (as well as the keep the chewy dog out!)

This year, we gave all the kids new pajamas and slippers on Christmas Eve. (see above picture of them on Christmas morning.) I think we may do it every year...they were all so adorable in their new jammies!

Christmas Eve night ended up being a looooong night...I can't remember why exactly, but there were LOTS of kids waking up LOTS of times...by morning time (which started at about 5am, with us finally getting out of bed about 6am) I was in a bit of a grumpy mood. How sad is that, to have a grumpy mom on Christmas morning!?! I can blame it on pregnancy hormones, right? :) This is why we don't have any pictures of present opening and such. It was a fun Christmas morning once the joy of the children and the occasion melted my grumpiness a bit...very cozy with the fire going and the kids all so excited! The big present this year was a Wii and Wii fit. Dave played the Wii with them Christmas day and I REALLY enjoyed hearing all the giggles and how much fun they were all having!

I grew up with the tradition of having a big breakfast/brunch on Christmas and have carried that tradition on in my own family. After all the present excitement had died down and we had cleaned up some of the mess, I got to cooking. We had waffles, eggs, turkey bacon, little smokies, toast and orange juice. YUM!