We wish you a Merry Christmas...

Someone had a "great" idea to take family pictures at our Christmas Eve party this year...no, don't take them the year that I'm at my goal weight, don't take them the year I have a decent hair cut, pick this year...thanks! Other than THAT - look at those cutie-patootie kiddos...and their cutie-patootie dad! ;)



In our 37 years as a family I think this might possibly be our only family picture...seriously! We were so happy that mom had her eyes open and dad finally looked at the right camera! My little sister Lindsay is to the far left, then dad, then me, then mom...



Brandon opening "the best gift ever" from my sister...tickets for both of us to see Brian Regan in February!!! Thanks Lins!



Our family gave my mom a Kodak Digital Picture Frame for Christmas. We spent the night before picking 80+ pictures to add to it...then we sat and watched it over and over. Apparently my kids can't get enough of this thing because Joseph sat with Auntie Joy and watched it again...



...and then Malorie and Melanie sat glued to it for the longest time...oblivious to the party going on around them!



Mom in all her glory. She loves hosting Christmas Eve at her home. She loves Christmas, period. Her decorations are always amazing, her baking is always amazing...(see picture #1)...she is just amazing.



Here's the whole gang...spread out over 3 different photos so everyone would fit!



Apparently I'm the only kill-joy who thinks that we don't fit in mom's house anymore...



Or maybe I'm the only one who will say it out loud!?



A quickie shot of mom's tree...



8 Hours Later...



Christmas morning at our house...



The kids started to stir around 4:30...



At 5:00am the phone rang (one of our traditions is for one of the kids to take a cell phone to bed with them and then call us when they wake up...so we don't miss anything exciting...)



We truly have had a magical Christmas this year!



Thanks for sharing with us!

Inside at our house today...

Sugar cookies and frosting - what a fun way to spend the morning. The girlies hung in there almost to the end. We had about five dozen cookies, so that's saying something! Joseph "helped" - he just kept having us frost the same cookie over and over and he'd eat the frosting off.

Here's your Martha Tip for the day - always frost cookies while wearing Princess dress up clothes - somehow it makes the cookies taste better.







Our finished product...



This was the "help" we got from Joseph! :)

"I think I can..."



"I did it..."



"Now quick, be cute so mom doesn't make me get down from the table..."

Outside at our house today...

It's probably just as well that Christmas Vacation started on Monday this week - I'm sure even if it hadn't, the district wouldn't have been able to get my kids to school as we've had snow every day this week! MUCH SNOW!

Today I sent a few of the kids out to the mailbox with some last minute cards and they never came back. When I looked outside, Melanie was sitting on top of a huge snowball - no gloves, no snow bibs. UGH! I called everyone in, did the "bundle up" routine and sent them back out! They had a blast! We sure love being out here in the woods this year - there is no way the kids would ever have had this much fun on our lot in town!

Jason and the boys started making huge snowballs to use as walls for their snow fort.





Not to be outdone - Maddie and Maggie went off to make their own snow ball - unfortunately, I think it's still over on the side of the house - it became to big and heavy to budge all the way back to the fort!



I had to take this picture upstairs from my bedroom window - Malorie and Melanie hung out with Maddie and Maggie, but stayed so close to the house this was the only shot I got of them!





I tried to take a picture of the snow -- but it was harder than it sounds! I just couldn't get it to focus! So here's a picture of the tree, really to show you the snow through the windows behind it!

Jacob's Pack Meeting

I'm not entirely sure why they had us brave the horrid roads last night for this Pack Meeting. I know that regardless of advancement, Packs are encouraged to hold these monthly meetings - but not one single boy, from any of the dens, received any awards this month. Oh they still had a blast playing the games - but the boring old, worried about driving in the snow mom in me didn't get it!

In this game the boys balanced pennies on a ruler and had to reach out and try to dump them into a giant jug.



And here, the boys were flipping pancakes that were "hard as rocks" and tied to a plate. I'm not entirely sure of the purpose of this activity, but the boys had fun doing it!



I didn't get any pictures of the Pinata *shudder* - I hate them with a passion. Something about blindfolding a kid and giving him a bat to swing around a room full of children who are anticipating the candy that will fall...I was too busy breathing into a brown paper bag to get any pictures of that activity!

Camera Surprises

Apparently while Brandon was out with the kids in the snow this weekend, he smuggled the camera outside for a while too. I found these on the camera's memory while uploading pictures of Jacob's pack meeting (which I'll add later).

There must have been over 50 pictures from Saturday! Brandon and I are totally different photographers. I'm the anticipator. I'll sit with the camera focused on one of the kids for several minutes, just knowing that "any second" they'll give me the perfect look. Brandon is more of a quick-click. He's more about being part of the fun and action than capturing it in a picture...guess we make a good pair. I'm not about to waddle myself outside for a snow fight with the kids this year - but I'd love nothing more than to catch it on "film". I enjoy being a watcher! Don't get me wrong, Brandon takes great pictures - we just have totally different styles and it's funny to me!

So, all of that to say this...here are the four "in focus" pictures from the ones taken on Saturday. The other 45 or so were blurs of Megan's purple coat possibly jumping, maybe falling off the deck. A blur of white, which was possibly Madilyn throwing an armful of snow, maybe being hit by one...etc etc.

It was just fun to see. There was no doubt - burry or not - that everyone had a blast with dad that day!!

Boys and trucks!

Joseph (20 months) has been glued to the window for the last half hour.



Randy the road guy showed up today to (hopefully) finish our drive way.



The ground is frozen solid, so when Randy is leveling close to the house we can feel the floor shaking - it's kind of cool - kind of creepy!

Catching Up

Boy we've been busy! It's hard to believe that two weeks from today it'll all be over! The gifts will have been wrapped and then ripped to shreds. All of the shopping will be a thing of the past (Yeah Amazon.com). Santa will have come and gone - ahhhhhh, it's sounding better and better as I type!

Madilyn had her band concert last night - the younger kids had a primary activity. Brandon and I had to divide and conquer, and this is what we ended up with....really jerky video of Madilyn's concert b/c Brandon had Joseph...and really "lacking detail" pictures of the others b/c I took them with my cell phone. We try!

Madilyn is the flute with dark hair, glasses and her bangs parted to the side.





The primary kids were divided in to groups - here are Malorie and Jacob in the cookie decorating group.






Megan, Melanie & Malorie making little gift boxes. They wrote down the different ways they show love to their friends and family and put it in the box...then at the end of the activity, all of the kids gave the gift to the baby Jesus in the Nativity.



Here's Jared making his gift box (end of the table NOT wearing a coat).



And we finally broke down and busted out the decorations this weekend. It's nice to have it done, but I sure hate doing it!

Christmas Concert

Jacob had his Christmas Concert last night. It was a short little program and he did a great job.



He was selected to be the "Secret Soloist" - the band director randomly picks a band member to play a solo during the concert and the kids have no idea who it's going to be until she picks during the concert.

All boy -

You know they're truly exhausted when they'll lay down on the floor, in the middle of the day, cover themselves with a blanket and go to sleep!



Joseph is a go-go-go kid! He keeps up with the big kids and holds his own! He'll play until the last dog is dead - but then he will snuggle up with his mommy! Maybe he's not ALL boy just yet!



He spent this morning with Aunt Kandi making trips to the yard barn with garbage. I picked him up just before lunch and he fell asleep before we got home - a 2 mile drive! :)

The weather has been just crazy here! Several inches of snow Saturday and Sunday - a good 36 solid hours of rain Sunday and Monday - and today while I was in town, the temp was 57! Man! It's crazy!

A small pregnancy update. I went in to town for my weekly progesterone injection today (ouch, and one more ouch). I got the results to our "old lady" testing and everything looks great - the odds for Down's was 1 in 20,000. Neural Tube Defect was 1 in 8,100 and the risk of Trisomy 18 was less than 1 in 100 (cutoff is 100, so that is the best score you can get). We really had no reason to think we were at risk for any of these - other than the fact that I'm getting up there, so these results are a huge relief!

24 Hours

Looking out our window today is like being in a totally different place than yesterday.

Yesterday and Saturday we had beautiful fluffy snow - today, holy cow! It has been raining for about 15 hours straight. It's crazy!

Here's a picture out the same door that I took the pictures of Brandon pulling the kids in the sled. Today they'd need a canoe!






Here's Maddie slopping her way to the bus!

Snow Play

After all the work of cutting, loading and delivering wood, dad made time for some snow play!






The snow today (Sunday) was amazing...this video doesn't really show how spectacular it really was!

The weekend!

Finally! A nice, quiet Saturday morning! There is no place we have to be, all day long! It feels like it's been MONTHS since we've had a weekend all to ourselves!

After breakfast this morning, Brandon and the kids bundled up and went outside. It hasn't snowed as much as our weatherman has threatened it would, but there is still enough to get good and cold in!

Brandon and the kids spent an hour or so chopping wood and loading it into the truck to take to his brother's house.






Look at all of these helpers!





Here's a shot of our stairway, just for grandma.



The view out the bedroom window at the foot of our bed...



And the view out the window at the side of the bed...(they look very similar, I know...LOL)



I love the view out this window - it's above our front door. I took this from upstairs.