White Christmas

Christmas has come and gone, and a whole lot of snow came with it! Every time we shoveled out, we turned around, and it was snowing again! Despite all the snow and wind, we had a wonderful Christmas and hope that all of you did as well. I was glad we didn't have to travel anywhere and could just enjoy the snow from our warm home. We woke up this morning with another 8 inches or so! Crazy weather after such a mild fall! It took Paul and Justin about 3 hours to dig us out as well as his sister and our neighbor who is ill. They were beat, but the other boys had some fun!

My sister Denise and I braving the snow and cold just long enough to take some pictures.

Denise and the boys

Eric wanted to "help" shovel, but he had more fun making snowballs and throwing them at nothing in particular.

"My snowball's bigger than your snowball." And this is when I turned and ran inside!

Now that I have enjoyed a nice white Christmas, I am looking forward to an early spring!

Christmas Eve Traditions

"The children are nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar plums dance in their heads...." or something like that! As I sit here waiting for them to fall asleep so that Santa can come, I thought I would update the blog with some family traditions we have for Christmas Eve. We started the day off by baking sugar cookies. It just isn't Christmas without our decorated sugar cookies! I hate making them, but I love eating them!

After cleaning up and having some lunch, we headed off for another family favorite on Christmas Eve--the movies. Today we saw Madagascar 2. It was really a fun movie. This tradition started when I was very young. We were so obnoxious and roudy on Christmas Eve that my mom sent my sister and brothers to a movie to give us something to do for 2 hours and get us out of her hair for 2 hours of peace and quiet! As we grew up (I think we became less obnoxious), and it turned into a whole family tradition. Now we do it with our kids. We usually pick up some pizzas on the way home for dinner, finish up any last minute wrapping, and watch some Christmas specials. The boys then get to open one gift (always the same every year)--new pj's that I make from the dollar flannel at walmart! Easy to do, and it's a fun tradition. My grandma used to make us elaborate nightgowns when we were young. Good thing I only have boys! I'm only good with straight seems and simple patterns!

The night ends with magic Christmas cocoa (works like a charm to help the little ones sleep--and no, it's not spiked!) and their magic Christmas pillow cases sewn by Aunt Susan, guaranteed to help them fall asleep and sleep all night!

What are some of your favorite family traditions?

Here's wishing you all a very merry Christmas, from our family to yours!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Finally! For a while there, I was sure we wouldn't get any snow for Christmas (and I was secretly a little happy!). Not that I don't like snow on Christmas. I just think it should fall on the night before Christmas Eve, stay beautiful and white through Christmas Day, and then make a hasty retreat the morning of the 26th, not to be seen again until the next Dec. 23rd. What can I say...even after almost 20 years of living in Utah, I am still a California girl at heart! I hate winter, and I especially hate the snow unless all I have to do is sit in my recliner in front of the fireplace watching it fall quietly outside while drinking a nice cup of hot chocolate and watching a great movie or reading a book. If I have to actually go outside in it, forget it. And don't get me started on the gray, dirty, ugly piles of it that never go away by the time January rolls around! Oh well....I seem to have digressed from the intended topic! I'm still a little behind on my blogging, so here we go.

Once we wisked the kids away from Grandma and Grandpa's on Thanksgiving without getting any leftovers for dinner :( we started to think Christmas. I love the Christmas trees and all of the lights and music that go with the holidays, so we usually try to get them up soon after Thanksgiving. We worked on it that very weekend this year. It was nice to have the boys old enough now to assemble the whole tree with decorations downstairs while also giving a little help with the one upstairs. I always enjoy putting all the decorations up....it's taking them down that is not so fun. Maybe that is why people leave their Christmas lights up until June, sometimes. I guess I can relate to that, and I might even stop secretly mocking them. Who knows. Maybe that will be one of my new year's resolutions. Hope you have all had fun decorating for the holidays! It's always a lot of work, but I love having a whole month to enjoy them!

Happy Turkey Day!

Hello again. So, it's been a looooong time since I've posted! I have no good excuse other than I have been busy. You know, the usual post-vacation blues, trying to readjust to reality, Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping and decorating...blah, blah, blah. Again, no good excuse! Since this is a post about Thanksgiving (albeit, belated), I'd like to say thanks to all of my dear friends who secretly wanted to write me hate comments telling me to update my blog--or else.....thanks so much for only thinking it, and not really doing it, even though we all know you wanted to!

For Thanksgiving this year, we headed down to Paul's Mom and Dad's home for the extended family potluck at the church. It actually turned out better than I thought it would (I've never been a big fan of family gatherings at the church). The food was all yummy--and I didn't have to cook it all! There were lots of fun relatives there, good games, and a lot of really good pies! Here's a few of the family pictures from the event.

Paul had a lot of work to get done later that night, and I had a sale at Michael's to get to, so we headed out pretty early after putting the church back in order. We had eaten at noon at the church, and it wasn't until we were on the road and all the kids wanted to know what we were having for dinner that we realized our mistake...we had left before taking advantage of leftovers for dinner!!! That is one of my favorite parts of the day!! And we hadn't even stolen any of the leftovers to take home with us. I'm still feeling deprived of my proper Thanksgiving experience. I guess this is one of the drawbacks of not cooking it all myself at home! There's always next year.