Christmas 2007

Christmas 2007 was such a wonderful one for our family! Christmas Eve Day found me in the kitchen from 8:30 till dinnertime! For the first time EVER I was making Christmas Eve dinner and I didn't want to miss a thing! We had Honeybaked Ham, twice-baked potatoes, cranberry stuffing, creamed corn, salad, and orange rolls. And let's not forget dessert...mint-brownies, sugar cookies, molasses cookies, and caramels! Too bad Spencer caught the Christmas flu that day and ended up tasting everything twice. Yucko. The Hazens came over for dessert and to deliver Matt's Santa gift-a new ping-pong table. Lucky boy. He must have been really good this year. The kids passed out fairly early (see previous post) and actually stayed asleep till 8:00! I kind of like this "kids growing up" thing. The kids all got spoiled rotten (as did their mother...see photo-don't hate me because I'm beautiful!) After presents, brunch, and a nap...we headed to the movie theater to enjoy TWO movies. What a magical, wonderful day!

The Children Were Nestled All Snug In Their Beds...

Christmas Eve Matt makes sure Santa has the all-clear by checking on the kids to see if they're asleep...and he always takes a picture. Too Cute! Is there anything more precious than sleeping children?

A Gardner Family Christmas

For the first time EVER, my family is not getting together on Christmas Eve. Since Amanda and Anthony are spending the holiday at their Utah house, we decided to celebrate early this year. We had a wonderful "Early Christmas Eve", complete with yummy food (thanks Mom), gorgeous decorations, our annual nativity pageant with the cousins, and of course, lots of laughter. Good times. Annual Sister Picture

Cute Cousins (minus Hailey who is too cool and Henry who was too tired)

Mom getting Frelly ready

What a wiseman!

Me and Baby Jesus...I mean Hank!

Mary and Joseph

A wiseman with a cool babysitting gig

Proud Papas

My family members who are way too cool to smile for a picture

My handsome boys

Sitting at the "big" table!

Sammy and Grace

Me and Baby Hank (I LOVE this boy)

"Two Kids A Pukin'....."

Nothing says Christmas like being woken up repeatedly in the middle of the night to clean throw-up off carpet, bedding, and two very sick kiddos. Poor Sammy and Jake are sooooo sick...and of course, I "caught" their lovely form of Christmas cheer too! So, instead of doing fun Christmas stuff we spent the day moaning and groaning together on the couch. At least we "bonded". Hey, I'd rather do it making cookies, but whatever!

"Oh, What A Good Mom Am I!"

So, I'm rather proud of myself that amidst all the chaos of shopping, wrapping, cooking, and still trying to work I was able to carve out time for one of my favorite Christmas traditions. Christmas jammies! My kids love opening up their new jammies every Christmas Eve. This year I made cute white w/green polka dots for the girls and green and white stripes for the boys. I'm sure I'll post Christmas pictures later w/the kids wearing them so you can all be impressed with my amazing talent. Rachel made very cute ones for her kids too. By the way...do we look like tired Christmas mommies or what! Yesterday I actually pulled a twenty hour day! Oh, 'tis the season. I think I'm FINALLY done with the shopping and can get to the fun parts of Christmas-cooking with my kids, driving around and looking at the lights, reading Christmas stories. All the things I hope will make good memories for my kids. I don't just want them to remember me as "stressed out and tired mom" every Christmas.

Winter Wonderland

I love Christmas traditions...and so do my kids. Every year it's, "Mom, when are we going to...?" One of their favorite traditions is putting up our Christmas Village. When Matt's mom passed away 13 years ago, we were all given a piece or two of her Department 56 Christmas Snow Village. Our lone schoolhouse (2nd from right) stood proudly on display each Christmas. Four years ago I decided to honor Shirley's Christmas Tradition more completely and add to the collection. I found some awesome pieces on Ebay and learned the joys of online bidding. As you can see, I got a little carried away and have forbidden myself from "ebaying" ever again! Spencer, in particular, loves this Christmas tradition and is the best helper. He removes all the houses from their boxes and reminds me exactly where everything goes and has named all the houses. He even made me promise this year that I would pass the houses along when I die. Hailey got really upset at him and said, "I don't even want to THINK about that!!!" Which of course to the mother of a teenage daughter is wonderful to hear!

I Love Girls' Night!

I love a good excuse for a "girls' night"! And what better excuse than birthdays and Christmas. We celebrated Nicole's and Karyn's birthdays and the magic of the season! We figured we spend so much time running around at Christmas doing things for everyone else, so we needed to do something fun for ourselves! We got our "women's conference" group together and had a blast celebrating at P.F.Changs and listening to Christmas music on the drive. While I was looking around at all my beautiful friends I had a funny thought that our group offers whatever any man could want in a woman-tall, short, skinny, curvy, blonde, redhead, brunette, sassy, shy (I take that back...I don't think any of us qualify as shy!) The highlight was the cute waiter trying to pick us up at the end of the meal. I think he was just trying to make some old ladies feel good! MERRY CHRISTMAS to my wonderful friends!!!

B..Y..U..COUGARS!!!

Saturday Night Matt took the boy's to the BYU/San Diego Football Game that was rescheduled because of those pesky fires about a month ago. They enjoyed the evening with Papa, cousins, and friends. Jake was a little sad about missing the Ward Party, but his love for football *particularly his love for his football jersey* won out!