Christmas

I can't believe Christmas came so quickly.  It seems like it comes faster and faster every year.  The kids woke up at their usual 6:15ish.  We made sure we were all together and then headed down the stairs to see if Santa had made it to our house.  The kids started with their stockings (which I don't have pictures of) and then were excited to hand out the presents they had gotten for each other under the tree.  

 I have really no pictures of actually opening presents, it was nice to just open and not be distracted with the camera.  Here is each of them with their stash at the end.  Addie was difficult this year, she didn't even know what she wanted.  She doesn't really play with toys.  All she wants to do is play school or house.  She got some fun art stuff; creative lettering and origami kits, she was excited that got stuff she hadn't thought of.  Demzi has been reminding me everyday that she wanted Monster High dolls for Christmas.  She was one happy girl when she got two from Santa and Addie got her one.

 Liam wanted Monster High dolls too.  He never got to play with the girls when they were playing.  Instead he got a super hero pack (him and Tad to share) with Hulk, Captain America, Wolverine, Iron Man (silver suit and blue suit) and Spiderman.

 Somehow Tad ended up carrying around all six.

 We woke up early enough that the kids were able to play for a few hours before we loaded up and went to visit Kris's parents.  The kids got even more fun stuff from Kris's parents.

 By the time the BINGO party rolled around I completely dropped the ball as far as picture taking goes. I was distracted helping kids play BINGO and then after that I just sat on the couch and relaxed.  It was fun to just hang out with everyone. The kids had tons of fun playing BINGO and getting their gifts.  It is such a fun tradition.  I finally thought to pull the camera out when we were wrapping up for the night when Tad was beating everyone up with his sword.

When my mom asked me what Tad would want for Christmas I told her that he would have tons of fun with a sword or light saber.  The one day the kids were playing something and next thing I knew Tad had taken a piece of my hamper, just a pvc pipe, and was pretending to fight with it.  Luckily my mom found these swords in a pack for pretty cheap.  It made his night.  He spent the whole night walking around beating up on people.  Good thing that it's made out of foam.

I am so grateful for the Christmas season where we are able to celebrate the birth of our Savior.  It is such a special time of year and I'm glad to have family so close to spend it with.

Snowman Snow

The snow kept coming that weekend and by Monday we had a nice, wet, snowman making, snow.  While I attempted to get Tad to take a nap Kris took the kids out and helped them make one.  Kris was telling me after that when it came time for eyes, nose, and mouth, Addie kept going inside and coming out with stuff.  He assumed that I was in here giving it to her, rather than her just raiding the fridge and pantry.  It's alright, she made some good choices, a carrot for a nose and nobody was upset about using the wasabi peas for eyes and mouth.

 After they finished their snowman Kris got the shovel and piled some snow up for the kids to slide down.  They were super excited about their snow slide in the backyard.

Playing in the Snow

My kids have been dying to play in the snow.  Finally the Saturday before Christmas we had enough snow to go out and play. 

Tad was really excited about going out with the big kids but wasn't so sure about it once he got out there.  I think it was just hard to walk and he wasn't sure he loved his gloves on.

 Once I took his gloves off so he could actually grab this little shovel he was much happier though.

 The first thing the kids asked to do when they got outside was to build a snowman but the snow was not good for packing.  They came in to get bowls and cups to make a miniature snowman but even that didn't work.  In the end though we got the tube out and let them sled off the side of the yard onto the trail by our house.

 One tube and five kids meant there was a bit of down time in between turns.  So there was a lot of snow eating going on.  I was really trying to convince them that it wasn't a good idea, seeing how you they had all walked all over it but every time I turned around someone was sticking another handful in their mouth.

 Tad just like to follow me around and throw the snow at me.  Better than eating it.  At this point he had realized he wanted to grab snow which was really not pleasant with no gloves so he let me put them back on.

 Finally it was time to put the tube away and wrap up our snow playing.  Tad had moved on to playing peek-a-boo with his hat.

 Addie and Zoe had decided to have a contest who could stick their face in the snow the longest.  Addie won by a long shot.

 I think that Zoe made it to ten seconds and Addie was at thirty.  The thing is Addie's face wasn't nearly as red when she came up making me think her glasses might have kept it from pushing right up to her face, I don't know though.

The kids were out playing for a good three hours.  It's funny because I've become such a wimp in the snow I really had to gear myself up but it was tons of fun.

Christmas Sing

I love the Christmas sing.  I was super excited that this year I had two of my kids in it.  Demzi and Addie have completely different personalities.  While I knew this before it was never more apparent then seeing their reaction to seeing me there. 

As luck would have it I somehow positioned myself so my seat was right in front of Demzi, I was about eight rows back.  She saw me, rolled her eyes and then just gave me this look.  After that she refused to sing.  I have video of her during "Jingle Bells" just giving me the stink eye, and at one point she ducks (she dropped her jingle bell).  After that song I stopped videoing so she actually sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Seriously, that girl! 

 Addie on the other hand continuously scans the crowd until she finds me.  Once she does she just lights up.  She was super excited for me to hear her songs,  unfortunately I only got video of the first song, during the second song I could only get the lady a few rows up from me, she was swaying back and forth with her child standing on her lap.  She sang, "This is the Song of Jingle Bells" and "It's a Marshmallow World."

Zoo Lights

This year we decided to take our kids to see the zoo lights.  I've never been before but looking up online it seemed like it would be tons of fun, I was just worried about the cold.  We bundled everyone up, Kris thought ahead and bought hand warmers that we stuffed in each of the kids' gloves, and headed on our way.

 The kids were having tons of fun looking at all the animals made of lights, then we made it to this cool tunnel.

 About this point decided he wanted to get out and walk by himself.  I told Kris as we finally made it through the tunnel, that is definitely the slower way to go but I couldn't get over how cute he was waddling down the path in all of his snow stuff.

By the time we were through the exhibits we were all ready to call it a night, the cold was finally getting to us.  We made one last stop to see one of Santa's reindeer, saw Santa from afar (not wanting to wait in the line) and called it a night.  My kids had tons of fun.  Liam even asked on the way home if we could go back to the zoo and look at the lights tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Kris

Kris's birthday was December 11th.  Unfortunately it was right in the middle of the normal work week so it wasn't much of a party for him.  He still had to work his normal hours but that gave me and the kids time to make a treat and wrap some presents so we were ready for him when he got home.

I attempted brownie bites (kind of like a cake ball).  Tad army crawled it across the table as soon as the candle was lit and blew it out, four times, before we reached the end of happy birthday.

 Kris was nice enough to keep relighting it for him and was able to sneak in and blow it out at the end.

Happy birthday to the best husband and dad ever!

Benson Party for Liam and Tad

Liam and Tad lucked out getting one more "party" to celebrate their birthdays.  It was very low key, just a few presents after family night and some cake and ice cream.  Tad was really getting into it at this point, he pretty much unwrapped his own presents at this point.

 Liam was super excited, he might think now that birthday actually means two weeks of parties.

 After presents it was time for cake.  This time I attempted a soccer ball, once again Tad was super excited.