Ornaments 2010

One of my favorite traditions every year is to get my boys each a new ornament for the family Christmas tree. This year Caleb helped me pick them out on Etsy.com. They arrived today and are so cute and even personalized. They wasted no time putting them on the tree which now feels complete. What are some of your favorite traditions with your family Christmas tree?

Easy Baker

Now that we are back home with Caleb, we have been testing out all the toys that we didn't have time for Christmas morning. The Easy Bake was first up today. We made some brownies. Santa scored big time with this dino apron and hat set, he's just adorable in it and loves it.

And like any good baker, the real fun is in licking the spoon while waiting for the goodies to get done.

We have spent time playing with the airplane and building a lincoln log fort as well. So much fun enjoying the Christmas goodies.

The babies stayed in Price with Papa for a couple more days so he could help us out and watch them on Tuesday when Caleb gets his tonsils out. Their toys are happily awaiting their return for all the fun they will have with them.

Another Christmas Come and Gone

Well we've had another great Christmas this year. Christmas Eve was spent cleaning and baking cookies and getting ready for the big guys arrival. We had a nice dinner together and all got in our jammies to hang out. Here are the boys new Christmas jammies this year.

Dad and the kids had a little dance party by the Christmas tree before bed time.

Once the kids were all hunkered down for the night, Santa came and left them some loot. Here is the twins pile. They got 2 cozy coupes (a fireman car and a police car), a fireman and policeman build a bears, a little people carnival and little people airplane.

And here's Caleb's pile. He got A huge Jumbo Jet plane, a toy guitar, an easy bake oven with a dino apron and chefs hat, a T rex mountain, some lincoln logs, a helicopter, a hockey outfit for lightening and a book with his Moose in it.

Zaric got Mom and Dad up at 5 am. We had to play with him for well over an hour and contain him in our room. Mom finally ended up waking up Zaden and Caleb around 6:30 to start the festivities since Zaric was getting pretty stir crazy. They loved their Santa gifts and Caleb was pretty excited about the tech decks and fishing snowman in his stocking.

He says his favorite 2 gifts are his new airplane and his guitar. He even had to bring his guitar to Price with him later that day. Here are him and Zaden making up a tune.

The boys ran straight for the cars when we got them downstairs and knew just what to do. They played and played with them for quite a while. It was pretty clear that Santa had brought them the perfect gifts.

I love this picture of Zaric helping Zaden with the car door.

After we played for an hour or more we finally went up to the tree and opened some gifts. The boys gave Dad some more Mario stuff.

Zaric and Zaden mostly cared about the ribbons. They opened only a few then headed back downstairs to play in the cars some more. We had to open their presents with them in shifts.

Then Mom cooked a big breakfast, complete with pancakes that had Christmas designs in them. Thanks to my friend Cinda for the fun pan.

After breakfast and the boys taking a nap, we left around noon for Price and Papa's house. The boys had more fun there. Singing songs and playing with gifts. Here's a picture of Zaden singing while Zaric fished with Uncle Dave's new ice fishing pole from Papa.

And Zaden singing with Uncle Dave.

Zaric had a ball with this box. Climbing in and out and threw a fit when Grandma got ready to take it outside to the trash, so of course he won and it stayed inside.

The best thing I could ever find in a box right here!

Mom and Dad were spoiled too. I got some books, some CD's, some jammies, a necklace a new Cowboys blanket, Christmas mula and lots of Christmas baking stuff. Dad got a new Wii game and some books, a new season of Futurama, some Christmas mula of his own. I know there are lots more wonderful gifts we got but can't name them all. So thanks everyone. We again love everything!

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas as well.

Christmas Wishes

Just wanted to take a minute and thank everyone for all the Christmas Card wishes this year. I don't think my holder has ever been so full and there's still more to come! Thanks everyone and have a very Merry Christmas!

Caleb Carol's

As promised, the video from Caleb's Christmas program at school. He totally rocks out during the instrumental break in the 2nd song (about 2 minutes in). Cracks me up every time. Enjoy!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

I'm Feelin It

I hate to admit it, but this year I have been having a really hard time getting into the mood for Christmas. I kept telling people that I just wasn't feeling it. Seemed like it should still only be Halloween. Where did this year go? Even putting up the decorations and Black Friday shopping didn't help. I was beginning to get a little worried. Well that is until this weekend hit.
Friday night we got to hang out with our good Friends Garrett, Laurel and Madeleine. It's been a very long time since we've been able to do that. We had some dinner here and then headed out to the zoo for Zoo Lights. It was so very cold, but we bundled up the kids and had a good time. Even bundled up and layered, we were all Popsicles by the time we were done so we headed back to the house for some hot cocoa and a little chit chat. It was a fun night, thanks guys!
Saturday we debated back and forth about going to the Festival of Trees. This is something we have enjoyed in the past but just didn't know if we were up for it this year. We finally settled on going and boy am I glad we did. As soon as we walked through the doors, I was so happy we had decided to go. We walked around for about 2 hours (I think that's a record) then as we headed out the doors it began to snow.
We battled the short snow storms for the rest of the afternoon as we spent about 5 more hours running errands and doing some more Christmas shopping. We took care of a few more gifts and headed home. After dinner I gathered up the gifts for people that we had lingering around the house and had a gift wrapping party (by myself). It felt good to get that done as well.
Today was spent at home all day armed with the Cricut and crafting and making a few gifts. I would love to share but can't until after Christmas....sorry.
So I am happy to say after a jammed packed weekend of Christmas fun, about an inch of snow and wrapping paper messes, I am Finally Feelin it! Hooray! Can't wait to finish up the last of the gifts and get them sent and delivered this year. Christmas comes in just 19 days! Enjoy the pics from Zoo Lights and the Festival of Trees.

Dear Santa: a letter from Caleb

Dear Santa,

I have two questions for you. Why do you live in the North Pole? And why do you have deer and elves?

This year for Christmas I would like:
A new big toy airplane
My own Nintendo DS
A NY Giants Helmet
A toy guitar
Easy Bake Oven
Rubiks Cube
Radio for my room
Plastic football goal posts
Kids magazine for me to read

Since my babies can't talk I am going to tell you what they want too. I think they would like:
2 little footballs
Cars that they can drive
Toy cell phones
Their own toy airplane

Three more questions. How can all those toys fly in just one bag? Are there any stores in the North Pole? How does the sleigh lift the heavy bag of toys up?

I have been a good boy this year and just turned 6. I like to go to Kindergarten, I think it's a good grade. My teacher's name is Miss Brasher.When I grow up, I want to be a pilot and a football player. We will make some cookies and milk for you for when you come this year.

Thank you Santa. I love you,
Caleb

Christmas Spiders

Caleb and I made a dozen of these little guys last night as a Christmas craft. Ok well I did most of it since it was working with hot glue. But Caleb put the heads on about 3 of them and the legs on 1, so I am counting it as something we did together. I still need to clean them up a bit from the excess glue and put on some ribbon to hang them with. He wants to give them to his teachers and then I thought we could walk around Dad's work next week with them and hand them out to some people there. Caleb thought they were awesome and took one to his room to keep for his own.



He lined them all up as I was making them and called it a spider parade. I thought it was funny so I took a pic.

Here's the official story...or at least what I found on the web.

THE LEGEND OF THE CHRISTMAS SPIDER(A folk legend from Germany and the Ukraine)

Once upon a time, long ago, a gentle mother was busily cleaning the house for the most wonderful day of the year.... The day on which the Christ child came to bless the house. Not a speck of dust was left. Even the spiders had been banished from their cozy corner in the ceiling to avoid the housewife's busy cleaning. They finally fled to the farthest corner of the attic.
T'was the Christmas eve at last! The tree was decorated and waiting for the children to see it. But the poor spiders were frantic, for they could not see the tree, nor be present for the Christ child's visit. But the oldest and wisest spider suggested that perhaps they could peep through the crack in the door to see him. Silently they crept out of their attic, down the stairs, and across the floor to wait in the crack in the threshold. Suddenly, the door opened a wee bit and quickly the spiders scurried into the room. They must see the tree closely, since their eyes weren't accustomed to the brightness of the room... so the crept all over the tree, up and down, over every branch and twig and saw every one of the pretty things. At last they satisfied themselves completely of the Christmas tree beauty.
But alas!! Everywhere they went they had left their webs, and when the little Christ child came to bless the house he was dismayed. He loved the little spiders, for they were God's creatures too, but he knew the mother, who had trimmed the tree for the little children, wouldn't feel the same, so He touched the webs and they all turned to sparkling, shimmering, silver and gold!
Ever since that time, we have hung tinsel on our christmas trees, and according to the legend, it has been a custom to include a spider among the decorations on the tree.

My Version

For those of you that read my cousin Mindy's blog, "It's a Long Story", these pictures will seem like dejavu for you. She made her own board book for our Aunt Norma and posted it to her blog a couple of weeks ago. I had to have those pics so she was nice enough to share them with me and I got to work on making one for my mom as well. She doesn't read the blog unless I specifically ask her to go over to my sister's and do it, so I thought it would be safe to post. I want to say the year was right around 1958 or 59 judging by how old my mom looks. So here's what I came up with. You'll probably have to click on the pics to get a bigger view to see any detail.


Just a shot of the cover.

This is my Grandpa, Vernon. I don't remember much about him, just stories from people. This year he got a gun.

This is my grandma, Nova Jean, I do remember her since I was a little older when she passed. I remember the goodie boxes she always made us full of gifts for Christmas and that we got to open them on Christmas Eve. I also remember that she always got her kids a poinsettia plant for Christmas every year so when I saw these embellishments, I had to have them. This year she got some new dishes and a new purse. Looks like some new shoes too.

This is Aunt Norma. She got some Elvis records, a new radio and clothes this year.

This is my Aunt Roz (Mindy's mom) She got a new dress.

This is my Uncle Kenny. I don't remember him since he tragically passed away in an accident when I was very young. He got some army men and a truck to go with them.

And here's my Mom, Lynette, she got a baby doll with a stroller and a purse.

And the baby, my Uncle Roy. He got a football and some pull toys.

This was a fun project and was a great way to use up some of my old scrapbooking stuff. Thanks again Mindy for sharing the pics. Now here's the dilemma: Do I give it to her this weekend when I see her again and let her enjoy it the next few weeks? Or do I save it for Christmas Eve when we get together to exchange our other gifts? What do you think?

Advent Calendars from Bakeware

This year has been one for homemade advent calendars. This is one that we made over Thanksgiving weekend in Price. It's made from a mini muffin pan and you just cut out circles and squares from magnetic sheets and get to decorating. It was very fun to make. Then you can fill the holes with little treats then open it up every day until Christmas Eve. We just printed the numbers in different fonts in Word and then used up scrapbooking supplies for the rest. I still need to add a ribbon to hang it with and find a place to hang it, but you get the picture.

My sister made me this one for my birthday present. It's made from a cookie sheet and then she took felt to make the snowman out of and the front of him is a pocket. She turned these trinkets into magnets and wrote the numbers on them. So every day you can take down the correct number and slip it into the front of the snowman in the pocket until you get to Christmas.

Both if these are very cute ideas that make you say, "why didn't I think of that?" I may be doing more of them as gifts in future years. But for this year we'll just be counting down with both of our calendars and the snowman countdown on the mantle. Only 24 days to go!

A Homemade Weekend

This weekend was spent primarily at home. I thought it was going to be pretty boring but it turned out pretty productive. I was able to finish up my last couple of homemade gifts, Caleb made gifts for his teachers and old babysitter, I wrapped a bunch of gifts, I made myself a Christmas tile, I started making my Christmas cards (until I ran out of the cardstock color I needed), we got the Christmas tree up, the Thanksgiving stuff down and while I sit here with homemade bread cooking in the breadmaker Mike and Caleb are outside getting a small start on those lights. Here's a bunch of pictures to share of some of these activities.

I get the boyz each one new ornament every year. These are the kid's this year. I got them out to let them put them on the tree while we were putting it up. Caleb loves his because it's wearing blue like the NY Giants (his favorite team). I found them at the craft fair in Omaha and couldn't pass them up. Plus they personalized them for free.

Zaden helping dad test out the tree lights. If they taste good does that mean they work?

Not to be out-done, Zaric helps as well.

And Caleb has to join in the light testing fun

Caleb helping decorate the tree. He had a spot right there where everything went. Mom and Dad helped spread out those ones later since there were about 15 ornaments grouped on about 4 branches.

The final tree for this year. Pretty much the same as most years but I always take a pic anyway. Mike insisted on a 9 foot tree about 5 years ago and although I always complain about him needing such a big one, once it's up and decorated I fall in love with it every year.

This year we got out Mom's stamp collection and Caleb stamped stationary for his teachers and old babysitter. Since they don't read the blog I figured it was ok to post a few. He stamped them then I threw some ribbon on to embellish a little.

We grouped some together and made them each a little stack with envelopes then tied them together. I think it turned out to be a cute little gift.

And finally the tile I made for myself. It was kinda a "make as you go" design and I wasn't sure I liked it at first but the more I look at it the more I do. I like that it's simple and kinda peaceful itself, just like it says.

A great weekend and can't wait for turkey day in just a few days........Caleb is counting down the days until he gets to go to Papa's.

P.S. Papa: Caleb told me today that you are shooting your own turkey and then cutting off the head to cook it for us. So you better have a good story about it by the time we get there on Wed. :)