Christmas Day

Well, I didn't take as many pictures as I intended, but then again, I was distracted by all the hubbub. But here's a couple for you...

The little guy got up first so he we could give him some solo attention. Let's face it, in a minute, he's going to be completely overwhelmed.

Coming up the stairs...SANTA CAME!

Jordy's first horse!

Joshy loves his new pull along puppy.

Playing barbies with Grandma

OVERWHELMED!

No time for pictures, Mom!

Wrapping up the Eve

Okay, so the final Christmas Eve events (after church) consisted of opening brand new PJs, reading The Night Before Christmas, and setting out treats for Santa and the reindeer. Everyone is very excited for the morning!

PJs!

Story time!

Santa came at about 9pm. Ho Ho Ho!

All Dressed Up!

We didn't make it to church on Sunday morning because Jake came to our room in the middle of the night and threw up on us. But we finally were able to get dressed up for the Christmas Eve candlelight service. I made the mistake of not trying on our Christmas outfits until we were already late for church. The result? Jake's pants were too big and Joshy's shirt and vest came down to his knees. So I scrambled and found Joshy a black reindeer sweater and Jake a belt. So Josh was dressed all in black (oh and I forgot him some shoes) and Jake looked like a gangster. Jordy looked perfect in her little Christmas dress that Grandma Joyce bought her. She even liked to wear her hat! These pictures were taken after church because we were running late before church. That's why Jordan has cookie all over her face.

More Christmas Eve Fun!

After the cookies were properly decorated, we all headed outside to play in the snow that FINALLY came to Alaska. We only had a couple inches, but we made the most of it.

Christmas Eve!

This morning we began with the first event of the day...decorating cookies for Santa! We are going to leave them by the fireplace along with some carrots for the reindeer. After two huge gingerbread houses and a bunch of cookies, Jake finally figured out that the decorations were edible. At first he was piling them on the cookies but later he decorated sparingly because he actually thought I was going to let him eat all the leftovers. Dream on Beebs!

Gingerbread Mania

Jake has been begging me for a couple weeks to build his gingerbread house. We bought the kits at Costco a while ago but I wanted to wait until it was closer to Christmas to make them. So they've been sitting on the counter, taunting poor Jakey for days and days.

Today was the day! While Joshy was having a nap, the munchkins waited impatiently at the table as I scurried around and assembled the houses and went back and forth drawing on all the white frosting lines. The kids meticulously placed each little candy wherever they wanted. Jordan just started piling them on top of each other and it wasn't long before they started falling off. Jakey very carefully placed each piece and would periodically ask me to add a dab of frosting here or there so he could add his own artistic flair. Takes after his mommy.

Before...

During...

And After!


Jake's is on the left, Jordan's on the right. Didn't they do a beautiful job? And somehow I completely resisted directing their placement in any way. That's really hard for a control freak you know.

Hide and Seek

This morning we were playing hide and seek and this was Jordy's best hiding spot.

Prize Fighter

Just a cute picture of Joshy fresh out of his bath.

Oh Christmas Tree!

After much anticipation, we finally put up our Christmas tree this weekend. I let the kids decorate it themselves, and since they only decorated the bottom front portion, I had the joy of re-decorating it after they went to bed. Of course they didn't even realize what had happened. They woke up this morning still admiring their wonderful job.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Superhero!

My Jakey is a superhero.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation this evening.

"What's your superhero name?"

"I'm the Sweet Boy super hero."

"What do you do, Sweet Boy?"

"I take care of people cuz I'm sweet. And when an animal is mean, I SMACK em' down! And this is the face I make when I get the naughty animals..."

"And this is how I look when I take care of you..."

I think we can all rest a little easier knowing that the bad animals are getting the smack down.

Tiny Baby

You may recall a couple of posts ago, I had put up some pictures of my pregnant friend that I had taken. Now her baby girl is here and I got to take some pictures of her too! She was one week old when these were taken on Tuesday and some today.

Daddy's Hands

Perfect Pose

Parachute Fort

Do you remember back in elementary school PE when the teacher would bust out the big multi-colored parachute thing and everyone would gather around it and wave it and sit under it and it was gigantic and the most fun thing ever?

Well, my husband, the PE teacher, brought one home yesterday. He tucked the ends of it under random pieces of furniture and then turned on a box fan. This is what happened to my play room. It was actually bursting through every doorway. Keep in mind that the parachute itself is probably bigger than our entire house.

The older kids had such a blast in their new fort (mom's old quilt over the couch and footstool trick is going to forever seem lame after this). When we brought Joshy down the stairs and he saw this thing filling the doorway, he burst into hysterics and didn't stop crying until long after we took the thing down. It was a bit much to behold after a long nap I guess.

Officially snowing

It was a few weeks late but I think our first official, "it's snowing and it staying" day has come. We headed out in it as fast as we could after church this morning. We managed to make a snow man, blow the driveway and ride the snow machine, all before lunch time!