Christmas Morning

Christmas was a wonderfully lazy day. I actually managed to get a nap which, in turn, got me out of making dinner! I awoke to the smells of yummy food and stayed in bed until I was pretty sure it was done :)

The kids were excited and crazy. Lots of toys and goodies around here!


Jordy was excited to see that Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk.


The kids opening their stockings.


The tree before the attack!

And GO!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we hung out at home for most of the day. We did make an excursion to go see Madagascar 2 at the local theater. We were the only ones there which worked out quite nicely when the kids got bored of the movie and started climbing the seats and running up and down the aisles. Later on in the evening we attended the candle light service at church. The kids looked so cute all dressed up in their fancy duds.


Jaycob and Jordan were old enough to sit in big church for the service. They did pretty well sitting quietly. They really enjoyed the lighting of the candles. I snuck pictures of them (without the flash) in an attempt to capture the moment without disrupting the service.

Jordan and Grandma


Jaycob and Dad.


After the service everyone was given a candy cane. We saved one for Joshy and gave it to him when we busted him out of nursery.

This is Jordan doing her best to ruin her Christmas dress.

We topped off the evening by putting out cookies and milk for Santa (and crackers for the reindeer because I forgot to buy carrots, DOH!) and then Daddy read Twas The Night Before Christmas. Off to bed to dream of sugar plums!

We Need Fresh Air.

How do you know if your children are suffering from an extreme case of Cabin Fever?


When they start pretending they are baskets.

What a Week.

It's been a rough one. Not only has Darrin been out of town with the basketball team in Florida (they got 2nd in their tournament by the way) but my car broke down the day after he left. That meant three rowdy kids and I were stranded at the house for a week and we couldn't even go outside to play because it never got warmer than 15 degrees.

Yesterday I realized we were running out of milk and diapers. I started to devise an elaborate scheme that involved girlfriends, borrowed cars and babysitters but Darrin interupted my plans by sending help in the form of some manly friends. There is a whole elaborate story regarding their help with starting my car but you have to click here to read it.

Also yesterday, the kids and I finally got around to decorating those darn gingerbread houses. It takes a really long time to assemble and ice one gingerbread house before the kids can start decorating it with candy. It would then obviously take twice as long to assemble and ice TWO of them. Needless to say, I was pretty over the whole thing by the time the kids even got started. But I did remember to snap a couple of pictures.

Later while the kids were sitting at the table waiting for their dinner Jordy was having a hard time resisting the "cookie house" sitting right in front of her.

"Can I eat it?"
"No, it's not for eating. It's just for looking at."
Then she leaned toward it, obvious strain on her face and her eyes wide, "Can I lick it? PLEASE?"


I'm loving how creatively precise Jake is these days.


Jordy, not so much. She's a very free spirit.


Jake about to sneeze.


Josh got to decorate Jordy's trees.

An Experiment

I'm trying to see how much accumulation I can stack on top of this table before it collapses.

Counting the Days

Nothing too terribly Christmasy to report today. It snowed ALL DAY. I went out to get the mail and it felt like I was wading all the way down the driveway. Darrin's new Sports Illustrated came today. He'll be pleased about that.

The kids finally earned the right to put up their playroom Christmas tree today. Somebody is borrowing my camera for the day though, so you'll have to wait to see it. Of course, they TRASHED the playroom five minutes after we got the tree up.

sigh

The picture below depicts why Jake is ecstatic for bedtime these days.

There is candy in there you know.

Crafty and Christmasy

Today started bright and early. I actually got us all out of the house before 10am. It was barely light out, 20 degrees and icy.

Errands were accomplished and we visited Darrin's PE class(es) for a while.

This afternoon the kids and I made glittery wreaths. They are kits that I picked up at the craft store for $1 a piece. Not a bad way to kill a half hour in the afternoon. Everyone was super pumped to hang their wreath on their own bedroom door. Everyone except Jake. He was concerned about the hole in the door made by the thumbtack. In fact, he won't stop worrying about it.


Jordy is an abstract artist.



Josh couldn't figure out which side was sticky. He decorated his shirt most of the time.



Jake is very meticulous. He kept changing his mind and resticking things until they barely stuck anymore.



A close up of Jordy showing us how it's done.



Doobie's masterpiece.



Jake's masterpiece. See the pattern? He's very into patterns right now.


Jordy's masterpiece.

Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas everybody!

Welcome to my official Christmas letter. For those of you who frequent my blog, this will probably be a little redundant, but for my first time or sporadic visitors, WELCOME!



2008 has passed by in a blur. Once again an entire year has passed without another baby. Whew!

Darrin is still teaching PE at Anchorage Christian and has his schedule full with work, coaching basketball and track as well as going to college. He has been working on getting his degree in business at Wayland Baptist. He goes to school at night and takes some online classes. It's a tough schedule, especially during the times of year when he's coaching, but we are determined to see it through. Darrin is preparing to take his basketball team to Orlando next week to play in a tournament and spend some quality time at Disney. These boys have been with Darrin since junior high and they all hold a special place in our hearts. They are like our sons. I think it will be difficult for Darrin when they all graduate this coming spring. He plans to take some time off of coaching basketball next year. As always, Darrin has been very active in the church youth group, specifically junior high. He teaches a Sunday school class, runs visitation on Tuesday nights and game time on Wednesday nights.

I have been a busy bee at home this year. I've started writing more regularly for Peekaboo Picks magazine. I have a weekly crafting/scrapbooking article and it's been good for me to have the accountability to actually accomplish some things with all this STUFF I have accumulated for crafting projects. I haven't been running as much this year. I've only done three races all year long. I was supposed to run a half marathon in June and trained really hard for it with my friend, April. However, we registered too late and the race was full. It was such a let down that neither of us have run much since then. I did manage to beat my own personal record in a 5k race this fall though. Yay me! I'm still teaching the two year old nursery class on Sunday mornings. My first group of kids EVER are in first grade this year. Time flies!

Jaycob just turned five years old in September. He missed the cut-off for kindergarten so I get to keep him for one more year. As much as I look forward to having one less kid to haul to the grocery store, the thought of him starting school makes me cry. Once he starts, he's gone forever! So I'm enjoying this time with him as thoroughly as possible. He is really into Transformers and Star Wars right now. He loves to watch the movies over and over. He won't watch Shark Tales though. That cartoon is too scary. But Darth Vader cutting Luke Skywalker's arm off? Now, that's just cool. Jaycob has become quite the artist this year. He loves to draw and color and he's really good. The things he draws are actually recognizable and my fridge is covered in artwork that I don't know what to do with. He also learned to ride his bike without training wheels this year. We got him a bigger bike for his birthday and it took some getting used to. He's still pretty nervious about riding it.

Jordy Roo is three years old. She is such a girl. But she's not girly at all. She's super emotional all the time. Not just in a bad way though. When she's happy, she's SUPER HAPPY, when she's feeling sweet she is very cuddly and affectionate. When she's ticked off, LOOK OUT. She is not into any of the usual girly stuff though. She could care less about princesses or baby dolls. She wants to hold straws or sticks in her hand all day long. If you look back at previous blog entries you will very rarely find a picture of her without a stick of some sort in her hand. She has been doing this since she was old enough to pick one up. She is the messiest eater on the planet. My baby is neater at meal time than she is. This summer she finally figured out how to pedal her bike. It was a big moment because we'd been working on it for a year. She doesn't like to put a lot of effort into things that take actual muscle activity. She'd much rather color or watch Sesame Street.

Joshy is two years old. He's a big boy and such a love muffin. He's by far my cuddliest child. He's so polite and sweet all the time. But he's also easily offended. His piercing squeal of a cry is horrific and makes us all run for cover. He's getting into trains and cars these days. He doesn't care much for TV though (which kills me! Ha!) but he loves to go off and play by himself. Very easily entertained. He seems to really love music too. Whenever I blast the tunes he tells me "I like dis one!" for every song. I just introduced him to mistletoe today and he won't stop kissing me. Not that I'm complaining. Especially since Jake cries every time I try to lay one on him.

So that's what's up with the family in a nut shell. (What does that even mean?). As always, the Lord has been blessing our family in wonderful ways. I hope you all have a wonderful December and a very merry Christmas. Our's will be merry and WHITE! We have two feet of snow so far. It's beautiful of course, but it's been really cold this past week. Single digits, ugh.

Love, The Powers Family

Getting into the Spirit!

Okay, I'm really rolling now. Christmas decorations are complete! Well, not really. I still have to put up the little downstairs tree. But I told the kids we wouldn't put it up until they cleaned the play room. So it probably won't go up EVER.

Today I finished folding, stuffing and adressing all my Christmas cards. I think I'll mail them tomorrow. I promise, there are A LOT more pictures on it this year so I hope all you who complained about last year's will be more thoroughly satisfied this year. :)

Darrin and I went and did a bit of Christas shopping at TARGET the other night. I gotta say, I really wish Jordan was into princess stuff just so I could figure out what to buy that girl. All she wants in life are sticks and straws.

Jake is going to be transformer-ed out! We actually considered not buying Josh anything and just wrapping up all of Jake's old toys for him. Josh would have loved it. Jake on the other hand would probably FREAK.OUT.

I'll probably post a big old Christmas letter on here sometime tomorrow. I sort of have to now because I mentioned on the card to come here to read a Christmas letter. And there's a typo on the card. I noticed it while I was at Kinko's about 30 copies into the project. So, needless to say, I left it alone.

So the kids and I have big plans in the next couple of weeks. We are going to make crafty wreaths, bake cookies and build gingerbread houses. I'm sure there will be fun pictures to follow.

Here's some pictures from the last couple of days.

Joshy gets really excited when he hears the waffles pop.



Making a snow angel. And then making mommy trudge through two feet of snow in slip on shoes to help her up.


Cleaning off the porch. It's vitally important. I'm not sure why.

I'm on FIRE!

I think I'm back in the swing of things finally. This week I finished my Christmas card and today I went and got the copies (and then I realized there was a typo but I don't care) and now I'm ready to address, lick, stick and mail them all. Oh, and I bought a live wreath so my house will smell like Christmas. Did you know you can make them really smelly if you mist them with water? Love the smell of Christmas. It reminds me of Washington.

Wednesday

Just killing time with some magnadoodles before Cubbies.



Jaycob drew a pumpkin.

Where Have I Been?

Nowhere really. Just too lazy to take pictures or update anything. So let's sum up a bit. We currently have two feet of snow and the temperature is hovering at a balmy 5 degrees. Basketball season started yesterday so we won't be seeing much of Darrin for the next few months. Especially in the next few weeks as he's taking his team to Orlando for 10 days. He'll come home a couple of days before Christmas. I finally started pulling out Christmas decorations today. I actually had to force myself to do it. Then I spent 5 hours pulling out dead bulbs and replacing them from random strands of half working lights. The tree is still only half lit but I'm SO OVER IT.

I'm running a tally of injuries for the past couple days so I figure here is as good a place as any to keep record.

2 days ago - I sliced my finger with a serrated knife while cutting an apple.
Yesterday - I fell down the stairs (again) and pulled something in my shoulder.
Today - I pulled out a drawer in Jordan's dresser and it fell out and gouged my foot.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow.

Guess what!?! I finally have some new pictures.


This is Doobie enjoying(?) the big snow yesterday.


Today we put up the tree and decorated it. Well, pretty much only the bottom got decorated but boy is it fancy!


The top is a little bare but I'll fix it when the kids go to bed. I wonder if they'll notice...


This part looks great!


We ran out of branches for all the ornaments so sometimes they had to double up. Or triple up. Whatever.