Merry Christmas and All that Jazz

Mom, Dad, Me, Ali, Tori, and Walker - Christmas Eve 2008

The boys' last day of school was the 18th, so we headed down to TX on the 22nd after we had our own Christmas celebration over the weekend. The trip down was quick and pleasant enough and we were glad to leave the zero degree weather to enter warmer climates (today it was in the 70s - so nice).

Christmas Eve consisted of the usual grandkids acting out the Christmas story and the opening of presents. There were 19 people to cycle through, so that took awhile but was lots of fun.

The Christmas Pageant Cast (partially)

Hot ticket items: Lego sets

Too much egg nog??

Christmas morning came bright and early and boys were indeed visited by Santa despite my many threats throughout the last month that they would not be. The Tooth Fairy also made a visit that night, as Big J lost his ninth tooth after Little J elbowed him in the mouth (it was already loose). Thankfully, the TX Tooth Fairy is much more on top of things than our regular Tooth Fairy and actually remembered to stop by during the night. We had great discussions on whether she and Santa bumped into each other.

Santa Spoils:

Most of Christmas was spent eating and laying around and watching A Christmas Story marathon, while the kids enjoyed their Christmas spoils. We did fire up a very long game of The Settlers of Catan, which the boys even liked to play. And of course there was Xbox playing.

Then today was fun and relaxing despite the fact I turned 35 years old, which makes me feel old. JC cheered me up with the fact that now I was closer to 70 than 0. Great. I really don't like the fact I am 35 now, so I will not dwell on it except to say that my mom bought me some really great black boots I was wanting. And I got a manicure. We will be down here for about another week, so more adventures to follow....

Deck the Halls

I haven't really felt like blogging much lately, as you've probably noticed. And I've been busy. I haven't even done Christmas cards. I don't even know if I will. (*gasp*) So don't be offended if you don't get one. Maybe I'll send New Year's letters. Or Valentines. Anyway, here are a few holiday-related updates.

Friday was the annual Christmas party at church. Only Little J and Little Man went with me, as the other boys had prior obligations. In preparation for the night, Little J and Little Man worked on their very first gingerbread house to enter into the gingerbread house contest. It quite possibly was my very first gingerbread house, because I don't remember doing one before. All I did was piece the house together for them, though, and they did the decorating. Little J had a small problem with Little Man interfering with his artistic vision of the house, but eventually they were able to get it finished.

That night we loaded up the van with all our goodies we were assigned to bring, got to the church, and realized we had left the gingerbread house at home. After much weeping and wailing and debating on whether or not it was that big of a deal, we had to go back to get the treasured gingerbread house. And after a much overdue Santa showing and way too many desserts, what to their wandering eyes did appear? A Three Wisemen Christmas ornament hanging on their gingerbread house. A prize! They were so proud.




On a totally unrelated subject - I bet you've never found these things in your Christmas tree:

1. Wadded up socks - much higher than any reachable height of the children in our home, so they had to have been thrown up there

2. Cotton balls

and my favorite...

3. A Hot Wheels toothbrush

What can I say? We add our own personal decorating touch around here.

Artist Reception

Last night was Little J's artist reception, which was a mad house, but was nice to go to anyway. He was not happy that I made him put on his "church clothes". I guess we didn't actually have to, because most people were dressed casually, but I didn't know what the dress was, and as my mom always said, "it is better to be overdressed than underdressed." That's a good rule of thumb I try to live by. I think all the boys got over it once they stuffed their faces full of the cookies there.

They gave each of the student artists a name tag and a button to pin on their shirts and then you had to walk around the two-story building and try to find where your particular student's art was hanging. That was a little crazy, but it was fun to see all the cute artwork displayed. We found Little J's on the top floor. It is a ripped construction paper collage of an owl from the book Good Night Owl. It represented texture. (I read all this info off the card next to his art). I thought he did a good job. I was impressed he could turn scraps of paper into an identifiable owl. He even highlighted the tree branch it is sitting on, as to give it a more realistic apprearance like the sun or moon is shining down on it. Who highlights tree branches?!?

We ran into his art teacher there, and I told her how much Little J enjoyed her class and she told me how much she enjoyed having him in there and how very talented he was. I think he had fun seeing his artwork up and I hope he felt good about himself.