December Memories

I have a cup of hot tea next to me (a gift from mom for Christmas), just downloaded ALL my pictures, and am now attempting to fill in all the blanks of our last month into one entry.
I *might* actually be able to do it too, since the oldest 3 are fully engaged with the TV, and the youngest is asleep in his crib. Of course, it all depends if my laptop battery can manage to not die on me, cause digging out the cord, and finding an available outlet will definitely take too much work.
The start of December brought us Noll, our elf. He was a little crazy this time. My favorite thing to wake up to each day was the running of feet down the hall and the giggles when they discovered what he had been up to all night long.
Then we had some weird weather....
Like one day it was sunny and perfect to play outside in the leaves,
and the next we had a freak windstorm that ended up shattering our outdoor glass table.
Weird.

We ended up ditching tradition and picking out our tree from the Home Depot lot. Fun, but not the same. I am convinced this one was already loosing needles before we even set eyes on it. As I sit here, it's now about 1 static electricity spark away from burning our house down.

We did our annual "borrow the church van, load up all the kids and car seats, pass out some cookies, or popcorn, and drive around at look at lights" night too. This year we only made it to 3 houses, but I think they kids had fun while it lasted!
(Cannon was really trying to smile here, but he apparently he had missed out on getting a snow globe when his penny dropped in the bucket at one of our stops. He cried for quite awhile. Quite awhile...)

Brynn was an angel in the church Christmas Eve services this year for the first time. She had fun performing up front. I had mixed reactions. Is it normal to be teary-eyed and terrified at the same time? I have terrible stage fright, (which I am so grateful that she doesn't have) and seeing her up there just makes me so thankful that I get to be her mom. Even is we both struggle with it sometimes.
Our church does a really cool "Christmas Town" for the kids after the services. There are little activities, dress up, and some photo ops. They enjoyed their time playing.
Is it disrespectful that my oldest son was trying to strangle Joseph, and my youngest daughter was trying to poke Mary's eyes out? Nolan was fascinated with the small people that were lit up on his level...

We squeezed a quick trip in to see Santa, which went really well. No tears, no fits, and instead of those stinking mini candy canes they usually give out that make every mom's laundry load bigger, they gave out peppermint candy cane lollipops! Genius! Brynn is starting to question who the guy is at the mall though, because (and I quote) "Santa has GOT to be loading up his sleigh right now, there is NO WAY that he has time to be at the mall taking pictures with all these kids".
Then the week of Christmas's began. Every night a different side of the family for 4 days straight. It's a lot, but we have a system down now that is meeting every one's needs, and I love that I don't have to make choices of who we see which year, etc.
Christmas morning at our house was mellow and fun. The kids opened their gifts, and we FINALLY found the gift that Santa had left in the garage. A new (used) Wii! Hours of fun, let me tell you, hours and hours and hours of fun. (Maybe mommy and daddy have used it more then the kids, but whatever.)
Notice all the ornaments have migrated north on the tree...
So now we are just kicking back, enjoying all the new toys, and the time off of school. It's been busy, really, really busy, but I think everyone has had a great month of fun!

Merry Christmas

It's 8am. The kids JUST woke up.
Any other day I would start worrying that they were sick, but after the last few days that we have had I know that they are just exhausted.
I finished wrapped all the gifts yesterday, so today looks to actually be a relaxing Christmas Eve...If you don't count the fact that the one thing on my "to-do" list is clean and organize and purge the kids room to make space for the new belongings that are coming in the next 24 hours....
That, and the fact that Brynn will be dancing two times in the Christmas Eve services at church tonight. We will squeeze dinner in between, probably something super healthy and delicious like McDonald's.
I am not complaining though. I am so grateful to be here in this moment. To be present. To sit with the kids and listen to them chatter about who knows what. To have some time to reflect on the excitement of the upcoming night and morning. To celebrate the birth of the Greatest Gift Ever.

May peace settle your hectic lives.
May joy fill your heart.
May love live in your home.
From my family to yours,
Merry Christmas!

Family Pictures

Thanks to the uber talented Melody White we have some purdy new pics
to hang up in our home!

Where All the Dreams Come True...

Disneyland!!!!!
What a trip! What a great, long, fun, tiring, exhausting, joyful trip. I know it's hard to be all those things, but it really was.
We had the opportunity to go for 4 days, which was intense, but also good because we didn't feel like we had to do EVERYTHING in one day. Of course, just my nature, I wanted to make sure that we did EVERYTHING by the time we left, and even with 4 days we didn't come close.

We piled the kids in the car early Sunday morning, and tried to make them go back to sleep.
It's pretty hard to get 3 very excited kids to go to sleep when they know they are going to go to Disneyland.
No, scratch that.
It's impossible to get 3 very excited kids to go to sleep.
Even if it is 4am in the morning.

The drive down was good. I was so impressed with the kids. They usually have a 35 min drive span. Meaning, after 35 min, they are all whining and wanting out of the car. (We don't travel much, can you tell?) But this time, they did awesome. I didn't have to put on a movie until about 6 hours into it, and that is a record!




Our hotel was great! Free breakfast - a real breakfast, not just pastries and coffee, but waffles, toast, eggs, potatoes, oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, coffee and juices! We brought a cooler full of food for lunches, and dinners that I had originally planned to make, but surprise, surprise, the place we stayed also included free dinners! And I am talking, real dinners! Salad bar, pasta, burgers, etc! So, I actually had a bit of a vacation from cooking too! I made our lunches everyday to take into the park, but besides that, I was totally off duty! It was great! (And we saved a ton of money too!) The hotel also had a pool, and free shuttle so we could come and go as we pleased, and swim when we weren't meeting characters and riding rides.

When we stepped into the park on Monday morning, I almost cried. No, for reals, I did. It was so cool to see my kids faces as they looked around! They were amazed at everything! (Brynn later told me - "Mom, when we first walked in, I thought it was just 'ok', but then, when I saw all the rides, and the characters, and all the lights, and all of that, I realized it was going to be really, really fun!")
We spent a considerable time in line waiting to get autographs from all the characters. It was NOT my favorite part of the trip, but since we were there "for the kids" I had to suck it up and smile. Maeve did great with all the characters, and got some hugs from Winnie the Pooh, and was loving it until she met Donald Duck. At one point she reached up to touch his beak, and like the spaz that he is, he made a loud quacking noise and it scared her so badly that she wouldn't even look at any of the other characters. Her all time favorites are Chip and Dale, and she refused to get out of the stroller to see them because of (what we will forever call) the "Donald Duck Incident".


The first ride we went on was Pirates of the Caribbean. It was one of my favorites (until I rode Tower of Terror and Indiana Jones - and those quickly took the lead for best rides). Let's be honest here. I was just as excited to do all the rides as they were. Maybe even more so. Maeve and Nolan came out of that ride crying. Looking back, it might not have been the best choice for the first ride.
We did as many rides as we could, which ended up being almost all of them, because the crowds were not bad at all! I converted my eldest two kids into roller coaster lovers on this trip. I allowed them to try it once, and they were hooked!
And the park was decorated for Christmas!!!! It couldn't have been more beautiful, and magical, and holiday-ish, and wonderful!

We tried to do all the things that people told us were "must do/must see". The fireworks show, the parade, the rides, the hugs from characters. We were also lucky enough to schedule a visit with Katie, my long time friend. If you compared this picture to one from 15 years ago, there wouldn't be much changed. Except we are both married now. And I have had 4 kids. And her hair was blond, and I had no wrinkles, and crooked teeth. But besides all that.....


I was excited to see California Adventure too. I have never been, and heard it was great. It was a lot of fun! Different then Disney - way different- but lots of fun. And my hubs totally gets "Daddy of the Year" award for this photo shot. No joke, he was walking around like that for quite awhile, and got many stares.


Day 2 Nolan came down with a fever, and a random projectile vomit episode. Day 3 we dosed him up with Advil, and made him suffer through. Day 4 he was feeling much better, but Maeve was so tired from everything that she basically slept all day in the stroller.


Cannon enjoyed most of it, but was pretty much done with each day of Disney at around 2pm, and Angry Birds on my iPhone would keep the peace for him for awhile. We just can't ever escape that game.
I have to mention this, cause I think it will be one of those things that the kids look back on and say "Moooooooooom, what was your deal?" I made these identification badges for the kids. I kept thinking that if they got lost, they needed to have something on them so that people could get a hold of us. These things worked like a charm! I got several comments from random people at the park about it being a good idea. The kids just wore them on their belt buckles. I only put the kids first names, our first names, and our cell number. Thankfully we didn't have to use them, although for about 5 heart stopping minutes we lost Cannon. Actually we lost him twice, but the second time was when I almost passed out from adrenaline and fear....(is that one of "those times" that I will look back and laugh? I don't know. It was pretty terrifying...for all of us.)

The drive home was a N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E. After getting our bags packed, and checking out of the hotel, we found out that our car battery was dead. We waited around for someone to come help us jump start it, but it added about an hour to the trip home. There were considerably more tears on the drive home. More clenched teeth, more "Can we get out of the car now?" questions. More fighting, more bickering, more crying, more "That's my pillow, don't put your head on it" types of situations....But that's the stuff memories are made of right?