Happy Christmas!

Wrapping is almost done.

The sugar high continues.

Post Office was visited.

We spread some Christmas cheer.

Safe travels to all of you and a very MERRY road ahead.

Christmas 2012

Christmas PJ's

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house.... Jojo reading to O from my old book.

"Safe travels. I left cookies and carrots for the reindeer. Love, O and J"

Calm before the present opening storm.

Christmas Morning JOY!

CANNY CANES!

HOT WHEELS!!!

Princess Cheez-It at your service.

A boy and his dog.

Playing.

Putting things together. (A. got a telescope from Santa!)

Dinner time and more playing.

And then it started snowing, so we got out the sparklers and went out side to play.
I didn't get any photos of the sparklers in action... New Year's Eve is gonna be fun this year!

Frosty.

festive

I was informed that there are ONLY 10 more days until Christmas...

Good thing we got the tree up this week.

What a Wonderful Weekend

What a perfect holiday weekend we had. It was just the right balance of places to go and things to do. But most importantly, there was relaxation, lots and lots of relaxation, actually.

 It was just what I wanted for Christmas, and I got it.

We spent time with family, friends and with each other.

The kids played and played and played with their new toys.

We tried to get outside and out of pj's, but it was pretty sweet to just hang out in our comfy clothes and not go anywhere.

The weather was almost warm so we did sneak in some 'football' and bubble blowing pre-nap time.

The kids got to play with all the grandparents and Daddy-O and I got our rooms cleaned up. 
Guess what, there really is a floor in our bedroom!

The year is wrapping up wonderfully and I am looking forward to 2012.

Hope your holiday was a bright and merry as well.

Believe

Merry Christmas EVERYONE!
Here is to a beautiful holiday.

holiday crafting

Over the weekend in Greagle the kids (and adults) got to craft, holiday style.








It's really fun that the kids are old enough now to all participate in the making of gingerbread houses and puff ball pine cone trees.

Thanks Aunt Ra and Aunt Lo for getting all the supplies-
These are traditions in the making, I love it.

christmas blur

It has started... the blur. You know what I am talking about.

That moment when you think, oh I have plenty of time to do all the things I want to do for the holiday:

shop, bake, decorate, visit, have a glass of wine...

(she sooo wanted to pull that beard off of him.)

That last one is especially true as I come to my senses and it dawns on me that:
a) we leave tonight for my husband's family gathering in Greagle

and
1)I haven't even stepped foot in a store with the intention of walking down the toy isle for gifts for all the cousins.
2)We don't have any clean clothes for us or the kids. Even if they were clean I really don't have a clue where the

h. e. double hockey sticks

they are since we have 3/4 of our life in a storage until and the other 1/4 strewn about my in law's garage and two bedrooms we have taken over in an otherwise quite house.
b) I really want to bake cookies and whip up a batch of peppermint bark wearing my holiday apron.

But again, I have no idea where said apron might be stashed or stored and I am not so confident in my mother in law's kitchen.

Every time I try to start the oven I inevitably just turn on the timer or the microwave, but don't realize it until beeps and bops start going off and when I put my hand in the oven realize it's colder than our refridge in there. Or I forget I am cooking on an electric range instead of a gas one and start to burn all sorts of things because I forget that the cook top remains hot well past the time I turn the nob to "off".

It's okay- we're gonna make this Christmas happen no matter what this year. We might have had a dooooozy of a previous 11 months, but what I have realized is that our love is stronger than ever, that we have two kids who make us laugh so hard every.single.day.

 Last night by the fire O was singing, "Police Navidad, Police Navidad. Propeler anno and policy dod"

So  you know what, it's gonna be an awesome Christmas, even if it is a little blurry....
And just incase you want to see the singing in action, here is a video my mom got from the show.
perfection.

getting into the spirit

With the move I wasn't sure how we were going to get into the holiday spirit. All last week O kept telling us that we needed to put lights up on the house and in the yard. "Why haven't we done lights yet Mommy?"


last year's antler appearance

We kept telling him that we weren't sure if we were going to do lights this year and I wasn't sure just how much of our Christmas box we would actually unpack. Grandma and Grandpa brought home a surprise last weekend and came back from Greagle with a fresh cut tree.
O could hardly wait to get it up and put all the ornaments.

And when I say all the ornaments I mean all the ornaments. We actually had to hide the box of them so he would stop pulling things out and weighing down the branches.

We also had to adjust the level at which the fragile pretties were places since we have Fifi around and mobile this year. She is like a magpie when it comes to shiny things and can hardly contain herself at all the sparkling glittery goodness of the season.

I was able to go through all our books and sort out the Christmas themed stories that I have been collecting over the past 30+ years. I am really proud of the collection and we have been reading one or two of these stories at night before bed with O, he loves it.



I had big plans for making some sort of an advent calendar this year, but I think I will keep gathering ideas over on pintrest and when I get the space to pull out my sewing machine or crafting supplies again attempt this task, even if it is the middle of June.



I hope your holiday prep is off to a good start. Do you have any favorite traditions for getting into the spirit?