Christmas Day!

Santa was good to us this year. And Santa was super tired from being up most of the night getting all the surprises ready! ;-)

First, let me say that I can see how easy it would be to create spoiled little kids. Because it is SOOO much fun to buy gifts for them. Watching them get so excited over what you've given them is a blast!

The kids woke up bright and early Christmas morning - around 6:30 a.m. (yikes!) The hallway door was closed and we wouldn't let them by until we went and checked things and set the video camera up! Then it was go time!

Their expressions were priceless! They were so excited...and the fun had only just begun.

Olivia go lots of arts and crafty types of things! She loves to write and color.

Lillian got a sit n spin. Yes, that's a mouth full of jellybeans that she got into super quickly. And I think she managed to eat everyone's jellybeans!

Putting batteries into everything! Landon got a really neat tool bench!

But the big surprise was yet to be revealed! After we had opened all the presents and put just about everything together we told them to go outside and fly one of Landon's planes (airhogs are so cool!). Of course, I was right there with the video camera and caught them realizing there was a TRAMPOLINE set up in the back yard! The video is so cute! They loved it!!




Lillian is pretty good!

Daddy joined in the fun!



Setting up her "ipod" - a fun mp3 player for all her music!

We had to play all the fun games that night. Daddy got Blokus 3D - we love all the blokus games!!!

And of course a game of Chutes and Ladders. Daddy got the big ladder and won!


We had so much fun hanging around the house playing ALL DAY!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is when we are the busiest during the holidays. We cram in 2 grandparents, adult time with my family only, naps for the wee ones, and a Christmas Eve church service.

My mom's side of the family spanning 3 generations! We missed you Rachel and Keith...but your faces were with us the whole time! ;-)

Then after the Christmas Eve church service which was AWESOME, we headed over to my dad's parents house where 26 out of 32 of the family gathered. And since we had the perfect age kids to act out the Christmas story like all the cousins had to when we were their age, we passed the traditions down to them. Olivia got to be Mary - she loved that.



Landon was a shepherd, and Lillian was a sheep. Our cousin Luke was Joseph, Sophie the angel, and Selah was baby Jesus. It was so cute and they did a great job!


Wanna see something really sweet - 1, 3, and 5 year olds doing the nativity...that is until Lillian refuses to be the little sheep. Then the video gets cut off....




All gathered! The room gets smaller and smaller every year - with all the babies and weddings.

The boys were boys!


And we had our own candle lighting and sang Silent Night.


It had to be one of the best Christmas' yet! Next year I think we need the talent show!!! :-)

Christmas Eve Eve

Another Christmas has come and gone! If only Christmas came this fast when I was little. My favorite part of Christmas is all the traditions!! I love being with family and eating lots of good food. So much fun!

My family - ALL of us together...in a picture....that's a feat! (even the dogs Lil and Audrey made it in the pic - of course Audrey didn't have much choice with Landon's death grip on her all weekend)


We hung out.

Snapped a lot of fun pictures.


i couldn't resist some photoshop actions....straight off the camera above...and some tweaks below...i think i like the original better!


Played with anything that sang and moved around funny.




Cooked, cooked, and cooked! Our two little chefs cooking homemade southern gravy.

And ate! What a good excuse to get out all the fun Christmas china!


We passed out gifts!



I got some very pretty sparkly earrings! Thanks Mom and Dad!!


And most importantly, celebrated our Savior's birth!

Singing happy birthday to Jesus!

And we still had two more days to get through! Whew! What a start!

Merry Christmas!!!

I'll be spending a few days with family and friends. Don't worry, I can't wait to post picture of our Christmas! What fun memories we're making with our family!!!!! I hope you are too!


If you're like me you don't watch tons of videos onlines..but here is a sweet message from my precious Olivia....she is reciting Luke 2:10-14.








Please remember the reason for the season! It is HE who was born and died for us so that WE can live forever!

Merry Christmas from all of our Family!!!!

Our Tree Is Getting Full

This weekend we finished up Christmas shopping!! This year, since the kids are getting older, we decided to take them to buy a present for each other. So the girls and boys divided up and headed out to shop. It was so much fun. Olivia is at a great age to shop with. :-) (I've taught her well...hehe)

Anyway, we came home and it was so much fun to wrap up all the presents and put them under the tree!! I just happened to be sitting on the couch playing with my camera in low light and caught them filling up our tree. They were eagerly stuffing presents all over the place...as if they needed to hide them in the back of the tree. Such sweet, innocent excitement!!









I love watching them get excited about giving presents instead of getting presents!!!



(oh, we made a big deal about not telling each other what they bought....well, within 10 seconds of coming home Landon said, "well, we got Olivia a , but I'm not supposed to tell her". So much for keeping a secret!)

Christmas Card Nightmare!

All I wanted was a Christmas card with 3 decently happy children looking at the camera. They didn't even have to be smiling big...just not crying.






I've sent out my cards already. And I have 2 different ones going out because I had to order more and didn't want to do it online. I have to say I not thrilled with either them. I had to just settle on mediocre. And the worst part is, in one of them, they aren't even all together in the picture. I had to put one picture on the card with Olivia and Landon, and then one smaller pic with just Lillian's face. Because my crazy kids couldn't just look at the darn camera and smile! And the other card is all 5 of us but it's from several months ago. And Lillian doesn't have a bow in her hair. And we all know how I feel about bows!!!

Oh well, there's always next year.....

7 Kids + Long Line = Hilarious Santa Picture

Do you ever go visit the mall Santa? Well, we've been visiting this particular Santa since Olivia was almost 2. He actually remembers the older cousins....Abbey's been going since she was born - and she'll be 11 next year!!!! So needless to say, we had to go and visit him again. And we had all 7 grand kids this time - there's a first time for everything!

BUT, when you take 7 kids, wait in line for an hour, and then try to stick all 7 of them on Santa's lap, you're almost guaranteed a hilarious picture. I was lucky enough to snap off a few photographs while the santa photographer tried to get a photograph.


Santa was kinda overwhelmed when we all walked up. He had his own idea of letting them all sit in the chair and him lay on the ground. And he did NOT want the kids holding any of the babies. Who knows....
So we took a few like that....then the crying began. Lillian was fine until the other cousin her age started crying. It was a chain reaction after that. And we could not get ALL the kids to look at the same time.


Then we regrouped on Santa's lap...set Kenzie on (the one crying on his lap) and tried to snap off a decent pic.

That dumbfounded look Landon is giving is the same in the photograph we bought. The only 2 kids actually looking at the camera were Abbey and Brandon. 2 out of 7 ain't bad. :-)


Well, we tried. And that's what counts right?? :-) I wish I could scan in the actual picture that the they took. It may actually be worth the time we stood in line. Because it...is...hysterical!!

Do you have any funny Santa pictures?