More Christmas and fun

Cole, Zachary, Jackson, Jacob, Laura at Carm's

Laura and Emily at Mary's with puzzles from Miss Sonya

On the 29th we gathered with my dad and Carmen's family to celebrate Christmas. It's always good stuff it Carmen's cooking and I can't remember what she cooked right now, but you can bet it was good.

That night we celebrated Christmas with Mary, Brooke, Emily, Karis and Sonya! We ate such good food all day I thought I was going to pop. The older girls stayed after dinner to watch Mama Mia, love that music..the movie was just okay; while dad's put kids to bed.

This concluded our Christmas festivities finally. It was a good year, surrounded by family and friends, hope yours was the same.

Christmas day and more

Hannah got the inflated school bus from santa and she really did love it, didn't want to get out of it to open any other presents, but she also loved her craiglist sesame couch and crayons and coloring book. You guessed it...the bus is busted. She does enjoy the little couch and we'll repair the bus. She got a bus because she's always so excited when she sees one and Cole and Laura "get" to get on one so she got hers. She's such a sweetie!

Laura got the gotta go potty doll that she asked Santa for, but she was most excited about the easel because it's the biggest present she ever got. She loves to play school and she and Hannah have a good time with the easel. Laura was annoyed by the potty dolls incessant talking after five minutes.

This is the castle that took over three hours for Santa's elves to put together. He's had a great time with it. Plays with Laura and Brandon and would with me if I were more cooperative. Well it is in pieces now but he has Lego battles with all the pieces parts and people. Let me just say it's a lot of dough for teeny pieces of plastic that Hannah will eventually throw in the toilet. ;).

We've tried to be really good at teaching the children how you respond when you get a gift. This is Cole hugging Laura after getting a gift that he already had one of. I take the kids to the dollar store to get gifts for each other and us. Not ironically I suppose, it was after we did this, that the kids were most excited about Christmas...it is better to give than receive! This may be one of the few pics we have of them hugging, they love each other, but she is his little sister!

We had a big brunch, took naps. Later we went to my mom's and have fun with everyone. My brother Gary bought Guitar Hero and we played for the first time. It was fun. The we came home and collapsed. Another big day gone for the year. Time to start anticipating the next.

An Eight year old

We started a new tradition this year that on a child's birthday they get a date with mom and dad to the reasonable destination of their choice. So Cole chose to go to funstation and Sonic. We played golf, some games and enjoyed a yummy lunch. I can't believe eight years has flown by. Wowser. I still remember bringing him home. It's been a great eight years.

Christmas Eve

We had fun Christmas Eve. It was so warm we decided to wash the van..it needed it. The kids all got wet. Hannah loved it and washed one spot for twenty minutes. Pappaw came over later for dinner, Hannah adores her Pappaw.

Later Cole narrated the Christmas story as Brandon and Laura and doll reenacted it. The doll was baby Jesus for the rest of the night and even went caroling with us. The kids opened their Christmas pjs then we went over to the Tews for cookie decorating and caroling. This was our first time doing this and it was fun. Hannah loved handing out treat bags.

We got back home just in time to tuck the girls in bed before Santa came. After they were snoozing, the "all-knowing" Cole helped his dad with some Christmas magic. After he went to bed I helped his dad with some Christmas magic by putting together a 900 piece Lego castle, that was the bomb!! It's in pieces now possibly never to return. It was fun working together with Brandon as little elves though. Christmas is so much fun!

The Nutcracker

So last year was the first year I took Laura to see the nutcracker at The Tallahassee Ballet and while I wasn't sure if she really liked it, she talked about it enough periodically throughout the year that I thought we'd make it a Christmas tradition. Cole expressed an interest so we got three tickets at 17 bucks a pop, half way through the kids are done with it because it says children's abbreviate version, but they need more abbreviating. We went to sonic aftewards and that was the favorite part for both of them. I'll try to remember this post this coming Christmas. :)
Cole decided the day of that he didn't want to go and that really wasn't an option once the ticket was purchased. He was fine once were in the parking lot of the civic center and I think he enjoyed more of it than I even thought he would, but this is the only picture I have of him when he was NOT happy. They wouldn't let us take cameras in. :(.

Catching up

Slowly, but surely catching up on the blog. Here are our lemons from November. Brandon took very good care of the tree all year and it paid off. We got over 120 lemons off the tree...enough to give away to neighbors as the kids are doing below...they tasted good too.