Max, Jesse, and Damien's Birthday Party

Yesterday we celebrated Max and Jesse's 5th Birthday and Damien's 12th Birthday. This was the first time that we did all three on one day. I think that it was nice to do it that way so that Damien didn't get so mixed up in the Christmas/Birthday mess.
So, my mom decided that she wanted to try out Skype this week after hearing people from church talking about it. She had Becca in Idaho sign-up and they had a 45 minute conversation. After hearing about that I had the idea of inviting Becca to the Birthday party. So, after trying and failing a few times we finally got both end of the video working and Becca, Owen, Lily, and Taylor got to "be" at the party.
We sang Happy Birthday three times, opened presents, and ate cake.







Damien took one look at one unlabeled present and said he knew what it was. He was hoping for a Star Wars book of some kind but ended up with a Diary of a Whimpy Kid book that he liked even better.


Jesse made some great faces when he was opening presents and I know that this isn't in focus but you still get the idea that he was excited. They probably have 100 Hot Wheels but they still get stoked about new ones.



Now the only things they have to look forward to over the next couple weekends is Disneyland and Christmas. So jealous of them going to Disney, again, without me! Hopefully in a couple years Katelynn will be ready for Disney.

Christmas Facts about me

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate, definitely. I think egg nog is gross.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? That depends on the gift. If it is too big it will just be out there. Wrapping something like a bike would be crazy! I love wrapping presents I just always delay it till the end. I also have a closet full of stuff that I need to wrap for Christmas and Birthdays. Probably next week I'll start during nap time.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I usually do a mixture of both. This year I just did white on the tree and have colored lights outside. I think that this years tree is the biggest we have ever had. It looks really nice except for the fact that a third of it isn't decorated! :) Crazy little girl. We finished it up right at her bed time so we shall see what she does with it tomorrow.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually the week after Thanksgiving and we buy our tree on the 1st. I like that all our decorating is done. So we can enjoy it for a few weeks.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? I really do like ham.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? One Christmas I remember wanting a clock radio and after all the presents were done I didn't get it. I really thought for sure I would get that. My family is big on time keeping stuff. I remember hearin some banging going on outside while we were opening presents but didn't think anything of it. After we were sitting around enjoying our presents we got a phone call. No one answered it and the answering machine picked it up. The call was from Santa. He forgot the leave some stuff and he had one of his elves drop it off on our patio. I remember standing around the phone in awe that Santa knew our phone number. The clock I wanted was in the items on the patio.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? When I found the stereos that Sarah and I had asked for in the bottom of the built in pantry. We were snoops.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nope, never did the PJ thing either. I don't know if I'll start it with Katelynn or not. I might give her new Christmas PJ's on Dec 1 or something like that.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? It has no theme, no direction, nothing. It is just a bunch of ornaments that I have found and picked up through the years.

Our first Ornament that I still love


Katelynn's New ornament for the year.



11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I have never had too much experience with snow. I just know that it is freakin' cold. I would probably hate it. Ben Loves it though.

12. Can you ice skate? I can, but doesn't mean I do.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? My most memorable gift was finding out that we were having a girl two Christmases ago. That was fun.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Making memories for my family. Hopefully good ones. And teaching Katelynn about Christmas. As she had been playing with her Little people Nativity I tell her who the people are, I hope that is building something for her.

Licking the beater after making pumpkin cookies today.


Katelynn Playing with her Nativity, (don't mind the hair, her hair doesn't get done until I finish cleaning up breakfast and I had just finished that)


15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Hershey Kiss thumbprint cookies. Yum! I'll be making those next week. And M&M cookies which my mom is making for Saturday's parade, woo-hoo!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We are still making traditions. We have the tradition of getting the Tree on the 1st. I want to start doing some more just haven't found what fits with us yet.

17. What tops your tree? An Angel.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Giving of course. I love to see when people like what I gave them and that they will actually enjoy it too. It makes me happy when others are happy.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Mary's boy child Jesus Christ.

20. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum? Yuck. I don't like peppermint gum either.

21 Favorite Christmas Show? Mickey's Christmas Carol

22. Saddest Christmas Song? Momma's Shoes (don't know the real name, a boy is buying shoes for his mom that is meeting Jesus tonight)

Christmas is coming!

I am so excited for Christmas this year. We have our decorations out except for the tree which we will get tomorrow. The stockings are laying by the chimney with care as Katelynn has already pulled them down. So that temptation was taken away. I know that the tree will only be decorated halfway up this year. Hopefully the little one won't be too mischievous.
Ben put up the lights outside today and we have more stuff planned. I guess I am excited about it because of Katelynn but, I know that she has no clue what is going on except that things are looking alot different around the house. I am trying not to overwhelm her, but maybe I am and I don't know it.
I didn't realize it but I do have quite a collection of Nativity's. I have six totally different ones. One small one, a painting, a full stable, a homemade one, a statue and a play one for Katelynn. I don't quite have one for each year of our marriage but pretty close. I do love nativity's. I hope that you are feeling the Christmas spirit too.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving seemed a little odd this year as we didn't have Thanksgiving on the actual day. On Wednesday we ate at my parents and had a very enjoyable time there. I was in charge of making the Green Beans, Sweet Potatoes and Rolls. I used the recipes from Pioneer Woman, Paula Deen and My Mom, in that order. Everything turned out really good. I didn't use cream of mushroom soup in the green beans and I just loved them. The sweet potatoes were SWEET. Ben has been raving about them since then.
Ben's family came over to our house for dinner on Friday and as Caleb was saying the whole time, "And I knew that you wouldn't screw it up." I don't know what there was to screw up, there was food for people to eat and dinner was ready when I had said and planned it to be. The only thing I would have changed would be to have another table out. I thought that we would be using both of our tables to eat at but it turned out that one table we at at and the other we had all the food on.
I made both dishes again for Ben's family on Friday and Ben still hadn't gotten tired of them.
Katelynn had a great time playing with her cousins. She was just running around in circles trying to keep up with them. I love to see her now interact more with them and try to do what they are doing.
I did do a little shopping for me mainly. I have most of Christmas done already, nothing wrapped though. Katelynn is too tall for her own good so we went to Old Navy on Thursday and got some shirts for her. I think she has about 30 pairs of pants that have been handed down to her from cousins so we were good there. She also has about 25 dresses in 24 months to 2T that she is wearing, so she is good there too. her shirts were just midriffs and 3/4 sleeves. She is covered now though. I also went to Micheals and got some stuff for my first Activity day with Primary that is this Saturday. We are doing a craft day so we shall see how that all turns out. I will be glad when it is over. There has been alot of things to plan for and make sure we have.
Friday I went to Bath and Body Works and got some more stuff for me.
We had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed the time that we had with our family.

Oh, yes! I almost forgot our drama for the weekend. The weather changed DRAMATICALLY last week and we had been doing some stuff in the garage so I didn't park in the garage like I usually do. Wednesday night it was 28 degrees for the low. I woke up Thursday morning to head over to my parents and hang out with them and the car won't start. The battery is dead. Since it is Thanksgiving everything is closed that would have a battery and Ben wanted to check ad make sure that it wasn't the alternator that wasn't working first. So, we jumped the car a few times Thursday and got a new battery Friday. I guess three years is a good life for a battery and we learned that extreme temperatures can bring out the bad side in batteries.