Christmas 2011

We decided to stay in Missouri for Christmas this year instead of going to Midway. David gets 30 days leave every year. The Dental clinic is only open every other day for the 3 weeks surrounding Christmas and New Years. So for 3 weeks David gets every other day off for free. Where as if we went out of town he'd have to take actual leave days. We've decided to maximize time off and stay in town. We don't mind celebrating Christmas on our own and Ben and Emily staying in town definitely helped us from missing family!
We tried to let them sleep under the tree one night. That lasted about 20 minutes. Then they went to their beds. Maybe we'll try again next year. On Christmas Eve we headed to Ben and Emily's. We did the traditional appetizer dinner (David's fam) and then David and the kids watched the Claymation Christmas. Every single one of the kids ate cheetos for dinner and we let them. You'll notice from now on cheeto faces in the rest of the pictures.

We then played Bingo with the money tree (my fam). Ben had tied up half dollars on the tree. Are you seeing a pattern here with Hannah's face during Ashton's happy moments?

Cute Christmas version of Bingo where Ben would call our "stocking, chimeny, snowman etc" instead of numbers.

It is not Christmas eve for me without the kids acting out the nativity. Ashton and Kate usually have a love/hate relationship but the minute we let them dress as Mary and Joseph and put baby Jesus in the manger they were united in a cause. They were perfect the entire time and just kept looking at him. Check out Kate's fingers.

Cutest thing of the night. They tied the stuff lamb to James so he could crawl around. This was genuis. I will take note so all crawling kids will have a prominent roll in every nativity.

Mallie played the one wiseman. Paying attention to the cheeto theme?

Here is the back of Angel Anna with her pipe cleaner halo. We made the mistake of letting Mary ride in on David the donkey consequently Hannah (the shepherd) cried through the entire show just b/c she didn't get to have a ride. Here is the youtube video.

Then it was new jammie time. I'm over trying to match Ashton to the girls. So now he gets WAY cooler pajamas - hence the superman outfit.

Christmas morning! The kids woke up at 8:20 for our 9am church so we kept them all upstairs while we got ready. We came home changed and then let them go check out their presents. We pushed out table to the side of our dinning room so they had room to ride their new plasma cars and trike. We originally were just going to get 1 plasma car but I knew Mallie would be old enough to care about being left out - thank goodness we did. She actually can ride that thing just as well as the older two.

Hannah got squinkies and was in heaven. She lined up all day long and put them in and out of her box and stayed occupied for hours.

Ashton didn't ask for anything this year but rubber ninjas. They are 1 inch tall and over the course of our time in Richardson we collected 16 of them from the quarter machines at Cici's pizza. When he asked for more for Christmas we almost sent some friends $10 in quarters to get some for us. Then I looked at the actualy vending machine distributor websites. 100 ninjas for $24. Score. We gave him half and he was thrilled. I love when kids do their awkward posed smiles that look nothing like their real smile.

It was a great day. It's been a better Christmas season than I could have imagined. We held a family Christmas talent show FHE with friends which was awesome especially when our 8 year old friend's daughter played Mary and plopped the doll in a manger from under her shirt. She had us all rolling. Then we went to a caroling party. We had Santa come through our neighborhood in a firetruck handing out candy canes. We made a big Thanksgiving dinner for Christmas day. Then we blinked and it was over!

In you didn't get a Christmas card...

It would look something like this.

David and I have talked a lot about how Christmas seems like the new year. As we celebrate the birth of Christ we can't help but reflect on how we've done spiritually. Have we learned, have we grown and what can we do better this year? I taught in YW and David in EQ today. Last night we ran through our lessons together. His topic was exaltation and mine was Christmas. The conclusion we came to is that every Christmas song we sing containing words of Joy, Hallelujah, Glory to God etc are not just words to describe the event of the birth. But the sheer elation we (and they) feel is because He came we can be exalted. I love Christmas time. We've learned a lot this year. A lot about the Lord's timing and patience. We've learned you can make a home anywhere and feel completely happy. We'll always miss great friends but I wouldn't trade the entire world for every new and amazing friend/experience we've made along the way.

I personally feel like Young Womens in the posh calling in the ward surrounded by such great youth. I know I can't stop gushing over them. All I have to say is that every 5:15am temple trip is totally worth it. I love it.

We'll have to save New Years for all of our resolutions about budgeting, exercise, brushing teeth etc

It was a great Sunday and I'd like to leave it at that.

The Sweet Life

On Saturday I looked at this girl as she came to the stairs to get in the car and she just looked so old. In fact at dinner the other night she was in her booster seat and wouldn't eat her chicken which she normally loves. She kept whining and reaching towards Hannah. We switched sippy cups, bowls and gave her everything we could think of that was a quick fix. I was about to pull her out and put her to bed when I decided to try and give her Hannah's fork. Sure enough this little girl didn't want to eat dinner without a fork. She stabs all of her food perfectly and wont eat dinner any other way. Then there is Ashton who wakes up every morning and heads straight to the playroom half awake with bedhead to play with his Batcave he got for his birthday. It is a home to army men, GI Joes, HeMan and stray plastic animals. For anyone with boys out there it doesn't get better than this.

Then there is my guy. Who got so into making Sugar Cookies with me this year that he even said, "you should blog this!" David reads my blog once every couple of months and never suggests a blog post. He was THAT into it. Then last night we sat down to watch (our 1st week of Dec tradition) the Forgotten Carols and we both may or may not have cried like we do every year.

Hannah is still our sensitive soul. But in the last 6 months she has gone from uttering only a few stray words at her 2nd birthday to full on paragraphs. We love that she can express her emotions and never lets any of us leave the house without a "big" hug. She was worth every non-verbal emotional melt down we've dealt with from 18 months to 2 yrs old.

Mallie apparently decided to do her best to avoid having to eat any part of the actual cookie. The Christmas countdown is in full swing. We're so excited to celebrate at home this year. And when the flag on our mailbox goes up our kids get to find out the Christmas activity we'll be doing that day.

As I was driving to the commissary the other day I felt overwhelmed with gratitude to be exactly where we are right now. This army life may not be ours for the long haul but we love it so much for right now. I love when the trumpets play reveille at noon and 5pm we can hear it faintly in our house and the kids all stop to salute and yell "I hear army music!" I love living on post, our amazing ward and the incredible friends we've made in just a few months. I love David and the kids and this stage of life. Life is so sweet.