Christmas Review

Quick Christmas Review....
It was a pretty perfect Christmas. It started with a very relaxed Christmas Eve, because I decided to wrap all the gifts first thing in the morning instead of waiting till the evening, so I had all day to relax and bake and just have fun. That evening we finished our 12 Days of Christmas / Secret Santa runs. We picked 3 friends and for the 12 days leading up till Christmas we were Secret Elves and delivered treats and toys to them every night. We made it the whole time without getting caught and we had tons of fun. Thank you Petty Family for making it even more fun by spying every night and trying to catch us - it made it a great adventure.

Christmas morning went a little too quickly for me. I'll explain why. I have major gift issues, meaning I express and feel love by giving and receiving gifts. So every birthday or Christmas I want to go crazy with gifts and I am always afraid that my kids will be disappointed and not love me if there aren't TONS of gifts under the tree. Well I have discovered and I don't think I'm the only one, that as my kids get older the more EXPENSIVE their gifts become. Am I right? So my budget is the same as when I could buy them 10 presents, but now that budget only can buy them 3 or 4. So my kids each got 4 gifts from mom and dad. Now they were great gifts. Tyson wanted the Lego Star Wars Gun Ship and Brissinger, Zach wanted Nintendo DS games and a Mega Bloks Medieval Castle, and Emma wanted an Ipod and a camera. So I had to fight every urge in my body to not ignore the budget and still buy them tons of gifts. However, my husband was the voice of reason and assured me that the kids would be thrilled with their gifts and that quality was more important than quantity. And he was right!! Of course, Grandma and Grandpa Vaughan were the biggest hit of Christmas. They got all of us a Wii, and Uncle Macc and Aunt Lisa got us Wii Music and Great Grandma and Grandpa Vaughan got us more controllers and another Wii Sports game. So all the great stuff, I didn't have to buy! So the gifts were few in number but high in appreciation.

And as for me, I felt COMPLETELY loved because my husband spoiled me rotten and bought me all sorts of crafty items and software. He even spent two days of his life reorganizing our small office to make room for two craft tables so that I can actually work on projects and leave them out (all away from a little 2 year old's hands)! So now I can put all my pent up energy to good use instead of yelling at my kids! YIPPEE!! To end the wonderful day we had friends over for dinner and ate tons of yummy food!! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

Family Photo

Here is the picture of my whole family that we took during Thanksgiving. I just want everyone to remember that I know how awful I look, and that it is very difficult to find one picture that twenty some people look good in. I think everyone looks great except for me!! Oh, well!! I wanted to add name labels for anyone that doesn't know my family. The names in red are my immediate family - parents and siblings. Their spouses are next to them in the picture: Adriann & Shane, Andy & Jenna, Ron & me, and Macc & Lisa. The children that aren't mine belong to Andy and Jenna, except for Ivy who is Adriann's daughter; there is a baby girl on the way for Macc and Lisa, due in January - yippee! Make sense? Good!!
I love, love, love, my family and it was beyond wonderful to be all together for Thanksgiving. It was probably the best Thanksgiving EVER!!

p.s. And thank you to Jacque for patiently teaching me how to use Microsoft PAINT so I could add the fun names!

Snowman Pancakes

I never make my kids breakfast on school days. I know that's horrible, but I am NOT a morning person. I wake up with just enough time to supervise all necessary activity and then out the door they go. So we have made it a tradition to have breakfast for dinner on Sundays. But today was a rare exception, we had a 2 hour school delay due to, you guessed it, snow!! So I took the opportunity to make my kids some snowman pancakes. They loved them and they looked so cute!! This might become a new winter tradition.

Tess' Birthday Party

It was two days late, but better late than never. She loved all her presents and it was so much fun to watch her having a great time!!

Christmas Party and Santa

We had our church Christmas Party last night. I was very concerned about Tess because she can be pretty awful if she wants to be. However, with Ron and I trading off we did fairly well keeping her happy and she didn't even scream for Santa. Yeah!!

I have discovered that my daughters love of candy canes can be used in my favor. She didn't smile, but she didn't scream either. I concider it a win.


Emma would have sat on Santas lap all night. And she would have asked for everything under the sun too, if I would have let her.


Even Zach and Tyson who think they are too old for Santa wanted to sit on his lap. So cute!!


Ron had the camera for once so I am actually in a picture - and I don't look half bad either!!

Emma excitedly telling me everything she asked Santa for - anyone want to donate some money to the cause? (just kidding!)

Happy Birthday Mom!

Tess shares a birthday with a very special person, my mom!!! Happy birthday Mom, I love you!!!

Tess' 2nd Birthday

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY TESS!!!
We can't have Tess' birthday party until Saturday, because Ron has a "mandatory fun" Army obligation tonight (all you military know exactly what I mean) and tomorrow night is our church Christmas party. So I wanted to post some of my very favorite pictures of her for you all to enjoy! Oh, how I love my little baby girl!!

Snow Day for Church

Oh, what do you do in the wintertime when all the world is white? Do you play silly games, or run in a maze, or stare at the snow so white? Is that what you do? So do I!!

So what would you do on a Sunday when church was canceled due to snow? Well we did...


Emma played cards with her stuffed animal friends.


The boys played chess and checkers. They are working on a chess belt loop for Scouts.


We burned off some steam by running around the house chasing the two year old.


And then some of us sat in our favorite comfy chair and stared at the beautiful snow falling and loving the fact that I wouldn't have to shovel any of it!!



And of course we had to stay in our jammies, drink tons of yummy hot chocolate, eat fresh from the oven cinnamon rolls and we watched tons of Christmas movies. It was a good day.

I have a pet peeve to share

Okay, so I am in a happy place right now because my Christmas decorations are up and I am listening to Christmas Carols and my kids are outside playing in the snow - I LOVE IT! But I just heard a song that reminded me of a recent pet peeve of mine. I am listening to Josh Groban's Noel, and I love it, but there is a song that he has that bothers me. He sings "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and in the background he has soldiers speaking giving their Christmas wishes to their families, while they are in Iraq or Afghanistan. Okay, this makes me so mad!!!! I hate it when the press or singers or anyone capitalizes on soldiers being away on Christmas. They use them to pull at every one's heart strings and makes them look oh so concerned about "those poor soldiers away from their families". What CRAP!! (excuse my language)!! What about the thousands of families of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, and children that won't have their soldier home for the holidays, or for months and months for that matter? Do they care about them at all - the families left behind? What about them? And then, the news will show a wonderful reunion of a soldier surprising their child at school when they come home for their 18 day R&R that just happens to be over Christmas. Lucky for him; how many soldiers would kill to have R&R over Christmas but can't because everyone has to take turns - what about them? Do they not care that there are THOUSANDS of such reunions every year? Why don't they show any of those? Oh, maybe because it is Christmas so we are suppose to be more concerned with the people who are sacrificing their lives to keep all of us safe. It just feels so "politically correct" and even "fake" to trot our the soldiers around Christmas and then forget about them for the rest of the year. I hate that they use some "token" soldiers, not their families, to make everybody cry and be sad and grateful for all of 2 seconds and then they are forgotten. IT MAKES ME SO MAD!!! (can you tell?) Okay, so I know I have rambled, but I hope you get my point. Soldiers, and their families should not be used to get "brownie" points by anyone. We know what we do and we know what we sacrifice and we do it willingly. Don't make light of what we do and the sacrifices we make, to make you look good.

Thanksgiving Review

We had the most wonderful Thanksgiving, that went by way too fast. We got to spend three full days with my ENTIRE family!! I was in heaven, even though I had a yucky cold the whole time! Pictures will come soon. I foolishly forgot that my memory card was in my computer, not my camera, so I couldn't take any pictures. My brother took tons, so as soon as I get them I will post some.