Christmas Day!

Our tradition has been, for the last few years, to spend the night at my parents' house on Christmas Eve and have a big, loud, chaotic Christmas morning with them and my siblings. (This year we were joined by our soon-to-be official new member of the family, Uncle-to-be Eric!!) Dad made Belgian waffles (YUM), so we got lots of cool stuff and ate like pigs. Hey, I know that's not a very pious sounding description of our celebration, but it's an honest one!

Jon and I were really enjoying Selah's new Rainbow Aquadoodle, so of course, Chad had to snap a picture.

Eric and Sarah brought over Kitty, decked out in her Holiday Fashions.

Sarah and Eric seem more impressed with that dalmatian that barks Christmas songs (very annoying) than Selah was. She kept looking at it like "What the heck is that?!?!"

Elianna looks shocked at all the gifts!! Hey, with 9 people the stuff piles up...

Papa let Selah try out his swiveling hunting seat.

Selah, the Cuddle Bug.

Elianna's new camera, which we practically have to surgically remove from her hands. Anyone who has had a camera around her knows she is quite the shutterbug anyway, so this gift was a huge hit. You can check out Grandma's blog to see her post of Elianna's view of the world. (She let her use her camera to take pics around the house.) It's pretty cool seeing things from a two-year-old's perspective!

Playing with her new cash register.

Mommy helping Selah open gifts. Normally, Elianna helps, but she was too enthralled with her own presents.

A rare picture of Daddy. This Christmas, Daddy took over camera duty, so for once there are a ton of pics of me, and only a couple of Daddy!!!


Elianna modeling more of her Bridalware. I got her a wedding dress (on clearance for $4 after Halloween - go me!) and my mom made her this beautiful veil and bought her satin gloves and two bouquets. (Yes, two. She's catching on to this whole "sisters fighting over toys" thing.)


Mom trying out her mixer cover... Yes, it fit.

For some reason, Elianna decided to go lay down amongst all our loot. Yes, this is everyone's presents all mixed up together with all the wrapping paraphernalia. Papa H, this picture is for you! At Chad's family, gift opening is very calm and orderly. (His dad is an ex-Marine, if that tells you anything.) Each gift is opened one at a time, and all the attention must be on the person opening the gift. Oh, and it is a serious crime to open any packaging or read any information on your gift, you must simply open it and then go on to the next person, cleaning up the wrapping paper behind yourself. Needless to say, here at my family's it is the diametric opposite. The only calm time is as we are passing all the presents out, then everyone viciously attacks their pile in no particular order. We attempt to go one at a time, but even that gets blurred a bit. We watch each other to some degree, but for the most part it is a frenzied free-for-all. So, my kids get the best of both worlds, and they seem to like aspects of both methods!! We couldn't help but laugh at the mess we made, and pictured Chad's dad curled up in a fetal position or yelling at us all to drop and give him 50.

Christmas Jammies

We have a tradition in our family - my sister and I always get new, matching jammies for Christmas. This year, she also bought new jammies for the girls! (They don't match ours, but they match each other. We couldn't find any in a large enough size span for us all to match!) Personally I think the girls look much cuter, but here are all the new Christmas Jammies! (And you can see my darling daughter bonking me on the head with a wedding bouquet.)

A New Housework Helper

Todd is still Elianna's constant companion. It is very interesting to see the behaviors of mine she imitates with Todd. (And sometimes it's a little bit too honest!!!) This particular day she decided to teach Todd how to put the laundry in the dryer. (This has been her job for over a year, and she takes it very seriously. I put the laundry on the dryer door, and she throws it in, adds a dryer sheet, and shuts the door.) I really thought it was cute the way she even put the sock on his little paw, then she would lift him up so he could "toss" the sock into the dryer.
Once the clothes are dry, she helps me carry them to the couch to fold them. (I can never find a basket when I need one, and although it means making a couple trips from dryer to couch I'm too lazy to run upstairs for one.) Finally, once folded, she puts her clothes and Selah's clothes away in their dressers. She is really turning into my little helper! I don't think Todd is catching on, though...

Return of Shredder

This picture was actually taken in early December, but I'm just now getting around to it...

Elianna has always loved scissors, but for the most part she only cut a fringe around whatever she was chopping. Not to be outdone by her sister's newest shredding phase, she suddenly just cut all the way across the paper. Once she figured that out, she just kept cutting, and cutting... and cutting. She will not rest until everything in our house is turned into confetti.

Wedding Bells Ahead...

Now that the holidays are over, it's time to step into my role as Official Wedding Planner for my sister and future brother-in-law. We are getting down to the wire, as they have settled on March 14th for their wedding date. It's going to be a fairly small wedding, so I shouldn't be as stressed as I am. I guess it's my own OCD that's driving me batty. At least my sis is the OPPOSITE of Bridezilla. She is so passive and easy-going!!!! She will pop in and occasionally try to argue with me, and then I have to remind myself that her opinion does matter. (hee, hee, just kidding.) Right now I need to focus on what I can get done in advance, so there's that much less to do last-minute. Wish us all luck!! It's going to be a crazy couple months.

P.S. I did find a beautiful dress for me on ebay - yippee!~!

Snow Pictures

It took me forever to upload them all, but make sure to scroll down (or click here) for a post with tons of SNOW pictures!!!

And YES I am still working on pics of Christmas Day. I have about 300 to wade through, but I will eventually get them up. I promise.

Happy New Year!!!!

Welcome, 2008!!!

We spent a quiet New Years Eve at home this year with our family. With two little ones, the party invites we got just don't hold the same appeal. Initially, it looked like it was just going to be us, since there is a nasty cold ravaging our family right now. But then, one by one, different family members called and our party grew! I guess we all decided that it would be more fun to all be sick together than everyone moping at home alone. Sarah and Eric came, my parents, Aunt CoCo and Leighanne, and also a 5-year-old boy I was baby-sitting. (Yeah, go figure. My daughter is already spending New Years with a boy twice her age. *sigh* Are we in for it!!!) I made a bunch of Mexican food, too much as usual, and everyone brought all kinds of healthy food like cookies, cupcakes, chips, pop, etc... It was quite the wild party with all of us crazies: We watched a corny old movie (The Burbs, one of our all-time favorites) and played Plug & Play Wheel of Fortune and Clue DVD. We all managed to stay awake past midnight AND finish our Clue game, once we figured out we were playing it wrong. (Hey, all these new-fangled contraptions are hard for us simple folk to figure out.) At midnight we broke out the bubbly, non-alcoholic of course, and toasted the New Year with British accents we all mysteriously acquired while playing Clue. It was lots of fun, even with all the sneezing and coughing going on. I managed to completely lose my voice, much to the delight of my hubby and children. (Lately every time I get the slightest cold, my voice is gone.) Of course, my kids are like alarm clocks and woke up at 8:00 on the nose as usual. This is NOT fun when I didn't get to sleep till about 3:00!!!! (I am getting too old for this.) Anyway, thanks to everyone who came over - we had a great time!!

Happy New Year to all our family and friends!!!! We look forward to all the exciting things God has in store for all of us this year!

Angry Little Elf

I know it's hard to see. For some reason, when I upload video through Photobucket, they come out very dark. Still, I thought this little tantrum I captured was just too funny. Selah throws these quiet little tantrums. No screaming, she just lays down and kicks her feet with quite the dramatic flair.

Fun in the Snow!

Okay, the snow has been finicky this year. We get dumped with a load of snow, then it warms up and rains and washes it all away... then more snow falls. We got quite a bit of snow last night, so it was nice to wake up New Years Day to such a beautiful view. Here are some SNOW pictures, not necessarily in order, for those of you in warmer climates to gloat over:

This was the view on New Years Morning

These pictures are older. Our first snow of the season, last month, was barely a dusting, but that was enough for Elianna to talk Daddy into playing in the snow.

Selah was not impressed. She could barely walk, let alone play or do anything fun.

Elianna's favorite mode of transportation - anything Daddy-powered.

Within a couple days we got a lot more snow.

Notice anything peculiar about the next two pictures? They were taken almost one year (technically about 10 months) apart!

The Patriette

We got a book from the library called "God Bless America." It is, basically, the words to the song with pictures. Well, today she brought it out for Aunt Coco to read/sing to her. After hearing our rendition, Elianna decided to sing it for us. To refresh your memory, I put the correct words first.

God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her, and guide her
Through the night with a light from above
From the mountains to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home.

Now, I will try to get a video, since that is MUCH funnier, but you know how kids are when you try to catch them on camera... Anyway, here are the words she sang (loudly):

God made A-mewica, Stan that I love
Stand I love her, Stand I love her
At night with light, Stand I love her.
Fwom the mountain, to the Pee-Wee,
To some Lotion, that I love
God made A-mewica
My home sweet hoooooooome.

Granted, there was some variation each time she sang it, and she kept blurting out "Stan I love" or "Stand I love" about 40 times. But, you get the idea.

Again, it's funnier to see. When she holds out a note, she shakes her head back and forth for effect. I see a future in show biz...