Christmas!

This past Christmas had it's ups and downs. The down side was that Jason had to work, and it was a LONG day at that. The poor guy can't catch a break. He has worked every single holiday, both small and large, since starting residency. The up side was that there was a ton of family here with us to keep me and the kids preoccupied from missing him too much. My sister, Alissa and her brood came up from Florida. My parents came up as well. So Jason was able to enjoy what little time he did have...It is much more fun to wrestle with 8 different kids, after all.I think Grandpa enjoyed that he pretty much always had at least one kid snuggling him.
Christmas morning was kind of wild. There were 9 kids between my sister's family and ours. There were 6 adults. That makes for a stinking TON of presents under the tree.
We got up at 5 AM, so that we could open stockings and Santa presents before Jason had to leave for work.
Miss Pais got to open the first present.Paisley got her Strawberry Shortcake. She couldn't be bothered to look away from her long enough for a picture.The boys both got scooters. This is the part where I publicly admit that my husband was right about the scooters and I was wrong. They were the perfect gift and they love them.The best Christmas present I got this year was getting to spend time my best friend. I was so excited for Christmas mostly for the purpose of getting to sit with my sister and knit and blab. I miss it terribly already. Alissa, please come and knit with me again.

Leading Up To Christmas!

Hey it's March and we are finally talking about Christmas. It seems that there are always so many events leading up to Christmas, so I decided to put all of those is a separate post from Christmas itself.

First off, we had Jason's work Christmas party. They had a Santa come in for all of the kids. This was the most impressively dressed Santa I have ever seen in my life. Tab must have noticed this too because he insisted that this was really the REAL Santa.
Benton was a lot happier about it than he appears in the picture.
Paisley was much more understanding this time around about Santa not handing her Strawberry Shortcake and Zoobles the second she sat down. Perhaps that is because he did in fact give presents to all of the kids.Hobbes even got to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. Santa was a bit nervous about holding him because he was so tiny. (He was the only nervous one, at the end of the night I had to track Hobbes down. Some random single guy, one of the residents was holding him and swooning over him.)Jason and all of the residents in the intern class.Next up and pre-Christmas festivities, was Benton's preschool performance. They acted out "The Night Before Christmas". They also sang several Carols.They especially loved singing Jingle Bells and they got to shake bells while they sang. Benton shook his right by his ear the entire time. Silly boy.At our ward Christmas party the Primary acted out the Nativity while singing the "Nativity Song". Benton and Tab were shepherds.
Last, but not least, a few days before Christmas the local volunteer fire company brought Santa through the streets of our town. He drove right by our house as he wound through the neighborhoods. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE the town we live in? The firemen walked along beside the fire truck handing out candy canes to all of the kids.

Christmas!...almost

The weekend after Thanksgiving the town we live in had a little "Tree" lighting ceremony. Note the that tree is in quotes. This is because due to snow storm that we had in October, the tree that they were going to light up was destroyed. So instead they lit the bushes that surround the fountain my the borough offices. The kids were waiting in front of the fountain for them to light the bushes.We met up with some friends there and waited in line for Santa.It is always funny when we get together with these friends because you can see other people continuously counting all of the kids. We each have four kids. Only three of each of ours are pictures below though.As we waited in line, Santa rode in on the fire truck. A few of the kids were a bit confused by this. We finally got in to see Santa. Paisley walked right up to him and immediately and very excitedly told him that she wanted Strawberry Shortcake and Zoobies (aka Zoobles) for Christmas. When he didn't immediately hand them over she was NOT happy and wouldn't have anything to do with him. She was one ticked off little girl. I guess we forgot to mention to her that just because she was telling him what she wanted didn't mean he was going to immediately hand over the loot.

After seeing Santa the kids got to explore his ride.

Christmas, at long last!

I should really check my blog more often. I wrote up this post and than never posted it. Opps. Sorry for the mega delay!

Christmas was a blast. It all started right after Thanksgiving as we went to pick out a Christmas tree. We went intending to cut down our own but even the puny ones were $50. No Thanks. We ended up buying a precut. Oh well. The ride was fun anyway.We decorated the tree.And because of this one, we redecorated the tree many many many times.We talked a lot about the real meaning of Christmas. Tab and Benton became obsessed with creating a "manger" out of one of my baskets and Benton pretended he was baby Jesus and Tab tended to him. And yes, Benton does have his entire body squished into that basket with the pillow. We had fun making a few different Christmas crafts. Tab made me these reindeer antlers and glued a bunch of glitter to them because everything is better with glitter, right? I opened them on Christmas morning and he insisted I wear them the rest of the day.Of course the kids saw Santa. Tab can never seem to remember what he wants when he gets to sit with Santa.Benton was sure to let him know that all he wanted was REX. We searched for months for this guy for a decent price and finally found him two days before Christmas. Phew...
Paisley even willingly sat on Santa. All she had to say was "ho ho ho" "ho ho ho" She knew just who he was.Tab again requested that we make Gingerbread houses. This time I didn't feel like spending as much time as last year making the Gingerbread and he wasn't pleased. It took some convincing to get him to believe you could still make a gingerbread house with graham crackers.Benny and Dad teamed up.Tab said his was an elves' workshop.Benny's was a barn for the reindeer.And of course, the best moments of all. Christmas morning.Trying to get them to look at the camera. All I could get was their faces, their eyes were glued on the good.I think this expression is "OH YEAH!"Here is Paisley opening up he doll's baby blanket I made that matches her baby blanket. She was thrilled.She had to put it to immediate use along with her new baby bottle.She was also a big fan of this fuzzy guy. She screams if anyone thinks of touching it.There was some baby love this Christmas, can you tell?Later in the day, she just couldn't bare to part with anything. She is laying on top of her baby blanket and then has her doll blanket on top of her baby.Tab was a big fan of his remote control car!Both of the boys got Nerf guns. Benton opened his first. His brother was SO jealous for about 15 minutes.To make an already great Christmas awesome we met up with our besties, the Guymons. And no Sarah, I don't think it is possible for us to get sick of spending time together. We went to JJ Ranch where they have an awesome indoor waterpark.Benton loved the tubes.
They had some awesome slides where they had a four person tube. We had 2 adults and 4 kids on it. It was awesome.
Paisley LOVED the little fountains.
Tab was a huge fan of the little kid area. Probably because he could drink the nasty water.
They had a sweet walkway thing.
The kids had a lot more fun than me walking across it. That thing hurt my feet.