Christmas and our newest tradition, Frank 2008

Christmas this year was wonderful as always. We are so blessed to live close to most of our fabulous families. We are also blessed that all of our families get along so well.

This year we started a new tradition with the kids. We heard about the Elf of the Shelf from one of my favourite blogs, http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/. I got it in mid-December and we started it right away. I believe it was Dec. 13th. So the idea is that you get the Elf of the Shelf and he comes with a book to read. Basically, the Elf shows up at your house right after Thanksgiving each year. He watches you and your kids and each night he leaves the house and reports back to Santa on your goings on. Then he shows up each morning at your house in a different location (it's so much fun watching the kids run around looking for him)! Your kids can talk to him about good or bad things they've done or tell him what they want for Christmas so that he can report back to Santa. We named our Elf, Frank, after my grandfather and it so fits him :) I love this new tradition.

So Christmas morning Ryan, the kids, and I all got up. Santa had eaten the cookies and milk we left for him and he had also taken Frank back to the North Pole to get him rested up to come back to our house next year. The kids ran down the stairs and saw some of the bigger Santa presents out and around. We opened all of our family presents and then had a great Christmas morning breakfast. All the family came over (my parents, Ryan's parents, and my sister and her boyfriend) around 3 pm. We opened all of the family presents and then had Christmas dinner (which included delicious beef tenderloin that my husband made). Overall it was a wonderful Christmas!

Me and the kids just before opening presents, me and Ryan (this picture was taken by Little Miss :) ), and Little Miss opening a present from Nana (with Ryan's mom, Meme, and my mom, Nana in the background)

I will tell you that that afternoon I started to feel really achy and sick. After everyone left it got worse. I ended up being super sick for 5 days after Christmas. My poor husband spent his entire Christmas vacation taking care of me and our kiddos.

Our tv room before Christmas morning, my father in law with the picture frame that Ryan made for him, and Santa's letter to the kids :)

A Different Christmas Poem

A DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS POEM

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter, beside me, angelic in rest,

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight,
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve,

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But, I opened my eyes, when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps, outside in the snow.

My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door, just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!

"For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts.
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,

I'm out here by choice.
I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers.

"My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue. An American flag.
"I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother.

Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."
"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."

"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.

For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled .
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That, we mattered to you as you mattered to us.

Neighborhood Outdoor Christmas Movie Night

Baby it's cold outside, oooh
Baby it's cold outside, oooh
Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Ba - Ba
Baby Ba Baby Ba Ba
Baby it's cold outside
~Family Song (we made it up :))









For the past two years our neighbors have been having a Neighborhood Outdoor Christmas Movie Night. The neighbors have a huge blow up movie screen to watch the movie on. They make hot chocolate and provide hotdogs for roasting and all of the makings for s'mores. They have a huge fire structure to cook our hotdogs and s'mores over and also have two chimineras for warmth. We all bring a side dish, our lawn chairs, and a bunch of blankets.








This year's double feature started with Home Alone followed by A Tuna Christmas. We only made it through the first movie with the kiddos but it is always so much fun! Today the high temperature was 71 degrees and a cold front came through just before we started the first movie and it was around 35 degrees. We were SOOOO cold!

Little Miss's Christmas Program

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day
That's the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way
To say "Merry Christmas to you."







This year's wonderful Christmas program was "Christmas Around the World". Each of the classes sang a song from another part of the world. Little Miss has been singing Mele Kalikimaka for the past two months and was super excited to sing for all of us :)
These pictures are of her with her school class and with her teacher.

Chrismas Cookies 2008

I sure do like those Christmas cookies sugar

I sure do like those Christmas cookies babe

The ones that look like Santa Claus

Christmas trees and bells and stars

I sure do like those Christmas cookies babe

~ Christmas Cookies by George Strait

Yesterday we continued our family tradition of making Christmas cookies! This is by far my most favourite family tradition and my kids have come to love it as well.

Each year we all get together (this year it was me and Ryan and the kids, my mom and dad, his mom and dad, and my sister and her boyfriend) and make an entire day of lunch and Christmas cookie decorating. We all brought a batch of sugar cookie dough along with another cookie dough or dessert item. Each of us also brought our special cookie cutters to use.

Here are Little Miss and Little Man decorating their cookies. Little Miss did a really great job of decorating and Little Man was so into it this year!

We got to mom's house around noon and had a wonderful lunch of Andra's corn chowder. Then the decorating began. We made candy canes, bells, Santas, and reindeer. And then we made the not so traditional cowboys, fish, unicorns, and t-rexes. Lara's boyfriend was so funny this year, he kept making each cookie look like an animal, no matter what it was supposed to be (my favourites were the bell that became a Christmas octopus and the candy cane that became a caterpillar).

(Here are me and my sister.)

Left to Right: Little Miss and MeMe (Ryan's mom) - Little Miss, Little Man, and Nana (my mom) - Ryan with his green glitter decoration gel :)

Family Fun

These past couple of weeks we've been out and about. The weather has been nice and we've tried to spend as much time as possible outdoors before it gets too cold.

The kids and I spent some time with my mom and dad (Nana and G) on Friday the 21st. My Dad took them out riding on the riding lawn mower and then we all took turns racing across the yard.

Then we all went back inside and my Mom helped the kids make Thanksgiving cookies.

This last Tuesday the 25th we went with some friends to the Grapevine Public Library for their story time and puppet show. The kids loved it :) Little Man even stayed put for the whole show!

ICE! at the Gaylord Texan

With winter apparently upon us (although you wouldn't know it by the 74 degree temp today) we headed out today to the Gaylord Texan Resort to experience ICE! "Visitors will feel as though they have been transported to the North Pole as they bundle up in warm parkas and enter this winter wonderland created with TWO MILLION pounds of ice and kept at a wintry 9 degrees."
One of the mom's from Little Miss's class (it helps to have friends in high places) was able to get our entire class and their families tickets to ICE! We met the group up at the Gaylord this morning, bundled up all of the kids, and headed into the ICE! tent.




It was breathtakingly cold in the tent (we've been down here in Texas too long :) ). Decked out in our snow suits and extra long jackets, we walked from room to room to see the dazzling coloured ornaments, a candy land full of tempting treats, and a life-size Santa's lap to sit on. The kid's favourite "display" was the ice slide! Little Miss and Little Man went down over and over again :)






After the super cold of the ICE! exhibit, we came back into the Gaylord to experience the fabulous Christmas and holiday decorations that they put out... sprawling miniature trains, a HUGE gingerbread house, and Christmas trees of every colour. All of the displays combined with the Christmas music that was playing was enough to get anyone into the Christmas spirit!








As you can see, Little Man had a bit of a rough day but by the time we left, even he was smiling :)