A Tennessee Christmas

We had plans for spending Christmas in Texas but our plans changed when my mother fell the Wednesday before Christmas and broke her wrist and foot.  She was scheduled for surgery the following Tuesday. We went to Arkansas for a couple of days before her surgery and came home on Tuesday before the bad weather that was to follow the next day.  Christmas Eve morning,  we made sausage kolaches and pecan filled kolaches. Scot smoked  a  brisket.  That night we read about Baby Jesus and the kids left Santa some milk and kolaches.  We were out of carrots, so we left bread for the reindeer.  Scot and I stayed up and watched our favorite movie,  It's AWonderful Life.
Christmas morning (5:30) we woke up to Barret standing beside the bed whispering,  "Santa left pwesents unda da twee! Come and see dis. Come on.  Hold my hand."  So out of the bed, and into the living room we went.  Emma and Andrew were already there counting how many presents they had each. 

"Are you gonna cry?" I asked "Maybe." he said when he hugged us after opening his PS2.

He was the only one on the Nice list at our house.

Emma is into Moxie Girls.  She got a couple more dolls and a remote control car that she loves but won't play with it.  I will never understand her.

Andrew is an infomercial freak.  He wanted a Glow Station, Bendaroos, and yes, a Snuggie for kids. He got it all and more Lucky Boy.

Barret was so excited when he got his new train set. This makes the third set. 

I guess you can never have too many?

The Elementary PTA hosted a store for the kids to purchase small gifts for family members.  I gave them both $10 Emma came home with a present for everyone except Barret, she was .50 cents short. Not bad.  Andrew came home with a present for the cat and Nathan with 2 dollars left to spend.  I sent him with another $10  and Emma .50 cents. Andrew came home with a present for everyone except dad and Barret.  Wednesday morning he said he's tired of shopping and handed the job over to Emma (such a boy). 

$30 dollars later here's  what we got:
Nathan- rubix cube keychain & a dinasour egg
Barret- a mini car & Yo-Yo
Emma- small memo pad
Dad-  #1 Dad flashlight and  a #1 dad pen
Mom- 2 identical pink #1 mom pens
Andrew- soft baseball
Faith- Cat toys in a plastic stocking. It was the most expensive and she actually played with them the entire time we were opening gifts.

Andrew said "Sorry mom, they were out of Mom Rocks necklaces.

Darn.... Maybe next year

Traditions

 

This year we decided to leave our tree in the box and get a real tree.  We put the tree up the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  One of our holiday traditions is that every year we take the kids shopping and they choose an new ornament that goes on the tree.  When they leave and have a family of their own.   They can take their ornaments with them to have for their tree. They always seem to pick out a mercury glass ornament. Nathan and  Andrew's selection varies from year to year.   Emma always picks a kitty cat, and  Barret, a train.

Another tradition is that I sew the kids matching Christmas pajamas.  This year I ordered fabric and ended up short 1 1/2 yds.  Nathan grew out of the pattern I normally use.  He now wears an adult size.

Emma and Andrew's school was hosted a Polar Express party.  They were permitted to wear their pajamas and bring a pillow.  They watched the movie in the school auditorium and were served cocoa with marshmallows. Each got a "golden ticket".  They had a blast.   Thank goodness I had a deadline, or they would still be unfinished.

Here is Emma in her pj's before school:

All I want for Christmas is.... =)

                 Andrew and Barret

I stayed up late trying to finish Andrew's before the school party.  He found them on his bed the next morning and came running in to give me a hug.  Scot had dressed Barret before he left for work but, he took them off to try on his new pajamas.  

Andrew loves snowmen.  We have an outdoor snowman that we put out at Christmas.  We used to store it in the attic with a sheet pulled over him.  When we were moving, the movers took the sheet off of him and loaded him on the truck.  Andrew cried for an hour about it because he thought his snowman was going to get cold without his sheet.  They finally had to put the sheet over him so he would stop.

Here is an old picture of Andrew and his buddy when we first bought him. He was 2mos shy of two.

We usually go through 4 pounds of butter during the Christmas season.  We make several different cookies, pecan tassies,  fruit and sausage and cheese kolaches.

I always envisioned creating sugar cookies with my children to look something like this:



Instead the gingerbread  men look like homicide victims.  My cookie cutters were Scot's mothers that included all the holidays.  So our Christmas cookies include the Easter Bunny, the Thanksgiving Turkey, a Halloween Pumpkin and an American Flag.

 It's the memories you're making, right?  Sure.

They're getting good at making cookies though.  I am pretty impressed.  Here's little Miss Martha making her favorite White Chocolate and Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies:

We were a dozen short because she couldn't stop snacking on the dough. I'm surprised she didn't get a stomachache!

 

Andrew making Peanut Butter Chip Cookies.

Barret took the job of transferring the cooled cookies to the cookie jar.

Where's Nathan you say?  Wrestling Practice-  Monday through Saturday, school or no school.  =(

 

No More Diapers!

I never thought the day would come to pass when our house was diaper free.  I have been changing diapers since 2002 and 3 yrs before that with Nathan.  10 yrs. Sheesh!  Nathan was hard to potty train,  Emma, a breeze.  Nothing could prepare me for the trauma Andrew put me through.  He could care less about it and the furniture and clothes he went on either.  He was 4 years and 4 months when he finally seceded.  I swore that I would not potty train Barret until he was ready. I didn't care how old he was.  He knew the concept though,  he always went in the potty before bath time since he was 18 mos.  If Andrew was "watering the lawn" he had to do it too.   Barret was now in a size 6 diaper.  His diaper just wasn't holding what he was producing and Scot and I where playing rock, paper, scissors who would change the muddy ones. It was the last straw when Barret would announce what he about to do in his diaper and then take it off .  We told him that we weren't buying him diapers anymore and that he would have to potty like the rest of us.  He gave us a little resistance but agreed.  He was potty trained on day 1!  I never had to ask him if he needed to go. He took himself.  At night he went to the bathroom on his own.  I couldn't believe how easy it was.  He was a little hesitant about going #2 but when we told him if he didn't his belly would explode,  it was an easy decision after that =)

Free at Last!

SNOW!!!

If it was anything I wanted for my kids to have this winter, was for my kids to experience snow.  We figured moving almost 900 miles away from our home to the mountains would increase our chances significantly.  Then the inevitable happens.  Houston gets snow...inches of snow! Ack!! I didn't tell the kids.  Thankfully the same front moved in on us early Saturday morning and dusted a little on us.  The kids came running in our room screaming, "It's snowing! It's snowing! Nathan is on the roof making snowballs!" I looked out the front door to see Nathan sitting on the sill of the dormer in his room making a stockpile of snowballs. Nathan comes down and says "I have bad news.  The snow is starting to melt!"   Immediately everyone is scurrying to get dressed to go outside.

Nathan took the trucks off of his skateboard to make a snowboard. 

This Aggie wanted to give it a try:

Woops!  Not as easy as it looks, Huh? 

Let's try this again:

 Yes, those are socks on Barret's hand. Nathan and Andrew were wearing them also.

 

"I'm not going to throw it!  I just want you to take a picture of it."

.....and then he threw it at me.

We were all soaked to the bone and had frozen fingers, but it was a fun morning.