Red Hot New Year's Eve

Christopher had to spend New Years with the youth of the church (that's what happens most holidays when YM pres.) so the kids and I lit up the night with fireworks (albeit tame, fountains, sparklers, smoke bombs, and pop its and Christopher was there for a bit), played games, watched some Harry Potter and had pizza with root beer floats. Yum! A lot more mellow than last years farewell.

This fountain was pretty awesome. Mostly b.c it started our drought thirsty lawn on fire!

This got out of hand real fast, however Christopher was prepared with massive stomping action.

The last night skyline of 2008 was quite a sight. Unfortunately, my camera doesn't quite capture its mystic!

Some sparkler action. I know, I know, calm down already, right?

We were some serious party animals!

Red hot, baby.

Some 'pop it' stompin' action.

Smoke bombs. Oh, glorious stench bombs.

Caden loved holding "fire".

Christmas at The Barn

More Christmas excitement! We went to the Barn the day after Christmas to celebrate with Granna and Pa! As usual, we were all spoiled!

Granna's tree.

Gavin scored more Lego's! He finally got his last "hard to find" Lego set from the Mars Mission theme.

Caden scored more cars (his favorite) and a huge dump truck! The truck is a favorite out in the backyard sand box.

Reese got some hand made granna "pretties"!

Reese got a Fancy Nancy doll and of course some fancy nancy accessories. Here she is all glamored up with Pa.

Uncle Phillip came home just in time for some niece and nephews lovin'. He's a hot catch ladies. Currently single.

Caden with the infamous back scratcher that all the men got.

Reese with one of Granna's peacock feathers.

It was a good time. We had lots of fun, of course. Thank you Granna and Pa for Christmas! We love you!

Christmas at Home

Seeing how Christmas was over a week ago, I figured I'd better get a post up. Christmas was kinda a bummer picture wise. I just didn't take any pictures. We didn't take a family pic, a Christmas card pic (or send out cards...don't take me off your lists!), a night before Christmas pic, a new jammies pic, pictures opening up presents! What was wrong with me!?!? Oh, well. I did get some.

Christmas Eve didn't really go as planned. Christopher got home from work late so we just had time to eat our traditional steak dinner for Christmas Eve and then went looking around at Christmas lights around the neighborhood and while out, the kids fell asleep! We didn't even get a chance to read our stories or anything. But the nice side of this was that the kids were asleep and we didn't have to fight their excitement in getting them to sleep for Santa to come.

Christmas right after Santa came but before the kids woke up at 5AM ready to start Christmas! We did manage to get them to lay in bed with us for a half hour more, but that's all we could ask of them!

Here is a dark video capturing the kids expressions as they walked into Santa's booty Christmas morning. I have no pictures of them opening their gifts from all their family that sent gifts and neighbors who gave them (including our "Christmas Pixies") and of course Santa. Everyone was more than overloaded with fun and excitement. Lots of Ponies, board games, video games (for Wii and Nintendo DS), hot wheel cars and tracks, and a ginormous amount of Lego's. I have to say there were a few surprise favorites.

I think one of the biggest hits was the Step 2 roller coaster (but Mrs. Clause paid less than half of retail for however, nearly lost her life securing it!!!). We knew Caden would be in 7th heaven given his history earlier this year. The surprise was that ALL the kids are crazy for it. Bonus! It also means all the kids fight over whose turn it is and a 2 year old that believes it's all "mine".

Caden loved his and Gavin's transformer play tent and his own set of Lego blocks. He mostly used it as a car fort for his mother load of cars he got for Christmas.

Reese was happy with more dress up dresses and playing with her ponies and Tinkerbell fairy's in her new princess play tent.

Daddy and Gavin loved their new Nerf target game for the Wii.

I think the biggest surprise was the Pokemon game that has overtaken the house. Gavin has asked for some Pokemon game cards I think just about every shopping trip we have taken this year and I've always said no. We just didn't think he would know how to really play and would just wind up losing cards. Well, Santa decided to give it a try and batta bing! Gavin totally knows what to do and the surprise is that Daddy is way into it too! They play for hours together and have spent all their holiday cash getting MORE cards! Gotta level up!

Gavin and Christopher's new favorite place to shop together!

Buying more Pokemon cards!

Go Elf Yourself!

Go check out the Forney FIVE in the Elf Disco Club cuttin' a rug!

Something went terribly wrong...

I don't know if it was the fact that I let a 6, 4, and 2 year old just go to town on it or what, but our Gingerbread Tree did NOT look like the one of the box!

What do you think?

The kids were a little disappointed there were only small balls to add to the tree and therefore added peppermint M&M's as "presents" around the bottom. The tree looks as if it's a little leaning, right? Almost looks like a winding staircase. Maybe this tree belongs with the other Texas Christmas Tree's. Fit right in, wouldn't you say?

The front view isn't too bad. Only the star for the tree topper is on backwards, not a big deal.

Something about it is just so unsatisfactory. The kids wrapped up this activity within a half hour! Now what are we supposed to do?!!?

I particularly love the one over sized tree ornament. It's like a big zit on the tree! This is precisely why I don't make gingerbread from scratch and go with the pre-baked kits. If I had gone through all that trouble and ended up with this...it wouldn't be pretty around here! I think we'll skip the tree next year!

Just maybe our tree ranks up there with "Snappy" the Yuletide Monster.

Yeah, Christopher and I laughed til our abs hurt for 2 whole hours on Cake Wreaks (which you really should check out *late night makes for perfect giddiness*) the other night when we saw this post about the Yuletide Monster, Snappy. WARNING: the following may be offensive language for a family blog. Taken from our stitched together Yuletide Monster, he's said to be "made of sugar and spice and will mess your a$$ UP, beeyotches." That's for you my goose!

Jog'r Egg Nog'r 5k

This weekend was the Jog'r Egg Nog'r 5k at Norbuck Park in Dallas. I had actually been preparing for this race, unlike my last 5k, so come race day I was pumped and ready for action.

I brought my fan club with me!

Reese gave me lots of encouragement while Caden chased Gavin with a large stick. That was, until a dog mistook Caden to be playing catch with him!

After the dog got a hold of his stick and got it all slobbered on, he didn't want anything to do with it.

The race started promptly at 9:00am (I love winter's late start times) and I was off. It was a beautiful run with views of downtown Dallas and trails along White Rock Lake.

While I ran, the kids took a scenic tour of the wooded area of the park for exploring with Daddy.

I love this shot that Christopher got of Caden while exploring in the woods.

Reese found heart shaped leaves.

Another cool shot. If only we had an awesome camera...

Reese was leading the pack most of the time, taking turns with Gavin of course.

My run was so good! I loved most of every moment of it. Despite it being 70 degrees with LOADS of humidity, and a supremely over sized long sleeve shirt (in which I had to keep pulling my sleeves up all during the race), I managed to not get too over heated. After I finished the first thing Gavin said was, "mom, did you know that your face has purple on it over here and red over there". Yes, my son, my body does not know how to cool itself properly and therefore everyone thinks they need to call for an ambulance when I run! I also really missed my running partner, Marni, this time around. She took her daughter to the Nutcracker, so she skipped out on this one.

This run was a personal best for me. I ran the 5k in 34 minutes 40 seconds (it wasn't chipped) which is good for me, however, I know I would have been faster if I hadn't gotten stuck behind and working my way through all the walkers and mobs of people for the first 1/4 mile at the beginning. My goal is to get to a 30 minute 5k. Time to get training again for our next race, the Snowman Shuffle on the 10th of Jan. or maybe the Too Cold To Hold race on the 17th b.c it will be chipped.

Gavin's KC Christmas Party

It was Gavin's turn to have his classroom Christmas party. After seeing how little I was really able to participate with Reese yesterday having a toddler and infant in tow, I got a babysitter for Caden and Baby R today for Gavin's party. I just couldn't imagine bringing in a preschooler, toddler and an infant and actually be a part of Gavin's party! SO glad I did!

Here is Gavin's entire class. They got lucky today with an early release, allowed to wear jeans and a red or green Christmas shirt for the day (uniforms every other day, jeans are a big deal treat) AND have a Christmas party!

Gavin's class made snowmen out of marshmallow cream and powdered sugar. The concoction proved like playdoh and was quite fun.

Reese was allowed to participate in the snowman making too. Only her snowman didn't have a scarf b.c "it was too hot and was going to melt". How true, after all, it was 77 degrees outside today!

Next up was cupcake decorating. Not sure what Gavin's was supposed to be. Probably something wonky like his facial expression.

Reese said hers was "a rocket ship with lots of missiles on it". Did I mention she has two brothers and NO sisters?

Catered Chick-fil-a for lunch. YUM! (That was MY favorite part of the party!)

Snowball "hot potato" was a big hit with every kid winning a treat. Gavin was nearly the last one out.

After the games were played it was time for a Christmas story from his teacher just before leaving to go home for winter break. I tried to get this picture just a second too late. Gavin had his arm around Reese and was paling around with her ignoring his friends. It was so cute and just melt my heart. They truly are the best of friends.

I love my little G-man and am so glad to have been at his school party. Merry Christmas my son! My first born. It was seven years ago this month that I learned I was pregnant with you! They weren't kidding, time does fly by!