Christmas

Our house could pass for a toy store now. My kids got so many gifts that it is really obscene. Ashlyn's favorite gift was Khi-lan (or however you spell that) doll that talks and moves. Santa brought that one for her. Braden's favorite gift of the night was Tech Deck Dudes. He has asked for them for two years and finally he got some. Mike's grandmother got him a big playset and Mike's parents got him 3 or 4 dudes to play with it and then Santa brought 2 more dudes. I think he has around 13 of them now.

My favorite gift that Braden received was Superhero Chutes and Ladders. We have played that silly game over and over again. My favortie gift that Ashlyn received was her Tinker Bell sweat suit becuase it's cold here this week!

Hope everyone had a merry merry merry Christmas.

All Plugged Up.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Traditions

We have a few family traditions that we look forward to every year. One is going to Macy's and mailing our letters to Santa. Another is picking out our stocking ornaments. Every year we buy a new ornament for our tree. We started doing it a few years ago because if I picked out all the ornaments we would have a tree full of red balls and clay Santas.

Ashlyn, in true princess fashion, picked an Ariel the Little Mermaid snow glob ornament for her stocking.

Big surprise that I picked another clay Santa for my stocking ornament.

Last year Mike's cousin bought him this LT ornament. So he was very happy to use it this year on his stocking.

We wanted to get a dog or puppy ornament for Ariel's stocking but the two stores we went to didn't have any. Of course now I see them everywhere. So the kids settled with a reindeer to decorate her stocking.

Braden has quite the nutcracker collection going. We already have a couple ornaments on the tree and he has his nutcrackers in his room year around. This years nutcracker is covered with glitter. It looks pretty at night when the Christmas lights shine on it.

Another Christmas tradition for us is gingerbread ornaments. They are super easy to make. The dough is made of applesauce, ground cinnamon, and a tiny touch of good ole' fashion white glue. Super simple and the kids love lOVE LOVE making it. I pour all the stuff in the ziplock bag and let them mush it around until a ball of yummy smelling dough forms.

fa la la la

With Christmas comes Christmas programs and concerts. Ashlyn's class sang "Must Be Santa" but I think that most of the audience would agree that Ashlyn sang the song while the rest of the class chimed in as back up. She nearly fell of the stage a few times because she was so animated. Silly girl.

Braden's class sang "Jingle Bells" and " Jolly Old Santa Nick" at his concert. I had a hard time seeing him. The bad part about being the tallest kid in your grade is that you always get stuck in the back. He didn't care. He was just happy to wear something other than his school uniform for a day.

Christmas with Nan & Greg

We started celebrating Christmas a few weeks early. My mom and Greg came for their annual December visit. It was a very yucky cold raining weekend. The rain did hold off for a few hours for the Christmas parade. The kids and the dog are always so happy when their here and so sad when they leave.

4th of July

It's not the 4th of July without new shirts, swimming, bar-b-q, and of course fireworks. It rained part of the day so things were a little slow but Mike, the Canady boys, Braden and Ashlyn found some swim time.

Actually I don't think swimming is the correct word to describe it. It was more like a water body slamming marathon. There was water everywhere. They were jumping and wrestling. Poor little Ashlyn looked like a lost little boat in the middle of a hurricane.

Last year we had a trip to the ER because Braden busted his chin open. This year I thought we were going to make it through the night without any accidents but Mike had to continue the tradition. He learned the hard way that shoes are a good idea when lighting fireworks. He stepped on ...something and burn the bottom of his foot. He acted like it was no big deal but when I saw him hand over his toys to the boys and soak his feet in the pool, I knew that he was trying to be cool.

He had a couple big blisters on the bottom of his foot and was in a lot of pain. He had to wear badges on it all week long but he seems to be all better now.

more Easter PIcs

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! I love Easter. It has all the fun and excitement of Christmas without the two months of stressful shopping beforehand. The Easter bunny hide about 30 eggs around the front yard this morning for the kids to find. It took Ashlyn a few minutes to realize how everything worked but she soon was in full egg hunting mode. Braden was the winner though. He found 2 more eggs than Ashlyn. She was so close to a comeback.

For lunch we went over to my in-laws house for ham and another Easter egg hunt. We were hoping to swim this year but the water was just too cold. Maybe next week we can go for a dip.

I'll add some more pictures tomorrow.

Egg Decorating 101

I was so excited to dye eggs today. It's one of my favorite things. It's always so much fun. I was a little nervous being that we are in a brand new house. I could see a bowl of red food coloring being dumped on my light brown carpet. But nothing like that happened. It was very uneventful today. Almost to the point of being disappointing. Both kids used spoons to dip the eggs. It was neat and clean. Usually they both are blue up to their elbows. I never thought I would say this but I missed the mess days. It was more fun that way.

Ashlyn did not remember dying eggs at all. She was totally confused. At first she was trying to crack the eggs into the dye. I couldn't believe she had no memories of doing this before since she's always surprising us with memories that seem impossible for her to remember. It just took her a few eggs to get the hang of it.