Christmas and more

 

This Christmas was the whitest I ever remember having in my time in living in Washington.  We so enjoyed it.  We had planned on two weeks of hustle and bustle before the holidays, but thanks to the snow it was all canceled and we all stayed home and hibernated, nothing I love more!!!!  I really enjoyed the time we got to spend just being together and doing nothing........  Tristan was fascinated by the snow.

We made sugar cookies and decorated them and then took them to Daddy's office, Seri's Voice teacher and Shakespeare teacher and our good friends.  Tristan loves the cookies but for some reason they put him to sleep.

 

 

At geography club we gave presentations centered on "Christmas around the world".  The Olson's presented on how different religions celebrate Christmas in the Holy city of Bethlehem.

After the presentations the children separated.  Here are the older children.....

The middle children made Christmas "poppers".

And the little ones hung around the food table waiting for someone to feed them!

 

We have a family that are good friends and we are so fortunate to know them.  Their kids all pretty much match up to ours so it makes it really easy and nice to go places with them.  It is humorous to watch them all pair off on their own accord.

Here are Isaac and Sariah.........

Michael pairs off with Anna and Jessica, one is a little older than him, the other a little younger.....

And Seri and Sam........those two......well, that's another blog entirely.

Sariah has her own friends that have literally grown up together since they were about two months old...  Their birthdays are all within two weeks.

Not only do our kids mesh together nicely but both of my babies absolutely adore Miss Lori.  In fact, Riah can get pretty territorial over her.

Next, the girls and I headed off to the fire station to wrap presents for their annual toys for Joy program.  We wrapped for three straight hours, pretty insane but also a lot of fun!!  It should be mandated that all toys be wrapped in square packages however.

We had a Christmas party at church and thankfully Santa showed up.  Riah has been obsessed with him all season.  Every day, every hour, she asks if we can see Santa.  Any time we get dressed in coats she says "i go see Santa?"  Then all of a sudden she declared that Santa was "scary" but she still wanted to see him.  One day Michael told her that Santa was coming and she spent the whole day at the window waiting for him.  I have never before had a child be Santa Crazy.

Christmas eve is spent at my Aunt and Uncles house with my side of the family.  the younger kids get stockings and the adults and two older girls have a gift exchange which some years can get pretty heated.  We then play games and just enjoy each others company. This post has ended up being long and I am ready for bed, I'll post more tomorrow, or the day after, or Feb............  

Dec 14th- First Snow!!!

We woke up this morning to snow!!!  The younger children were so excited to go out and play in it!

I love this shot because of it's perfect timing.  Michael had just hit Isaac with a snowball.  You can see the glee on Michael's face and the snowball particles, and yet Isaac is totally unaware yet.

Poor Riah tries so hard to keep up with her brothers!!

 

Meanwhile, Serenitie is sleeping peacefully when her father decides to put an end to that.  She was content to let him carry her until.....he opened the screen door......

 

 

Promptly dropped her in the snow, and left her there.

To which she responded "That's not cool dad".  I beg to differ. At this point I think she was very cool indeed.

PS. I have no idea why she wasn't in PJ's and yes, we still have a yard under construction.

 

This is what you get when the two year old has been out in the cold long enough.

PS. No comments on both the scissors and the knife next to her.  I know I am not winning any mommy of the year awards :)

But of course a cup of hot cocoa makes everything all better!!!!

Ahah!! I figured it out! When I uploaded the pics of Riah I thought, "funny, that is the same outfit she was wearing in the other pictures from the night before." Upon further inspection of both sets of pictures I realize that every single one of my children are in the clothes they had on the night before!!! Yea, I knew that Mommy of the year award was gone along time ago :)

Tis The Season

This year I seem to be more in the Christmas spirit than I have in the past few years.  We have been to look at Spanaway park lights which has taken the place of Zoo Lights because at the park you drive through and can sing christmas carols without other people looking, and stay in the nice warm van which I am especially grateful for with the babies.

We also went to look at all the lights in the neighborhood by the water (read rich neighborhood). Some of those displays were amazing!!

Our good friends have a gingerbread house making party each year (complete with santa of course) and this was the first year we were able to attend. 

The children with all of their creations.  My older two are no longer at the age where they just smile politely for the camera.  Seri most often refuses to smile and Michael will pull off the funny face routine, which I am sure you may have noticed.

Of course we couldn't get Ser to smile so the mother of her good friend "Sam", told her to smile for him and this was the reaction we got.

Poor Sariah is at the age where she thinks she doesn't need naps and so she didn't have one this day and you can tell by the pic that she is about done.

                                      

Have I mentioned before how much this boy loves his Daddy?  I adore this picture.

 

We also sat around the tree and sang carols complete with a pianist.  It was surprising to realize how many carols we actually don't know all the words too!  I think Silent night and Rudolph were the only ones that were without murmuring.

                                 

Remember my funny face boy I was talking about?  He strikes again!!