Christmas 2008

Christmas was fun this year! We actually started celebrating on Thanksgiving night when Dede, Ken, and Luke were here. The gifts kept coming with the annual 12 Days of Christmas for the boys from Dede and Ken from 12/13-12/24, gifts arriving via Fed Ex from PopPaw and Rose, Christmas on the 18th with Gran & Joey, and all of the other wonderful cards and gifts that the boys received from family. December was a great month for the boys! They enjoyed every gift, $, and card so many thanks to everyone!

We baked some cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. There were no award winners out of the batches but they had fun so a good time for all. Everytime I turned around someone was taking another bite of a cookie or sticking the icing tube in their mouth. After baths and pajamas we popped some popcorn, settled down to watch The Grinch, and the boys exchanged gifts which each other. I took them to Toys R Us on Monday and they bought each other something and even helped wrap them themselves. Brayden loves the peel and stick bows by the way!

Santa (aka HO HO) came when we were sleeping and there were lots of presents to unwrap on Christmas morning. Austin was thrilled with a PSP, another Crash Bandicoot game, and his first cell phone! Brayden got his first bicycle, a fire station for his Thomas the Train collection, and a remote control WALL-E. He's the newest member of our family. So cute! Keaton's presents sat until I unwrapped most of them but he got a busy zoo cube, some clipo blocks, and some new books.

If you haven't had enough, here's some more pictures from start to finish!

trouble maker

He's no Brayden, but Keaton knows how to stir up some trouble on his own.

First... get some grapes out of the fridge and throw them on the floor. (good thing we've discovered Annie likes grapes!)

Next...off to slice the tree in half with my light saber.

High Score!

Yes, I'm such a geek and a serious Wii bowling addict. If I could just be perfect....
(p.s. Austin had a bad game...he's usually better)

Pat A Cake Christmas Cards 2008

Miss Annie

Priceless?

I must post the Santa 2008 picture. It was 25 bucks so please enjoy every penny of it. We ventured out to the mall today so Brayden could meet Santa. He acted excited to go see HO HO but I wasn't quite sure if he was actually going to go through with sitting on his lap. Austin wanted to know why he had to go and was he actually going to have to sit on his lap. Eleven year olds are too old for this stuff you know. I pretty much knew Keaton was not going to be cool with the event so a quick release of the shutter and voila, a priceless memory. I know the rest of you mommies that have been suckered into these Santa pictures this year got jipped too. The cheapest "package" choice was $20 for 4 - 3x5 prints. I just opted for the cd for $25 so I could print it somewhere decent. She also took a cute one of just Brayden and Austin after I rescued Keaton from the jolly old man but then informed me that only ONE would FIT on the disc so I had to choose. Man, these people are really thieves. We all know more than one picture will fit on a disc. In fact, there's still 675 MB of free space out of 702 MB but ok, just take the money. It's fine...I guess I will get over it because we have another santa pic to last a lifetime.

Keaton's First Year

I am finally able to upload Keaton's first year video for family and friends that couldn't make it to the Birthday Bash! Just click the image or the link above to see the video. Enjoy =)

"so much"

Brayden has started adding the most adorable extra words on the end of his sentences lately. "I miss Austin so much". "I love you so much mama". "I love it so much." It's just so sweet when he says it that I had to make a note.

Welcome Baby Olivia!

Probably could have used a stitch...

or some of that nifty glue, but we opted for the butterfly bandage and some neosproin. Brayden was running around the living room doing some of his daily laps and somehow fell into the fabric, padded ottoman and cut his head. I'm still not sure how it ended up cut but it was dented and sliced. Maybe there's a staple poking out somewhere. I haven't figured it out just yet. It seems to be healing as it should so I think he's going to be ok. It will probably be healed up and gone before he lets me pick the band aid glue out of his eyebrow. It was bad placement. My fault! He was not very happy when it was time to remove it.

OH Christmas Tree!

The Christmas tree is getting double the attention this year. Some people (Brayden and Keaton) can't keep their hands off of it and it gets really old after redecorating it for the 10th time! I opted for all plastic ornaments again this year except for the special ornaments that mean something to us. Brayden chose Wall-E this year and he loved him just a little too much. He's still awaiting the replacement of his right arm. Thank goodness for super glue! Keaton got his 2nd Christmas ornament and Austin loves his Bart and Lisa ornament. The favorite ornament of all is the look alike plastic lollipop. Although, if you ask Brayden while he's trying to lick the thing down, he will assure you that it is real and that it tastes good. The tree does make for a nice background, but I won't be sorry to take it down on the 26th. Before, I liked to leave my tree up until the New Year......not since having Brayden and definitely not now that we have another set of hands pulling ornaments and bulbs off.

on our way back to "normal"

This little guy is making me a little more happy these days. Faster Internet. Who knew you should never take your broadband cable connection for granted? Alltell has a decent broadband cell signal over this area so we're tapping in. It's still on the lower end of "high speed" but much better than the 56k modem that I've been hanging out with the past 9 months. That's right folks. Nine months of torture. So, go ahead. Send me a 3 mb picture and I won't even sweat it.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving was lots of fun this year. We've spent several on our own since my husband is a slave to "black friday" so it was nice having a house full of people. Austin helped with the preparations. (p.s the formatting is acting whacky)

We had lots to eat of course and then everyone ended up in the living room to hang out.

Then it was time to drag out the tree and get busy decorationg...

Then we were lucky enough to have a small early Christmas. The boys had fun. Keaton tried to eat the paper off.



Lots of family time. Scrabble, even some twister, and then the Wii bowling competions lasted the remainder of the weekend.