Christmas 2012

I'm trying out a new photo system to see if I like it better than Photobucket, which I've been having issue with as of late. So far it's easy to use but my photos are a bit tiny. Will have to do more on it to figure out all the ins and outs, I suppose.

We celebrated Christmas a day early this year, choosing to do our holiday on Christmas Eve since that's when we had all three kids together. Please pardon all of our packing boxes and laundry hampers full of outgrown baby clothes!

See our Christmas tree this year? It's a simple plastic white one that I picked up at Target a few years ago. Usually I just showcase my collection of Hallmark birds but this year we pulled out only a handful of our favorite ornaments and used this as our only tree.

The Girl got her own box of Legos and some tiny Lalaloopsy dolls. The stockings I made two years ago before I knew we'd be having Baby D. In 2013, I plan on making us all new matching stockings for next Christmas!

The Boy got an ocean-themed lunchbox for when he goes fishing with Dad, a magnetic chess board and a book to help him get more skillful. Boy, does he love to play games. And he usually smokes us, he's very good at strategy!

We found out at 9pm the night before that the schedule we'd worked out wasn't going to pan out after all and after getting the kids into bed, it was a scramble to make Christmas morning happen a day early. We didn't have a ton of stuff but certainly put a wrinkle in our plans. I was planning on making a special Christmas breakfast which I still did, complete with pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon. Not much different than our usual Saturday morning breakfasts...except for the bacon! We don't often treat ourselves to bacon. And we had Martinelli's cider in wine glasses, the kids got a kick out of that.


We only did one gift for Baby D, this fun bouncy turtle ride. He's a little short to be able to bounce on it much but he likes dancing to the music and just sitting on it a bit.

After church services and cooking, we gathered up the kids and headed to my parent's for our annual gift opening and dinner. Danny had spent the day cooking up an authentic Spanish rice with chicken and tortillas that was delicious.


My mom and brother Eric


Baby D's favorite new toy, the stacking rings!


My sister in law Rachel


The Boy, being silly


My mother in law, LaVerne (also my parent's next door neighbor)


My dad


The Girl


My nephew

The following morning was just us and the baby, so we spent it lazily packing and watching tv. The Boy spent the night with my parents. It was the weirdest Christmas morning ever, I didn't like it!

I prepared mashed potatoes for the first party and an apple pie for the second and we headed out.

First stop, my aunt's house, which included this little cutie, my cousin's daughter who is just a month younger than Baby D.


This was as good as we were ever going to get of a picture with both of them. Getting two one-year olds to look at the camera at the same time? Unlikely!


This is mostly what a I got...eating leaves and funny faces! Great all the same, I guess?!

 

After my aunt's house we went to Danny's aunt's for more food and an evening of poker playing and outdoor cuddling around the fire. I sacked out with Baby D on the sofa with a little HGTV and it was my own little heaven. It was a nice Christmas and we're definitely looking forward to celebrating it next year in our new home! Only about 15 more days until we should be moving in (fingers crossed!). Blessings to all for a Happy New Year!