Christmas Night 2009

We all had a great Christmas.  We filled up on good food and family time.  It was a little disappointing that Mom wasn’t here but I know that she was having a good time in Maine visiting with family there.

Later after dinner one of Tyler’s good friends, Ryan, came over.  He joined Tyler and Logen in on a trivia game that Tyler got for Christmas.  This is a pretty cool game where you play with a game board but also it has a DVD, so movie clips and extras can be shown too for additional questions.

 
After Tyler’s friend left Tyler, Logen, Dennis and I played a game of scrabble.  I borrowed mom’s game, since she was out of town and not using it (thanks mom) and it was a lot of fun!  I was the grand winner of scrabble that night.  What a lot of fun and laughs.

  I am so glad that Tyler was able to come home for Christmas this year.  It makes a world of difference to me, to be surrounded by the kids at Christmas…..

Christmas Morning the Aftermath….

Every Christmas, as far back as I can remember, we clean up the wrapping paper and boxes as we open gifts.  The wrapper goes in  a big garbage bag and the boxes are broken down to recycle or use again.
Not this year…we decided we would just “throw” everything into one big pile, out of the way of everything.  This was the result after three hours of opening gifts:

It was a great idea until our neighbor came over to borrow some cinnamon.   Not only did we have to walk through this pile and try to get the door open….but we embarrassingly had to show her the pile!
 
And the other side of the room!
What a nice stress less morning we had.  Good times!

Christmas 2009

This is our Christmas photo album.  As I was adding these pictures to our blog I realized that Dennis must have been behind the camera because I do not have one picture of him.

We had a great morning.  To me, it doesn’t matter the age of the kids, I enjoy watching them open their gifts.  We put a lot of time, thought, effort and most importantly love in picking out gifts for them….it is a real joy to me to watch their face when they open them up!

 

With Love,

Tina

Santa Visited our Home

……and we have pictures to prove it!

Colin was very excited to see that Santa enjoyed the Oreo cookies just as much as he does!  :)


Santa was very good to the boys……Logen got the Lacrosse stick that he really wanted.
Tyler got a cool light for his computer or book reading that works off batteries or the computer USB.
Colin really wanted a “Toy Story” bike but he got the next best thing, a scooter.
The stockings were also filled with goodies……I guess they all made the “nice” list in 2009.

Tyler the Photographer

Tyler purchased himself a REALLY nice camera awhile ago.  I do not know enough about cameras to give all the details except it is digital, of course, and he has different size lenses that he can interchange. 

He has become really good a taking pictures. He has a great eye for the art.  Also his computer skills really come in handy during the editing the process.

These are some of my favorites he took while he was here:

  As you all know, Colin’s favorite character is Buzz Lightyear.  Here he is wearing his pajamas.  Tyler added the wings so he could “fly” and the space background.

Logen and Shelbe under the Christmas tree.  Great picture--the image is sharp--I love it!

This is a picture of my kitchen window sill.  I love the angle and how he made it a black and white print….a very good choice.

And my absolute favorite:

Do you notice how everything is black and white, except the soda can, hat and the cowboy picture hanging on the wall behind him?  I love the look on Colin’s face.  Tyler did an incredible job with this picture!

And if everyone is wondering…yes he is wearing the  now “famous” Buzz Lightyear pajamas!

With Love,

Tina

Logen and Shelbe

A few days before Christmas Logen and his girlfriend, Shelbe got together at our house so they could exchange gifts.

It was a nice afternoon with Shelbe’s mom, Kristi,  and her younger brother joining in on watching them exchange gifts.

 

We had a good time watching them open their gifts.  Shelbe got Logen some great gifts.  Logen did a great job picking out gifts for Shelbe too.

Next on the social calendar for these two is the Sweetheart Dance in February.  It was a “girl ask boy” dance; Shelbe asked and Logen said yes. 

With Love,

Tina

Preschool Christmas Party

Colin’s preschool had two days of Christmas festivities.  The Christmas party was on the Wednesday before the holiday vacation and Thursday a surprise guest was coming to visit the kids. 

The Christmas party was a lot of fun for Colin and the rest of the kids in the classroom.  The teachers had several activities planned.

The first thing Colin did was make reindeer food to lay out in front yard.  The food consisted of oats and some sparkly colored sugar crystals.  We WERE suppose to spread it out in the front yard for the “reindeer” the colored sugar was suppose to sparkle so the reindeer could find our house.  Unfortunately, we forgot to put it out but luckily the reindeer knew where to stop anyway.  

Then Colin played a fun game of pin the red nose on Rudolph.  Perfect placement of the nose---do you think maybe he could see through the blindfold? 

Next we frosted cookies together……

…then he was able to eat his cookie with his favorite drink:  chocolate milk.  As you can see Colin has not mastered drinking from a cup so he still uses the straw.  He has been working on drinking from a cup and I am sure he will get the hang of it soon.

Then the kids went into the gym and played a fun Christmas tree game.  All the “decorations” were scattered around the floor.  When the teacher would say the name of a decoration (like RED SQUARE) the kids would find all the red squares laying on the floor and attach them to the tree.  This continued until the whole tree was decorated. 

It was a fun party…all the kids enjoyed themselves.  But on Thursday came the most anticipated day of the week……….

SANTA came to school for a visit.

The day was designated to be pajama day.  To tell you the truth I did not think Colin would ever go to school in his pajamas. This is the kid that won’t even come out of our camping trailer with pajamas on….he is the first one dressed in the house.  He really pays attention to the details on how he looks.  (sounds like a certain someone else I know….not mentioning any names…Ryan…Dad)

So I decided to break a rule and give him one of his Christmas present early…a new pair of pajamas.  A pair that looked like a costume of his favorite Toy Story character:  Buzz Lightyear!  Ohhhh my gosh, he was so excited.  Just in case you don’t know, Buzz Lightyear is a space man and flies….so Colin thought he would be able to fly too.  He was so excited to put on the pajamas then he hopped on the couch ready to fly off.  Thank God he has common sense and did not leap off of the couch. 

He was more than excited to wear his new pajamas (or costume, the way he says it) to school.

 

As you can see, his arms were in the “flying” position most of the day!  It was hilarious!

Finally, the most anticipated time had arrived……

….SANTA!!!!!

This year, unlike last year, Colin was all about Mr. Claus…..no fear.  He was totally excited.

Santa read the kids the book Twas the Night before Christmas. With both of the preschool classes together there were about 20 kids sitting in the circle listening to Santa read.  I am not trying to brag or anything, well maybe a little, but Colin was one of the best behaved kids there.  Some kids were talking out loud while Santa was reading.  Others were walking around.  Not Colin he was content to sit there and listen to every word that Santa read.  We were all so proud of him. Do you notice the cute little blond sitting by him in the picture?  That is Mackenzie, one of his best friends in school.  She is a little older than him and they adore each other…it is so cute!

What a great start to the Christmas holiday for Colin!

With Love,

Tina

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve tradition is that the kids are able to open one gift.  It is usually a smaller gift and in past years I sometimes choose the gift to be a family movie so we all can watch it together on Christmas Eve. 

This year I decided that I would have the kids open up pajamas.  I made sure I washed them before I wrapped them so they would be able to wear them that night.  The pajama pants were a good gift for Tyler since it was something he forgot to pack and bring with him from home. 

    Tyler got “The Simpsons” pajama pants…..a cartoon show, geared toward adults, a little more than kids,  that he still enjoys.

Logen, our forever sports nut, got ESPN pajama pants.

Colin was very excited to get SpongeBob Square Pants, another cartoon, pajamas.  How excited was he?  Check out the next picture……

He was yanking at his clothes trying to tear them off so he could put his new pajamas on.  It was so funny….We could not believe how excited he was!

Don’t they look great in their new pajamas??  :)

After all the excitement of opening ONE gift, it was time to set out the milk and cookies for Santa.

The answer is YES if anyone is wondering if those are plain ole’ OREO cookies that we left for Santa.  They are Colin's favorite and Colin thought they might be Santa’s favorite cookie too!

I wonder if Santa will leave a note for us too…..????…..

With Love,

Tina