Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! This is as close as we got this year to a Christmas card. Hopefully we can get a good family picture soon. But for now...little J &H with some sibling hand holding wishing you a "Very Merry Christmas!"

A few of my favorite things...

This year during the Christmas season, a few of my Favorite things...

~being together as a family

~our crooked Christmas tree that is now only decorated on top. Yes, it has been pulled over AGAIN. Don't ask how many times.

~"Ho, Ho"s . Not the snack cake but what my kids think Santa says.

~Our Christmas lights on the front of our house. Mark & I's 5th Christmas together as a married couple and the first year we have had lights.

~"Jesus." Yes, I am thankful for Jesus and the gift that he is to us. But also that my kids know who he is. And I think it is slightly humorous that they fight over him while playing with their little people Nativity.

~Stickers. A new favorite part of our bed time routine is the advent calendar and the stickers we put on each night.

~"Snowman" "Santa" "Tree" "Pretty" (in relation to anything that lights up and sparkles)
Just a few of the words that I hear all day long.

Despite all the sickness we have had in our house
AND
I can't put any Christmas presents under the tree
AND
I haven't made any of my normal Holiday goodies to give to friends
AND
we never got around to a Christmas card...

So I will embrace Christmas and its meaning and cherish all of my favorite things so far about the 2010 Holidays!

Nativity Play

Hannah and Jack were able to "participate" in our church's nativity play this year. Jack was a sheep and Hannah was an angel...and I thought they were adorable. They, of course needed a lot of assistance from us but we were excited to watch them have their first stage debut. Also, we both forgot the camera so thank you Paul for the pictures.

(H is not pleased about the halo - she ended up not wearing it)

(Jack was a little shy and sat at my feet eating fruit snacks, YES - it was a bribe)

Get your Dance on

Dancing at the end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Little Diva

This girl loves glittery, sparkly, shimmery everything. She loves headbands, hats, purses, etc. I sometimes find her with 3 head bands on - she loves to dress up.

Loves to show off the belly button!

Its a Potty

You might be wondering if we are actually starting to potty train our little angels. The answer is "heck NO." They are no where near ready. But, there has been some recent interest in the toilet around our house.

Jack : Uses the stool to climb on the toilet (while closed) and yells "potty" over and over.
Hannah : Can't stop playing in the water. Yuck! Little opportunist sneaks in whenever the bathroom door is even slightly ajar.

So...we got a little toilet for them just so they can see it and sit on it if they want to. (Mainly Jack). But as far as actually doing anything with it...not yet! I imagine it will be awhile and we are definitely not interested in forcing the issue which in my mind would just be making it a much longer process than necessary. For now we just read books on it.

Flashback

Me Feb. 1981 (around 18 months)

Me 2010, still playing with toys.

Jack 19 months.

Hannah scared of them being on her cheeks, 17 months.

O Christmas Tree

We put up our tree and had to wait awhile before we could decorate it due to all of us not feeling well. But, we finally found a day where we could all participate in the ornament hanging. Everybody helped and it was a lot of fun. The top part of the tree has breakables and the bottom part is sparsely filled with un-breakables since I can't seem to keep their curious little hands from touching the oh so desirable ornaments. There are also a few that just never made it on to the tree and were confiscated by my darlings as new toys - "oh well."

We only had one mishap (ahem, Jack).

But we fixed it (sort of) and the tree will go on twinkling and sitting a bit crooked until Christmas.

Here is me posing while the kids take pictures. I guess they were sick of being in them and wanted to take some too, Dad held the camera while they pushed the button.

Finishing the decorating with a cheers of eggnog.

Tulsa Treasured Monents

Here are just a few more of my favorite moments from our vacation...

My parents doing the Hokey pokey to entertain the kids who were already seated at the table.

Attempted posed picture.


"I love it in here."

Peek-a-boo.

Wish this could have captured her squeals of delight from being thrown up in the air.

Quack Quack

My kids loved feeding the ducks. They know what ducks are and they love to tell me what they say, "quack-quack." We have a book called Rainbow Duck that we read all the time, so it was fun to be able to show them some real ducks. On Turkey day it was quite cold, so we were bundled, but it was so fun! But you wouldn't have even known it was cold outside - I think they would have stood there all day throwing bread to the ducks, if we had let them. And they didn't even try to eat the bread - just threw it!

Uncle J and Aunt Amie

We had so much fun the first time we decided to go see some other ducks later in the weekend with GiGi and Grandpa at a park near the house. It was warmer this time but VERY windy.

Again, we had lots of fun and as were leaving noticed the big sign that said "Do not feed the fowl." oops!