CHRISTMAS 2008

Woke up Christmas morning and both Matt and Jonathan had terrible colds.. can you tell?? But that didn't stop Jon from being excited to open up his gifts from Santa. He asked for ball-balls this year (big surprise) and was thrilled that he got them! Alissa asked for Scooby Doo Haunted House game... I wish you could have seen the look on Santa's face. He said, "Really? That's what you want? That's ALL you want??" To which Alissa replied, "YES!" Hehe.. love my girl. So, here it is! Jonathan enjoyed holding every single present high in the air to show it off. And my patriotic little girl got the self waving flag that plays patriotic songs that she wanted. Every morning we play the Start Spangled Banner and she puts her hand on her heart all serious until the song ends. You go girl! Jonathan found his two favorite things in his stocking - Tic tacs and ball-balls! :)

And I got an extra special gift from Santa this year -- My own LAPTOP!!! Words cannot express how excited I was!!! I must have been a real good girl this year!

It was a fantastic Christmas morning.

We ended the day at Grandma Davis' house with the best Christmas dinner EVER! And of course yet again I did not have my camera. Oops. Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve morning we headed to Grandma Adams' house for yummy breakfast burritos and of course..presents!!!

The kids sat on the floor and opened their presents together. It was very cute and they were all on cloud nine.

Alissa even played us some Christmas tunes.
It was a wonderful morning! Full of laughter and family..nothing better.

Then we went home for Jon's nap and when he woke up the kids got to open their presents from mom, dad, and GG! Jonathan's favorite present was the bubble wrap (surprise surprise) followed by a very cute dump truck from GG! Mostly he was content to sit and pop the bubble wrap.

Alissa's favorite was her very own "My Pet Monster" that mommy found for her new in box on ebay!! Mommy had one as a kid..and since Alissa LOVES monsters, well it was the perfect gift!!

I had to get one for Jon too..so he got the original 1986 (the one I had located on the left) and Alissa got the 1991 version (it talks!) Where would I be without Ebay???
After we opened presents it was off the Grandma Davis house for..you guessed it..MORE PRESENTS! Unfortunately I left daddy in charge of taking pictures.. sooo.. this was all I could scrounge up. I will have to get more pictures from someone elses camera!! Although, Grandpa does look thrilled to get his new hat. Hehe.

Adventures in Freezing Rain

Note the ice coated basketball hoop and branches... It was a great adventure for the kidlets. Their snowman had a two inch coating of ice on him. Pretty cool stuff. :)

The Nutcracker Ballet

Alissa was so excited on performance day! Her first time on stage!! Mommy got to put big girl makeup on her and everything!! Here is mommy putting on the foundation - Then the finished product!! One girl ready for the stage!
Here is Alissa backstage all dressed in her costume and ready to hit the stage.
And a picture with all of the baby soldiers! :)

The performance was wonderful and the kids all did great. Alissa was a champ because it was a LONG day. We showed up at the theatre at 1pm for dress rehearsal and didn't leave there until 9pm after the show. I was so proud of my little Alissa. She was so confident and remembered all of her moves. She was beaming at the end of the show when she got flowers from family...she was a real star.

Mr. Winter

Wow has it been fun this last couple weeks. We have had snow, freezing rain, sleet.. everything in between. The kids have been in heaven!
Triton is getting huge and is just a big dorky sweetheart.

And on these winter days what could be better than cuddling up in a basket with your sibling? Nothing I can think of.

Alissa had her Nutcracker ballet performance Saturday, it was great! I'll post on that after I upload the photos. Until then...playing catch up with the blog! :)

Adventures in Tie Dye

Just a quick post... I took all the kids stained t-shirts and we had a tie dye party. Too much fun! The kids did a great job and the shirts all turned out fabulous.

A Spiderman Christmas?

That's what we almost had...
See it all began with a harmless school field trip to a cute little tree farm. The owner of the tree farm invites the preschoolers to come to his farm and pick out a tree for their school. He also allows parents to pick and tree on his lot no matter the size for $10. What a deal!! Every year we get a Noble, but this year with money being tight we couldn't pass up such a great offer. So we bundled the kids and headed out for the field trip. Alissa was so very excited to pick our family tree. She immediately latched on the the tree you see her standing by in the picture below.
Lucky for us it wasn't huge or we were heading for a Griswold Christmas. It was the perfect size and cute as can be...we found our tree!!! The nice tree farmer cut it down for us and Matt strapped it on the van. Mission accomplished!! Until we got it home.. that's when the fun began.
So Matt trimmed up the tree and got it in its stand and we put it in a place of honor in our living room. I went out to the garage and got our ornament box and the lights and we all gathered round the tree for the best part - decorations!
This is when I stared lovingly at the tree and noticed something was amiss. As in.. the tree was moving. Weird. I got a little closer and saw a pretty good size black spider had crawled to the edge of a branch. MATT! I called.. SPIDER!! In comes daddy my spider mooshing hero to save the day. But wait, come back! Another one!! It all goes downhill from here. You see.. after he mooshed the first 3, the rest of them came out of hiding. As soon as I lost count I told Matt to put the tree outside...QUICK. And he did.
Ok...time to regroup.. Alissa is in a bit of a panic -- MY TREE MY TREE! Why is it outside? I try to explain that there were a few spiders and we didn't want them getting all over the house so we put it outside. At this point what does any good mom do?? I hit the internet! I needed some serious advice... how do you rid a Christmas tree of spiders? Now let me explain something.. these spiders were not all of the same species.. we had big ones, little ones, red ones, black ones, tiny baby ones..getting the picture? Yep..it was a Spiderman Christmas tree.
So the net.. not at all useful. Basically the only advice was to use a vacuum if you found a spider or two..well, we did NOT have a spider or two...we had an infestation. But again, I'm a good mommy so I lug the tree back inside and plop it on the kitchen floor. No spiders in sight...but I have learned from this experience that the spiders do not crawl out to the edge of the branches until they warm up a bit. Lovely. About 15 minutes later out come my spidy friends and I start suckin them up. After a few, I decide this is just too creepy and put the tree back outside. It is getting late and getting cold, I know it will be well under freezing that night so I have a brilliant (haha) idea..I hose down the tree and let it freeze! That'll teach those spiders who's boss!!
The next morning I shake the now melted water off the tree and drag it inside. 15 minutes later...no spiders. I feel triumphant for the next 5 minutes until the little buggers start to creep out again. Ok..plan A and B didn't work. Time for plan C - the tree went back into the backyard, I bundled up the kids.. and headed for a different tree farm. Problem solved.
And that my dear friends and family.. is the story of how we almost had a Spiderman Christmas. There is a moral here - Always check your tree for spiders before putting on your decorations.. you just never know when you too might have a Spiderman Christmas.
The End.