Christmas Morning

Here they are, anxious as could be to get down those stairs. We managed to get them to wait until 8:00 before they could come in and wake us up. The deal their dad made with them was that they had to wait until 8:00 and then they needed to sing Christmas carols to wake us up. They were pretty cute. After I took a few pictures they were off down the stairs as fast as they could go. I didn't take very many picture on Christmas morning, mostly video, but here they are with a few toys.

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we went to Liz and Hector's house for our new annual dinner and nativity. We started the evening decorating gingerbread houses. The older kids love creating and the two younger boys love eating the candy. At this stage in life it's a bit time intensive for the parents since we get to most of the work. I don't know how thrilled they all are with me for providing this fun activity. :) After dinner we got the kids dressed up for the nativity reenactment. Our cast this year was pretty well rounded. We even had a new baby to play Jesus. This picture cracked me up because they were all fulfilling their "roles". Megan/"Mary" was tenderly touching baby Parker/"Jesus", Matthew/"Joseph" was tenderly watching over Mary, Sarah/"The Angel" was angelically watching over all, Joseph/"The Wise Man" was giving his gift to the baby, and Thomas/"The Shepard" is disgruntled by the whole experience. I think shepherds must have felt that way. ;)
I really wanted to take Thomas and the girls to see Santa this year, but I was stuck at home, so I was pleased that he made an appearance at our Christmas Eve party.
And here my kids are with their cousins all ready in their new Christmas pj's. We went home shortly after this to get everyone to bed at a decent time.
L to R: Thomas, Megan, Sarah, Baby Parker, Matthew, Joseph

Mike's Test

I had a few loyal friends ask what this was all about so I am going back in time to add to the post. Mike was experimenting with my blog to see if the image was uploading to the correct proportions. I guess the domino house that Megan made was his picture of choice. The kids will occassionally ask me to take pictures of their most favorite domino structures and play-doh creations. So there you have it. The test was Mike's test. And I guess my unknown test to see if anyone out there was paying attention. :)

Thomas turns 3!

Thomas turned 3 on Dec. 15th. He was so excited for his birthday to finally arrive. I asked him what he wanted and his two requests were a motorcycle cake and his friends to come to his party. I wanted to try to keep it low key, hard for me, but still have a fun party for my little buddy. We started the party at 4:30. It was supposed to be after school got out, but little did I know that we would have a snow day. When the kids showed up we played with play-doh for a bit and then moved onto the cake. I usually make my kids cakes, but this was a year to take it easy for me. (More on that on a different post). I called up Safeway the morning of, since I had debated making a cake all night long as I stressed about this party in my sleep, and they "threw" together a really great cake with mountains, trees and a road for the toy motorcycle. I meant to get a picture of the top. Oh well. Thomas went to the party store with me in the morning and picked out his motorcycle and placed it on the cake himself. He was so pleased with that motorcycle he didn't put it down for at least 3 days after. When we first started to sing "Happy Birthday" he got a little grumpy from the attention.

He then quickly turned that frown upside down and enjoyed the end of the song.
It took him 3 blows, one for each candle, to get the job done. Good going Thomas!

He did not have any trouble getting that cake in him. At one point he just took to the cake on the plate like a puppy. I guess it was easier than with the spoon to just shove your face into the frosting.After the kids finished with cake we were onto the presents. That didn't take long and then they took turns jumping in the bounce house until parents showed up. It was a fun party that only lasted about and hour. Just what I wanted.

Here are pictures with his friends that attended the party.
Mckay and Thomas

Carver and Thomas

Thomas and Vale

Ben and ThomasJoseph and ThomasAnd finally me and my buddy at the end of the night.

He had a great time and that's what matters most. Somehow I survived the day and I just love this little guy so much that I would do anything for him. He is such a bright light in an otherwise gloomy time of the year in the Northwest that I guess I don't need to see that sun since I have little Thomas to shine his smile on me each day.

Christmas Tree

We finally got around to decorating the tree. This was the first year that Mike put the lights on for me. I guess "modified bedrest" has it's benefits. The kids all had a great time hanging up the ornaments. We also continued the tradition of going to a tree farm to cut our own tree. We tried a new place this year. After a lot of searching we found a great tree. Not too "bushy" and just the right height to fit in our front window. The kids like to look for a tree for about 10 minutes and then spend the rest of the time climbing on tree stumps to practice their balancing skills. Eventually we find a tree worthy of my critical eye and Mike cuts it down. Thankfully the tree farm hauls your tree back to the front for you since we of course found ours on the far end of the property. It was a fun day. Unfortunately I forgot a card for my camera. So no pictures getting the tree.