christmas 2012

Christmas comes and goes faster each year.  With the months of prep and all the excitement for a day of pure bliss.  And then the weeks of clean up after.  I'm exhausted.

We started off the season with going to Bethlehem.  Not the real Bethlehem.  Just Georgetown a neighboring town to Round rock.  They turn their down town into Bethlehem for two days.   It's really cute.  They have Hay all over the street, little booths for the kids to go to and see how things were made back then, they also get to see a re-enactment of Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus.

Waiting for the play.

 

Gavin making bread. 
He and Josh also made Perfume, coins and other fun things they had back in the day. The weather was so warm it was such a perfect night.

Then we had two parties.  Our Church Breakfast and Ryan's work family party.  It never fails every year it's on the SAME day.  So we get pretty partied out that day.  The kids love it though.  The Church breakfast was fun as usual but wow has our Ward grown.  We couldn't find a table because we were a tad late.  Ryan just got back from Houston that night and we had to drop off his rental.  I don't even recognize most of the people in our ward anymore.  The kids ran around like crazy as usual and they all had a great time.  I tried to get Gavin to sit on Santa's lap.  But again he refused.  He said. "that Santa is a little creepy, I like the one at Dad's work better."  So I reminded him of that at Dad's work.  But again he said.   This Santa's creepy to.  It was so funny Gavin was decorating a cookie when he saw Mrs. Clause come by him in the corner of his eye.  He stopped dead in his tracks looked at her and said so politely.  "could you please move away from me."  He knew where she was Santa was close by.  I'm not sure why Gavin is so scared of Santa.  Someday he may grow out of it.

I had to take a picture of the picture they took of us.  See we finally got Gavin on Santa's lap I had to bride him with a activity after but he did it.  I was proud.

Josh has such a tender heart.  He felt so bad for Santa setting all by himself in a hot hot suit.  So he made him a cookie and gave it to him with some punch. 
 

Then is was my birthday.   I have the sweetest friends who took me out to lunch on 12/12.  It was fun to celebrate my birthday and that special day at 12/12/12 @12:12 with some of the people I really love being around.  Then some of the other girls that couldn't come took me our to breakfast on Friday.  I always get so depressed around my birthday time. Not sure why but I always have. So it was nice having so many sweet people make me feel loved. 
The day before on the 14th was the horrific shooting in Newtown Connecticut.  I was at Breakfast with my friends then went to the mall when I heard the news.  I came home and turned on the t.v. and couldn't stop sobbing.  I couldn't wait to go pick up my babies from school and just hug them as tight as I could.  I thought the news was right when they said.  "Evil showed up today."  I couldn't sleep or eat for two days. All I wanted to do on my Birthday was be with my Husband and Boys.  So we spent the day hanging out together.  We gave Sadie a bath, got the boys hair cuts, played games, finished school projects and went to our favorite PHO place.  We also made Ginger bread men.



Gavins cookie

Josh's cookie

My cookie

Trevor's cookie

Then came the school holiday parties.  It was going to be perfect they staggered the parties so I could go to Gavin's 1st then to Joshua's.  So I volunteered to help in Gavin's.  Only problem was when the shooting happened they changed the check in policy and put all the parties at the same time.  While I was happy they are making our children as safe as possible I was sad I had to pick between the parties and since I had offered to help in Gavin's it meant I had to miss Joshua's.  Poor Josh that's usually the case.  He's so sweet and understanding.  What would I do with out my Josh. 
They got the kids nice and hyper and then sent them home.  Trevor was so mad he had a bunch of finals he had to take that day.  No parties in middle school.  It stinks getting older. 

I love helping these little cuties.

We did our usual traditions of going and seeing Christmas lights, we went for a long walk/bike ride with the perfect beautiful weather.Then had our Costa Vita pork tacos and chocolate fountain for Christmas Eve.  The kids were begging to go to bed because they knew Santa would come faster.  They went to bed like a dream only problem is the excitement was to strong and they didn't stay down.  Well one didn't.  Surprisingly it was our oldest.  He just couldn't settle down.

 

 

Yummy dinner.

Trevor wouldn't leave a gift alone.  The one he thought was a PS VITA that's all he kept talking about for weeks.  So when I saw this gift had a little tear in it I asked him what happened and he said. "it accidentally ripped all by itself."  YA that's what happens when you tell a little fib and snoop.  You get your gift Duct taped.  I told him he wasn't allowed to use scissors either.  It sure made present opening a lot longer.

Chocolate "messy" fountain

Christmas Morning started nice and EARLY!!! 6:00 was all we could get to hold them off.  And they came down the stairs sounding like a herd of Elephants. 

Trevor's beloved gift. He was bummed I wouldn't get him the game he wanted with it though.  This kid thinks he's 14.

Gavin asked for a Starlacc.  What is that you may ask?  I had no idea either.  Luckily and thankfully for Amazon I found one.  He hasn't put the creepy thing down for days.



Some of the explosion

And more explosions.

Poor Sadie didn't know what to think.  She just hid in her bed.

Josh took over the guest room and hooked up his new game.  He was in Heaven.  Not to sure I was considering I don't want kids stuff in the guest room.

And Josh said.  This is the best Christmas yet.

 

Gavin's Starlacc. 
Funniest kid ever.  Who else would ask for a hole that eats people? 

 I have a few little pranksters in my house so Santa thought he would give them a prank of their own.  Gavin said.  " I never knew Santa was a little bit RUDE."  He wasn't please at all. 

 

 

 

Waiting to come down stairs.

Gavin also got a gift from his Primary teacher it had this tag on it. The day before I had him write Christmas cards and I was showing him how when you close a letter you say Love and then your name.  So when he came home he had a big smile on his face and said "Look mom I got a gift from Never Melts"  I couldn't help but laugh.  He's so cute.

I learned I'll now be teaching the 6 year olds in Primary instead of the 9/10 year olds.  This has been a challenging year for me.  I have a few kids that are well just less then well behaved.  But also have some kids that are the sweetest most loving children ever.  I wanted to give them a fun treat so I made them a sleigh.  It was a Kit Kat, candy canes, and mini chocolates.  I wrote them a letter of the things I loved about them and bore my testimony of the book of Mormon.  Then gave them a scripture reference card of trials they may have, I wanted to make them a perfect size to fit in their scriptures and something they could keep for ever so I had to laminate them..  Those darn things were such a pain..  But I hope the kid know I loved them and enjoyed being their teacher. 



It's sad to see it all end.  I wish the magic of Christmas could last all year.