::santa claus came to town::

It was a cold, windy, snowy, night...

...when Santa came for his "pre" Christmas visit. The kids got to sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted him to bring for Christmas.

He asked if they'd been good and gave them a candycane.

Chloe anxiously waiting to tell him about how she wants a princess castle and a hair salon kit

Portie telling Santa how he wants a Buzz and how

Dadduh wants a V (Cadillac)

(Portie cried afterwards because he didn't get his Buzz. He thought Santa was going to give out toys that night-poor boy. He's still kinda new to this whole Santa thing)

Coop was just plain scared. There was no sittin' on Santa's lap for this guy

Here we all are! It was kind of a mad rush when it was our turn 'cause there was a long line of people behind us and the temp was in the single digits AND the wind was blowing AND it was snowing AND Cooper was crying. But what would a Santa picture be without at least one of us crying??

We had donuts and hot chocolate afterwards inside Grandpa's house. He passed away this past March. We missed him last night. He wasn't in the house when we went in to warm up. He wasn't in his chair talking to us, the house wasn't 85 degrees when we walked in, he wasn't telling us about the books he'd been reading, he wasn't talking about all the crazy people standing out in the cold. It just wasn't the same.

::o(nother) christmas tree::

After we did our tree, we decided to go help Grandma and Papa Kitty with theirs. Grandma just had surgery (no, she doesn't have heart disease, that's just the category this info is found under) on her heart, and we wanted to help them get their tree up and house decorated for Christmas. Plus the kids LOVE to "duckorate."

Grandma's tree is a lot more fun than ours. It has colored lights, and Grandma lets them hang the ornaments wherever they want!

...this is the Portie section.

Here's a little history on Grandma's tree...

It's always a real one, really colorful, doesn't match or look cohesive at all. That last one sounds kind of bad, but it's really not. Her tree has ornaments on it that Billy and I made when we were little. She's got ones from family that were made and sent as Christmas presents, some we made as YW projects, and new this year, Barbie ornaments (thanks to Chloe :) )

I remember walking through Foley's (back before it was Macy's) and looking at all the Christmas tree displays with her when I was little, and she'd talk about how much she'd like to have a whole new set or ornaments, but she's never done it. She just can't bear not to hang the baby's first Christmas from 1980 and 1982 on her tree.

Then we made a...



...it was a little rickety, but kinda cute. Some of the candy got eaten, some got broken, some even got spit on, but most of it ended up on the train, and it was fun.

Grandma Kitty's feeling great. She was glad we came down (and so were we). We worried that we might have stayed too long and made things a little crazy for someone who just had surgery a few days ago, but she swears we didn't. Either way, we're glad we got all their Christmas stuff out and were able to help.

PS Coopie was there too-you can't really tell from the pictures, but he was!! He was sleeping for some of the visit, climbing the stairs, falling off the bottom steps, eating, and squacking at the kitties. Somehow, I didn't get him in any pictures!! :( guilt-guilt-guilt :(

::o christmas tree::

On friday night, we went to get our Christmas tree. We (for as long as I can remember) have always gotten a real tree. Matt remembers always getting a real tree for most of his childhood too. We love the smell, and look & feel of a real tree too. Where we live, there are tons of fruit stands that sell local fruits and veggies and they also sell (not sure how local) trees. So we got ours there.

They have a pretty good selection...

It was kind of a cold afternoon, so the bubbas got back in the car/"chwuck"

and here it is, home and all decorated.

Bubb-Nubb didn't love the tree. He got really nervous when Matt and I brought it in the house and cried. He sorta didn't know what to think of it. Now he just always says "wuhsssaaat" when he sees it, and he wants to touch it, so he does, but he doesn't like how it feels.

Chloe and Port helped "duckorate" (Chloe's word). It was fun. They love Christmas. Portie kept saying "look, Mom, I hanged that wight deyeh. Does that look good?" Chloe brings her Cinderella CD player all over the house with her so we can listen to Christmas music all the time, and she told me she wants some Christmas jammies too. She just wants to feel Christmassy all over, I guess :)

::toothless wonder::

Chloe's had a loose front tooth (actually they were both loose), for a long time. The one front tooth started to get really loose in the last week or so,. and every time we said Dad was going to pull it, she'd say "NOOO not 'til the 4th day of December" (huh?). She's weird. So then it just was way too loose, and Matt had to pull it. She layed across his lap and he tugged a bit and got it out. She squealed a little and said "you didn't even get it" "Oh really, put your tongue up there and see if it's still there," her dad told her.

silly girl :)

(it ended up coming out on the 3rd day of December)

Matt calls her the toothless wonder :)

::do not open 'til Christmas::

Our blog book is here...

...and I'm trying SO hard not to open it 'til Christmas! It's killing me! I aleady know what's in it, and basically what it looks like, but I SO want to open it and see it!

MUST.

FIGHT.

THE.

URGE!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

::a new tradition::

We love family traditions around here. We had a few growing up-we went to see A Christmas Carol (the play) every year at Christmas time, for example.

(I wish we still did that, but it's kinda tough to take such little kids to a play, plus some theaters don't allow kids under the age of 8.)

Anyway, we have a few Christmas traditions of our own now that we have our own family. So far, it's opening presents to/from eachother on Christmas Eve (always jammies) and new this year is going to be a blog book (which I'm WAY excited about!).

Another one new this year is...

We got it for Chirstmas last year, and got it out with all our decorations this year. It's so fun! I didn't pay too much attention to it last year, but it seems like a fun little tradition & the kids are way excited about it.

This little elf sits on a shelf and watches the kids and reports back to Santa if they've been good or bad. He hops around the house at night and finds a new place to sit every day so he can watch. First thing this morning when I woke Chloe up for school, "I wonder where the elf is today." Then when I picked her up from school, she said her teacher has the same thing in her classroom! So she knows she's being watched! The kids love it. I love how much fun they have with it all...it's so magical to them :)

In other news,

How the Grinch Stole Christmas was on tonight...

...and we all love that movie.

...and we're understanding how Christmas still came "without packages, boxes, or bags."

::a party just because::

A few of us got together at Matt's mom & dad's today for a little party-just because. They had all their Christmas decorations out already, made a turkey, potatoes, corn, rolls, sweet potatoes, all the good stuff :)

Matt got to "carve" (with an electric knife) the turkey.

Amberlee helped him get an apron on-we'd hate to get any turkey mess on his Kobe shirt!!

yuuuuuuuuum!

We played some cards.

And this is why......

....we call her "Grandma Snowman"

;)

::thankful::

Today we are thankful.

We're with Matt's family this year. We switch off every other year. When we're with his family we have dinner at his Aunt Alaine's house (on his mom's side). This year we had 60 people for dinner. I (and my sister-in-law, Stefanie) was in charge of sweet potatoes (MMMMMMM!).

some cookin' in the kitchen...

some of the shoes...

the dinner...

our table...

(chloe sat in the other room with all th other "little girls" when I was doing this post she said "mom next time will you take a picture of me too")

family, family evwy-wheyeh

some football (and the Cowboys won!)

Then it was down to business...

...yep, we're black friday shoppers. 3 years running now. We went through the ads to map out our plan for the next morning. We love it, well Matt does more than me. It scares me a bit. I'm not big enough to really love it-the big crowds make me nervous that I might get trampled and squished. We managed to get all the things we needed and got a pretty good show in too (Toys R Us was nuts!!).

It was a fun Thanksgiving. We're so thankful for family. We're thankful we have somewhere to go and somewhere where we are always welcome. We were all together (for the most part-there were a couple of families missing), and there were 60 of us. I love that. Everywhere you went in the house, there was someone there-and it was nice. Matt has a great family. They have an amazing ability of making everybody feel welcome and loved. I'm lucky to be a part of it :)