Potty Talk

I am in the restroom washing my hands when Cameron comes running in.

Cam:  Are you done goin' potty, Mom?

Mom:  Yes, honey, I am.

Cam:  Mom, I love you.  Can you wait for me?

Mom:  Cameron, I love you too buddy!

Cam:  So mom, can you wait for me?  Because that's why I said I love you?

Santa Claus is Comin' To Town

Snow Fun Take 2!

Normally snow in Vegas only lasts a few hours. This is a rare treat that we can play in it two days in a row. As a matter of fact, we are already on day 3! Maybe a little bit will last until Christmas and we'll have a tidbit of a White Christmas.

Anyway, this smilebox isn't exactly what I had in mind, but I guess it will do. (Too lazy to create another one.) In case you can't tell, the kids are LOVING the snow.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Dear Santa

I can't write anything better than this!  Love it.

Hey "San"

Pipa has this huge animated Santa tied to his side gate. 

When Cameron first saw it he said "Hey San." 

Apparently he and Cameron are on a nick-name basis. 

Later in the evening Cameron even called him "Sanny."

All Aboard!

We rode the Santa Train in Boulder City on one of the coldest and windiest days of the season. We were very smart and chose an open air train car too. Man, it was chilly. But no one seemed to mind. Santa and Mrs. Claus even came by to talk to every kid on the train. It was really cool.

Christmas Quiz

I found this on a blog and think it's fun. Lets do it together!
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping Paper! It's so much more fun to rip off the paper than it is to just peek in the bag. Plus, saving bags is a bad habit of mine, so if I use paper I know FOR SURE I won't salvage it. However, some gifts with awkward packaging just scream gift bag to me so I don't have to find a box or spend an hour trying to wrap the thing.
2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial for sure. I HATE to put the lights on the tree (my mom used to do it for me every year.) But now that pre-lit trees are around I can't imagine any other type of tree. Talk about EASY!
3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the day after Thanksgiving
4. When do you take the tree down? Usually the day or weekend after Christmas. By that point I am so tired of the extra stuff in my house that I want it down so I can reclaim my house and spaces back. I love how empty it looks when they come down.
5. Do you like eggnog? Eh, not so much. But I haven't had it in a while so who knows.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? I don't really remember anything that stands out. Isn't that awful? I loved Cabbage Patch Kids so I am sure those were some of my favorites.
8. Easiest person to buy for? My grandma (GG.) She likes everything and doesn't spoil herself at all. So sweaters and broaches are always easy and fun to buy. And she is always so grateful so that makes it nice.
9. Do You have a nativity scene? Oh yes. One that my mom gave me when I was in college, one that is the kids (that Baby Jesus doesn't arrive until Christmas Day. I wrap him up and the kids have to find him first before they can open any gifts.) And then I got a new one this year for our Village.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail for sure, but this year I am not sure I will get to it. I may have to do a New Year's letter. I don't like to just send a card with our signatures. I like to write about our year and include pictures. I love getting people's letters in the mail as well, since we don't connect all the time.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? My dad bought us fire extinguishers and smoke detectors one year. I know he was concerned for us, but how excited can you be as a teenager about fire safety equipment? It was a good story, though, to tell people what we got. No one could believe it!
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I am not really into movies in general, so I don't have a favorite Christmas movie. But if I were to pick, it would probably be Christmas Shoes. I've never seen it but I LOVE the book and story line.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? All year. The hard part is remembering what I've purchased and where I put it.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Absolutely. One mans junk is another mans treasure.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Lefse! It's a Norwegian dessert that we have at every holiday. And even though I don't like it, I love that we eat Oyster Stew every year on Christmas Eve. It's just a great tradition that we've done ever since I can remember.
16. Lights on the tree? Of course! We have white on our big tree, and colorful on the kids trees.
17. Favorite Christmas song? I like lots of them. Little Drummer Boy, Silent Night, Christmas Shoes, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - I like them ALL!
18. Travel for Christmas or stay home? Stay home. It is so cozy and comfy to be home.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Yes, but I do it in tune with the song. If I had to do it out of order I couldn't!
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We have a Santa that BJ's mom gave him.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? One on Christmas Eve, the rest on Christmas Day.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? How people get so rude and mean.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? We do silver and light greenish and white. It looks very angelic.
24. Favorite Christmas dinner? Prime rib and crab legs. Ya baby!
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? MAC school so I can learn cool things to do with my computer.
Ok... I want to read yours... Do one on your blog and leave me a comment that you did it so I can check it out (I don' know how to do all the link stuff.)

Decorating

We decorated our house the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was really fun to do it as a family and this year we started a tradition where the kids each have a tree that they decorate on their own. I look forward to those trees changing every year. The first several days our trees were up Cameron would keep taking ornaments from our big tree and placing them on his tree. They also like to sort the gifts and put theirs under their own tree. That doesn't work out very well for our big tree, though, because right now there are only 2 gifts that aren't for them under our big tree, so when they take them all away we look like a pretty sad family! They love to take the gifts back and forth.

I am so thankful to have two fantastic kids and a very loving husband who goes along with whatever I have in mind for Christmas. This is, by far, my favorite time of year. The more we can decorate the better. BJ did a FANTASTIC job outside. I'll have to get a pic of it to post. He also put up Papa's village and did a remarkable job on that. Without him our house would look totally boring. I love you, honey.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Snow Rocks!

It has snowed 8 inches in Henderson today. WOW! The kids loved it, and so did BJ. I liked taking pictures and video. The snow is so bad here that the City let us leave at 3pm, Highway 95 at Railroad Pass is closed unless you can prove you live there, all other roads out of the valley are closed. You can't get to Utah, California, Arizona, Pahrump, NOWHERE! It is crazy. We don't have snowplows here in Vegas so the roads are a mess. School is cancelled for tomorrow and there is a good possibility that we will be off tomorrow as well due to unsafe roads. So anyway, enjoy the kids playing in the snow. We did!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving Day at Mima's house.  We always have lots of fun because Sam & Toby are there to play with us.  When the grown-ups are out front watching TV (daddy's were watching football) we are allowed to go in GG's room and watch TV in there.  We don't usually pay much attention to the TV because we like to play on GG's bed since it is normally off limits.  I am impressed that the kids put themselves in weight order when they make this huge sandwich.  I am thinking Toby must be the brains behind this operation since he is the smallest and has probably learned that he shouldn't be on the bottom.

Dinner time wasn't very fun for us.  The grown-ups made us sit down and eat dinner.  How boring!  Mima's friend Brian was there with his 3 kids so it made it a little more fun, but still, we would have preferred to be playing.
Sweet revenge: We pulled out the Tinker Toys and got them all over the floor!  That was fun, but then we realized they make great drums.  We were really rockin' out!
The other highlight of the day was Mommy making Lefse with GG.  It was so good we ate almost half the batch as soon as it came off the lefse iron.  Perfectly warm lefse - does it get any better than that?  I don't think so.

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  We are thankful to be blessed by so many friends and family close by.

Haley's Dance Recital

Tonight was Haley's Christmas recital.  It was small and informal and oh so cute!  Enjoy!

(In case you can't tell, she is the on in the black pants with the pink shirt on.)

First they did a ballet routine and then tap.

H - A - L - E - Y

Haley:  Momma, my name is Haley

Mom:  Yes, that's right

Haley:  When I was a baby I didn't know how to spell H A L E Y

Mom:  That's right, sweetie.  

Haley:  Momma, but when I was a baby my name was still H A L E Y

Yet another reason why I LOVE kids!