The fifth day of Christmas

Christmas mugs and hot chocolate! (Love the dollar store). They each had to share their favorite Christmas memory. It's funny the things they remember!

What? You didn't know we had another child?

The fourth day of Christmas

Wednesday is busy night so this was a short one....

They had to give everyone in the family a big

HUG!

*sidenote: this is a big accomplishment for Brady, because, you know, girls have cooties.

The third day of Christmas

The suspense was almost more than they could take...

Candy canes with a story!

Some enjoyed it
(great looking tonsils I might add)

more than others!

The second day of Christmas

On the second day of Christmas (Monday) Justin and Brady came running downstairs first thing in the morning, gift in hand, to find Paige. One rule was that it could only be opened with EVERYONE present.

I had wrapped the "stuff" to make gingerbread houses. Here are the results.

Paige's house after the earthquake hit.

Brady's estate. He said he had been planning his design all day at school.

Justin's "anti-Santa" roofed house (guess the candy canes don't fall too far from the Christmas tree, do they?) along with a "Sugalo" as in like a Buffalo, but made of sugar.

The first day of Christmas

I had this hare-brained idea this year. I wanted to do something to make Christmas more meaningful, give my family something to do together this year. If you knew my deepest, darkest secrets, you'd know one of them is that I don't love Christmas. There. I said it. OK OK. I love the the real meaning of Christmas, oldies songs from the likes of Elvis and Jim Reeves, and seven layer dip on Chrismas Eve....but all the rest .... too much running for not enough meaning. Don't get me wrong, we have family oriented Christmas traditions, but why does it become such "a thing" at Christmas. How much money and time is spent on producing the "picture perfect" Christmas? Does that exist, besides in the Target commercials or Pottery Barn catalogs? It's not just the commercialism that bothers me. I think we get pulled in so many extra directions this time of year, when really the best feelings are created when doing the normal things of life with your family. I'll shut up now. I do still want friends, even after they read my blog.


On to my idea. Actually it was my neighbor's idea. I stole it. I would do the 12 days of Christmas for my family, (I did it for my parents too, just a little altered to fit them). Everyday they open one gift. It's not like a "gift" as in toy, or valuable item. (that's the other end of my Christmas rant). It would be something to do together. This works out well, since I am not going to be much more than a warm body around here this Christmas season.

Hence, the picture of the puzzle above. The first day of Christmas. On my parent's gifts I included a scripture or quote to go along with each gift. As the days grew closer to surgery (I had a week to pull Christmas off and get my house in order knowing that I would barely be present for 6 weeks) the notes for my kids gifts got more to the point. The big emphasis on doing everything TOGETHER. So far so good.

Losing Things

Just catching up on the weeks before Thanksgiving...

You know the Jack Johnson song, it's even on my blog. "I've been losing lots of things lately..."

We have been living it. It started with the only key that would start the Corolla. Then Justin's new ski mask, parts to the hot tub, the list goes on. All things that mattered, that cost money, not just little things that didn't matter. To get a key to start the car they needed the car at the dealership, to reset the computer or something. If you know my husband you know he will not pay someone to do something he can do himself, even if it means a lot of work.

This picture shows him jacking up the car in order to slide the car dolly under it (it was stuck in Park). We tried using a come-along to pull the car on. We tried pulling the car dolly under the car using the truck and running the rope from the dolly under the car to the truck. We only ended up dragging the car along with the car dolly, all the while scraping up the driveway with the boulders we had put behind the cars tires to try to hold it in place.

In the end it cost $45 for the tow truck, $50 for each key, plus the dealership's fee. If I ever find that key.....

Lucky

There are two possible captions for this picture:

We are lucky to have Lucky.

OR

Even our animals love bikes.