MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We are grateful for this Christmas season and for the joy we feel in celebrating the birth of our Savior. We are thankful for all of our wonderful family and friends! We meant to get a Christmas letter out by now, but it hasn't happened yet. We will try to get it sent before July!:) In the meantime, we send our love and Merry Christmas wishes to all of our blogging buddies!


On Christmas Eve, we acted out the Christmas story with puppets. Zoee was the star of the show as the shepherds' little lamb :). We all had a lot of fun, and it was on a level Jaden could understand.


We also carried on one of Daniel's family traditions, which is to have a "happy birthday, Jesus" cake. We made it Christmasy with yummy candy cane frosting. We let Jaden put the candles on the cake unsupervised, and he got plenty of them on there. We lit 3 of the candles, sang happy birthday, let Jaden blow out the candles, then had some cake together. Jaden absolutely loved it!


HOT, HOT, HOT! :)
After Jaden went to bed, I gave Daniel a haircut. It was the first time he let me try cutting his hair. He made me wait until Christmas break, because he wanted to have time for it to grow out a little if I really botched it. Well, much to his surprise (and mine too:), it turned out pretty well! However, Jaden got out of bed when I was trimming around Daniel's ears. He looked in and asked, "Mommy, cutting daddy's ear off?" Of course, my obnoxious husband started screaming out as if in pain, "No, no, mommy, don't cut my ear off!! Owweee, owwee!" Well, that really got Jaden riled up, and he started screaming, "No, mommy! stop, stop!" I had to hurry and get the haircut finished to calm the chaos! :)




We had a nice Christmas morning together, opening presents and eating a hot breakfast.


Here are some pictures of Zoee digging in her loot. I'm not sure if her favorite present was the diapers, the wipes, or the new C batteries she got for her swing!



We then shared a simple, but yummy Christmas lunch/dinner with our friends that just live a few houses down! Now we're going to end the night relaxing with a fun Christmas movie! What a wonderful day!


My cute Christmas babies

ps- Here's my early Christmas present. I can't really remember ever wanting to be a minivan driver, but it sure is nice getting the two kids in and out and hauling all of their stuff around! Besides, after only having one car for more that a year and a half, I was glad to have anything that drives! :)

Christmas Treats

We spent all day Saturday baking cinnamon rolls and delivering them to our friends for Christmas. I forgot to take any pictures, but it was lots of fun! So just pretend you can see some warm, gooey cinnamon rolls and a really messy kitchen, and you've got it covered! We made almost 100 cinnamon rolls. When we were all done, Jaden told me he was ready to go "Christmas-treating." The new van was great for loading all of us up plus the treats! (Yes, I'm a little behind and haven't mentioned the new van yet, but I'll get to that soon :) Jaden loved helping us make the deliveries. Zoee wasn't so thrilled - she mostly just screamed in the car. We are excited about this Christmas season! :)

Peanuts...enough said

It all started out with a little innocent fun when we received a Christmas package full of styrofoam peanuts.

It just got messier and messier.


Then Jaden talked mom into getting in too!

It ended up as peanuts strung from one end of the house to another, up and across the potty, and stuck on everyone's clothes.

They plugged up the vacuum hose, the lint roller was ineffective, and mom stayed up until 1:30am, crawling around on hands and knees picking up tiny pieces of styrofoam off the carpet one by one... Now if that was the end of the story it would be okay...but it isn't. When the garbage man came the next day, half of the peanuts spilled out of the garbage and into the street. They blew back into our yard and our next door neighbor's yard. I tried to get those picked up before the neighbors noticed.
Well, just last night, more than a week after the incident, I went to my friend's house 3 doors down, and there were two peanuts stuck in the grass by her front door. She knows the story and it won't be too hard for her to figure out where those peanuts came from! I just laughed and was really glad that I have friends that like me no matter how many styrofoam peanuts I get in their yards. It does make me wonder how long those peanuts are going to keep coming back to haunt me, though... :)

A Book?

Several people have told me lately that I need to write a book that includes all of this nonsense that I put on my blog. And I think to myself - Who on Earth would buy that book? Well, I have decided to put a plan into action...when I am 50-yrs-old and no longer have kids at home, I will write my book. When it sells a total of 2 copies (since the other 3 people that told me to write a book will have forgotten about it in 21 years), I will take the $3.17 that I make and split it up between the real life characters in my stories, the two that live to entertain - Jaden & Zoee :)

WASHINGTON DC

Hi - We're wondering if we know you. Could you please leave us a note in the cbox on the right side bar. We're trying to not have to go private with our blog. Thanks!

Shots from the screen door...and other stuff we did this week

I took my time opening up the screen door because I was getting such a kick out of the face smashing...




Jaden decided to help me get Zoee's bath water ready by adding a foam toy, a plastic cat, a toy screwdriver, and a some lizards. He then decided the lizards needed to climb on his sister while she was bathing. Poor girl... (By the way, if you've never stepped on one of those lizards while walking around the house in bare feet at night, it's quite an experience... :)



I got my hair cut off, and I love it, love it, love it!

We wrapped some presents!

We made some homemade pizza. There was no limit on toppings, so we included a whole can of pineapple!

We went to a live Nativity play last night. It was outside under the stars - many of the Arizonans were wrapped in blankets due to this harsh 60 degree weather we're having! :) The Nativity was really neat. Jaden enjoyed it and did several shout-outs such as "silly baby Jesus laying in the fence (stable) up there!" "that's baby Jesus!" "Baby Jesus is just eatin' up there!" Luckily we were near the back, and didn't disturb many people. We got to do a walk through the stable afterward and see the cast and live animals. I forgot the camera, but I did get one pic of Jaden with a wiseman on my cell phone! :)

And, last of all, just because it's cute...


p.s. Do you think these two are related?

He sure does like those Scooby undies...

So much that he wants to wear them on both ends now!

Putting up the tree...and my little helper

Time For A Date!!

Daniel & I got to go on a date while Grandma was here! Jaden was upset that we were going, until he realized that he got to go on a date with Grandma while we were gone! They had a great time playing with all of the toys at Walmart, and then enjoying a corndog dinner at Sonic. Jaden was still raving about his date the next day!

Thanksgiving/Visitors!

We had a "fake Thanksgiving" with friends and some of Daniel's family the weekend before Thanksgiving. Actually, the only fake thing about it was that it wasn't actually Thanksgiving Day; everything went wonderfully, and the food was delicious, thanks to our guest chefs! :) Then we spent Thanksgiving day with some of my second cousins who live in the area. We had a great time at both, and enjoyed visiting with everyone!

Making an orange/gumdrop turkey

Cleaning up the extra heads and tail feathers :)



Post Thanksgiving turkey sandwich picnic and playing at the park
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Fun with Grandma!

Jaden was so sad to see everyone go!