Christmas Day...A Month Later

I have all of these ideas for things I want to post but I told myself I can't post them until I get the Christmas on here. I don't know why I have been putting it off.

We started some new traditions, continued some old ones and eliminated some traditions and the holiday season was busy but fabulous. Christmas Day itself was my favorite part and, in my opinion, one of the best Christmas days I have ever spent. After 12 years, I have finally convinced my husband that staying home and enjoying the day here is the way to go. We are finally on the same page.

Here are a few of the highlights in pictures. (And speaking of pictures, my sweet husband surprised me with an awesome new camera for Christmas. Maybe I won't complain so much about the quality of my pictures anymore! YEAH!!)

Band Hero was going all day around here and was fun for big and little cousins alike.

My cute nieces.

Lots of food.

Video cameras from Santa for all of the kids were the hit of the day.

Tim and I gave the kids tether ball for the backyard. I stink at it, but I am getting better. The kids were well entertained watching their parents play together. Fortunately, there are no pictures.

Tim took the kids on a little shopping trip two days before Christmas. They went to Big Lots and he gave them each a budget and told them they could buy presents for anyone they wanted. They picked out cute things for some of their friends and puzzles for their grandparents. They were so excited about the present they picked for me.

Here is my reaction when I opened it. I laughed so hard to find that my children just knew that I would love a chocolate fountain of my very own.

We pulled out the fountain on New Years Eve. This is going to be a special treat that only comes out once in awhile because you have to add about a CUP OF OIL to the chocolate to get it to flow through the fountain. Uh, yeah, a cup. It was fun though. We dipped everything we could find in the pantry.

Christmas was fun, but most of all, I ended the day and the entire season feeling so blessed. I am grateful for the time to remember the Savior and enjoy my family.

Hog's December to Remember

December has been quite the month for Hog. (Tim said I can't call it the "December to Remember" unless a Lexus is involved, but I am calling it that anyway.)

The month started with his 8th birthday. He's been asking for nothing but Legos. A few weeks before his birthday, he was showing me a toy ad with several sets he wanted. He was only asking for small sets and I said, "What about this one?" pointing to a huge Power Miners set. His response was, "Oh, I like that one but it's expensive. I can just get one of these." I was shocked. I have always tried to teach my children frugality but that doesn't mean I don't want them to dream! I told Tim that night and he came home the next day with the exact set Hog wanted. His expression when he opened it on the morning of his birthday was worth every penny. And, it was completely put together before he went to bed that night.

He got to go to Red Robin with us on our date night and loved getting to order anything he wanted, which included mac and cheese, cantaloupe and an Oreo shake.

His flag football team went undefeated for the season and won the league tournament, too. He had great coaches and fun kids on his team. That's him, #12, proudly holding the trophy.

Hog became a Cub Scout and came home from his first den meeting with his brand new uniform covered in frosting from making gingerbread houses.

Grandpa T totally surprised Hog with a quick trip to Disneyland where they met up with some cousins. When they got on the plane to fly over, Grandpa gave him one of his business cards to put in his pocket and told Hog if he got lost to hand the card to someone and tell them to call his Grandpa. Somewhere in California Adventure he wandered off and promptly handed the card to the first person he saw, not even a park employee, and was quickly reunited with Grandpa. (What a good obedient boy! I loved hearing Grandpa tell us this story.) He had a great time and one of his favorite things was when Aunt Misty got him a lanyard and some pins for trading . Thanks Grandpa!!

He got baptized and we were so grateful for all of our friends and family as well as many of his friends from school who came to support him. Personally, I was overwhelmed by everyone who came at such a busy time of year when so much is going on. We are truly blessed with wonderful family and friends. Hog had a great day.

All of our kids have been saving their money for months to buy a DS. Albert got hers in October when she got some birthday money. Hog has been saving and saving and working hard on Saturdays making extra money. Three days before Christmas he finally got to go and buy his DS. What a happy kid. It was at this point in the month that Tim and I looked at each other and said, "Does it ever end for this kid?"

No, it didn't end because Christmas was right around the corner. Christmas brought a video camera, three more Lego sets, money and lots of other fun stuff.

He is ending the month with an entire post on our blog devoted to him, which he thinks is pretty cool. His month was more than just all the stuff he got and the fun things he got to do. He is a good friend, a great son and brother and a boy who wants to do what is right. We love our Hog-a-matic 8000.

How to turn Halloween Candy into a Gingerbread House

For the past three years we have made a gingerbread house on the Monday after Halloween using all the candy we collected. In case you have any Halloween candy still sitting around here are the step by step directions.

Step 1 - Start building the house out of cardboard and shoe boxes while the kids are eating dinner, your husband is working late and won't be home anytime soon, your kitchen is a mess and you have been up since 2:00 a.m.

Step 2 - While you continue to scavenge the real house for cardboard house materials, put the kids to work sorting candy into paper bowls that are leftover from making a Lego costume.

Step 3 - After 15 minutes of watching her stuff her face with every type of candy in sight, send the 2 year old upstairs to watch Toy Story.

Step 4 - Finish up the cardboard house (which you purposely made smaller than last year's so you can get done quicker) and have your kids tell you, "Mom, it looks like a church!"

Step 5 - While the sorting and unwrapping continues, make the frosting that is more like glue and realize that you only have enough powdered sugar for one batch so you tell the kids not to eat it (but they do anyway).

Step 6 - Ask your 10 year old to dig out some Christmas CDs and the only one she can find is a CD mix your husband made years ago. Make sure the CD is scratched and the only song it will play is Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song.

Step 7 - Start decorating and try to step back and let your kids do it themselves, no matter how it is turning out.

Step 8 - Speed the process along by slapping Starbursts on the chimney.

Step 9 - Step back and admire the masterpiece your children have made for the third year in a row, rejoice in the fact that most of the Halloween candy is gone and the kids had fun getting rid of it and watch your children throw the leftovers away because they have eaten so much in the whole process that they are sick.

Step 10 - Send the kids to the bathroom to chisel the frosting off their faces and brush their teeth, sweep this up off your floor and realize that it wasn't the perfect evening you had hoped for but the tradition does live on for another year.

Merry Homemade Christmas

Tomorrow the holiday season is officially over it is back to the daily grind. It's really not a grind but I have loved this past week (after Christmas was over) of sleeping in, hanging out and having nothing official to do. It has been majorly relaxing and I really needed the "majorly relaxing" part.

The week before Christmas was about the polar opposite of what I just described. I decided back in September to make a lot of Christmas gifts. I thought I was starting early enough to accomplish everything I wanted to do and not be stressed out (like I always am) that last week before Christmas. Well, my intentions were good, as they are every year, but I was still burning the candle at both ends trying to get everything done and I literally didn't slow down until a few hours before the kids awoke on Christmas morning. Everything did get done, though. I am a born multi-tasker anyway and Christmas just seems to bring this trait out in me even more.

I have hopes that I can do better next year and wish I hadn't been so worn out by the time the big day came. No, I am not perfect, but, fortunately, there were moments during Christmas where Tim and I were able to see the true meaning of Christmas shining through in things we observed and heard and read from our children. I am grateful that despite my lack of focus sometimes, they still got it, a huge blessing to their mother.

Our endeavor to help our kids give homemade gifts to each other proved to be the highlight of the celebration this year. They all put a lot of thought into what they wanted to give and I was pleasantly surprised at the efforts they put forth in behalf of each other.

Snausage decided to use his talents and love of doing art projects for his gift to Fats by drawing her a picture and painting a frame to put it in.

Albert made a cool tool box for Hog (with a little help from Dad). I love what she chose to paint on the sides of the box. It was the most excited Hog was about any gift he got.

Fats (with a little help from me) made this lovely initial plaque for Albert to hang in her room.

Hog was having a hard time deciding what he could give to Snasuage. On Christmas Eve he decided to make him a pet rock. On Christmas morning, Snausage opened the gift and excitedly named his new pet "Rocky."

Even Tim got on the homemade bandwagon and surprised me with two shelves made out of molding . . . exactly what I wanted. I made purses, I spy bags, tutus and a few other things for some of the cousins and I totally enjoyed it. We all know that I am not a crafty person and there was some sleep sacrificed but I loved making things for people I love. As I was making each gift, I was thinking of the person I was making it for. I tried not to stress about the mistakes I made and just enjoyed doing it.

I am glad we chose to focus on homemade gifts this year because, as I am learning, its the small and simple things that really matter.

Tradition

I have thought a lot lately about tradition in our family. I guess that is what the holiday season brings out in me. Tim and I have had lots of discussions about our Christmas traditions. This year we are keeping a lot of the favorites and throwing in some new ones as well. As Tim and I have talked about our own childhood memories of the holidays, we have both concluded that we don't remember things or presents. What we remember are the people in our lives and the memories we created with them. We are making extra efforts this Christams season to bring this spirit into our home.

Here are a few of the new and old traditions we are doing this year.

First, a new one, is our countdown to Christmas by reading a Christmas themed book every night. I got this idea several months ago somewhere in the blogging world. I went through all of our books and pulled out all the Christmas ones and have been picking up additional Christmas books here and there over the past two months. I ended up with 24 of them and wrapped them all up individually and put them in a basket. Every night one of the kids get to open a book. They all have tags that correspond with how many more days there are until Christmas. Last night, it was Hog's turn to open the book (since it was his birthday!) and he wanted to read it to all of us. I marvelled at how well he reads and loved spending those few moments cuddled up with my kids.

Last year, I got the idea from Flylady to make a gingerbread house out of Halloween candy. So, for the second year in a row, we made a gingerbread house three days after Halloween and got rid of all the Halloween candy. My husband now thinks I am a genius because I got our kids to cheerfully give up all their Halloween candy. We had a blast sorting all of the candy and then decorating for the first FHE of November. We even played Christmas music to get us in the mood. The greatest part is that I made the house out of cardboard and duct tape ahead of time so there was no worries of it falling apart. The "glue" frosting worked awesome for putting candy on. We even made a snowman out of donuts left over from a soccer game, but, sadly, the snowman disappeared. I can't figure out what happened to it, but I think Snausage knows.

One year when I was about eight, I got an idea from the Children's Friend (remember when it was called that) to make a teddy bear out of scraps of material. My brother Dusty, was three and I decided to make the bear for him as a Christmas gift. I can still remember rummaging through my mom's fabric on the day after Thanksgiving to find pieces for my bear. I sewed it all by hand, stuffed it with more fabric and completed the project with a button face. I don't remember very many of the gifts I gave when I was a kid but I have never forgotten this one. Some how, I ended up with the bear and I still have it. Dusty was just here for Thanksgiving and we reminisced about this gift. The body and face are made out of red, white and blue fabric with elephants. We both remembered having pants made by my mom out of this fabric. The back of the bear was made from left overs of an orange polyester suit my mom made for herself. Several years later when Dusty was about eight, he made me a homemade gift. He cut off the bottom of a pair of sweats, got out the sewing machine and made me a hair scrunchy. It was very crudely put together and was not very pretty but, even though I was a picky teenager, I treasured this hair scrunchy and wore it for years because my brother's time, effort and thought meant so much to me. I can even remember wearing the scrunchy on my mission while doing a service project. I am not sure what happened to it, but the memory of this gift is one I treasure.

So, thinking about the significance of these homemade gifts in my childhood prompted me to help my kids have this same experience. A few weeks ago they drew names for Christmas and each of them is going to give a handmade gift to their sibling. They have all told me their ideas and I am really amazed at what they have come up with. (After Christmas, I will share how it all came out.)

Here's to a Christmas season filled with traditions that bring out the true meaning of this holiday.