A White Christmas?!!!

So I have lived in Oregon the majority of my life. Save for a whole lot of time spent in Alaska with my other family. And in my 32 years I have never once had a white Christmas here. Until now.

So we are at my Aunt and Uncle's house opening more presents when Sunshine looks out the window and says..."it's snowing!!!" We all stop and look and sure enough it was coming down really hard and in great big flakes! This is the first real snow of the winter and we get it on Christmas day! How great is that!?

Of course the kids are freaking out to get out and play in it, but I make them finish what we were doing and then get home to put on the proper "playing in the snow" clothes. Of course by then it had mostly melted and the magic moment had passed. But it was a total "Bing Crosby moment" even though it lasted only a couple minutes.

Christmas morning

After a night of being up a couple times every hour with Peanut being sick, we sort of slept through the kids downstairs pawing through their stockings this morning. We did however awake to Bug patiently sitting next to the tree looking through the contents of his stocking and wondering when we were going to get up and join him. If you'll notice in these pictures, the sun isn't even up yet. I shudder to think what time he actually got up and started his wait. I was up with Peanut around 4:30 and he was still in bed, but at 6 he was up and waiting.

Everyone got up and opened presents and had a good morning. Luckily Santa knew just what everyone wanted. He even got a present for our whole family, a Nintendo Wii which we (just me and Mr. Jaxonfive) have already taken out of the box and played several times. (once the kids are in bed)

Even Peanut had fun playing with his new toys and wrapping paper every which way.

**By the way he is feeling much better. He's just tired. It takes a lot out of you being sick.

Christmas eve episode II

So after we opened presents and did our thing here at our house, we moved the party over to my in law's house. They always have Christmas eve at their house and it's always awesome. Tons (more) of good food and family. Throw sugared up kids,dogs and presents on top and you have a party. My mom and her friend also went with us.

The kids opened most of their presents over there. (Except for the special ones that santa brings) Everyone got what they wanted. Within reason. We really had nowhere to put the real pony that Sunshine asked for.

We even had an oppertunity to take a picture with all four generations.

Only flaw with the evening was....Peanut ran out of steam so we put him down to bed in Grandma's room where he has a paypin set up. About an hour later he wakes up screaming. He was all congested and stuffed up. Somehow the panic of waking up in a strange place and not feeling well on top threw him into an asthma attack. So he was a screaming ,whiny, wheezy mess.That now was so worked up that he would not go back to sleep. So we had to cut our evening a little short to get him home and give him a nebulizer treatment. That is about the only thing that rescues him out of an attack. He was pretty far into it too. I was worried that I was going to have to take him into the emergency room. But with a lot of steroids and a pretty sleepless night he was able to come out of it.

It sucks! They hit from out of nowhere and can just throw him into a tailspin really fast. He just seemed to pick up a little touch of a cold, but it was enough to make him wheeze. Sometimes that all it takes to trigger an attack.


Medical emergency aside....it was a great night :)

Christmas eve Episode 1

So every year we do Christmas eve at our house with my Mom. This year was no real exception. Although we had planned to go to a candlelight service at the church. (which we didn't get the house and food done in time, so my mom took the kids and went and we stayed home and finished up)

It was really nice. We had the five of us, plus my mom and her friend Rod. We had lots of awesome "once a year food" that we will be paying for on the treadmill for months. But it was worth every bite.

We ate (more like grazed) and visited. Then we opened presents.

Then the evenings festivities continue over at my in laws for the main event.

Stay tuned......

Why wait for Santa?

Why wait when you can just wrap all your own presents up? Sunshine was so excited for Christmas that she just started grabbing her own toys from around the house, coloring notebook paper and wrapping them for under the tree. when I realized what she was doing she had quite a spread going. It kept her entertained for a couple hours though. She did however go through a whole roll of tape.

Ok just one more....

Just one more and I promise I won't do any more videos. It's a cheap trick. It won't happen again. I just had to share this with the world.

My husband is shaking his head in disgust as we speak. I can't seem to watch it with a straight face. There is something wrong with me.

Merry Christmas eve!

Distrubiting all those cookies

Today we had the big job of putting all those thousands of cookies that I made the other day, and making up gift plates for all of our neighbors. We don't really have the friendliest neighborhood, but I guess it only takes one person to reach out and maybe if nothing else we can get to know them. I mean we've only lived here 7 years. If not now, then when?

So the kids and I made up these monstrous goodie plates and walked around the neighborhood hitting all of our neighbors. Some weren't home, but we'll get them tomorrow. It felt pretty good doing something nice for no particular reason other than I just felt like doing some baking. Random acts of kindness are always awesome like that :)

One more time....and this time with feeling!

So Bug had his big Christmas musical production last night. His Sunday school class has been working on this since Halloween and when I say working on...I mean rehersing like it was going straight to Broadway. Twice a week evening rehersals and every Sunday was mandatory rehersal time. It got a little silly. But we witnessed the glorious production that was "Dr. Newheart's Christmas cure."

Bug had a big solo and everything. He was a rapping (dis)orderly. Hence the scrubs and the sunglasses. Because sunglasses give rappers their edge.

It was cute. I know the pictures aren't the greatest, but in true form we didn't get there early enough to get a seat up front.

Christmas cookie time!!!

There may be something seriously wrong with me. Every year i go overboard on the holiday baking. But this year I think I out did myself.

I have been baking cookies around the clock for the past 3 days. I have made 9 different types of cookies and 2 different gingerbread muffins. What is funny about all of this is, I am not really baking for anyone in particular. We don't really eat this stuff and nobody requested it or anything. I just got a wild hair. It seems like everybody else was doing it this time of year, so i thought I'd join in. Silly as it is, I totally blame peer pressure. So just to clarify here...I made literally close to 1000 cookies for no real reason other that it seemed like a good idea.

Just in case they come and haul me away, I made sure to document my madness in case some of you may not believe me