A Christmas Countdown

After uploading 62 pictures to post from our Christmas Eve and Christmas morning festivities, I decided that no one {not even me} REALLY wanted to look at that many pictures of our life and I needed to do a major editing job before I could go on.  Here is my attempt to do so.  

Top 10 Memories {in chronological order}

1.) Meltdowns

Mostly from number one son.  Who apparently went pretty much the whole day on Christmas Eve without eating any real food.  Hmmmm.  And he wonders why he's in the red zone by the end of the day?  Hahaha.  Alex also threw in his 2 cents here and there most likely due to the massive amounts of candy and sugar he's consumed over the last few days.  

Terribly blurry picture depicting Alex devouring the cupcake that Jane was feeding him on the kitchen floor while I was madly trying to finish up his stocking.

I don't even know what he was specifically freaking out about here, but you catch the drift.

I really like the way Grace is staring at him kind of like, "what in the world...?"

2.) Gingerbread Houses

Every Christmas Eve we decorate a Gingerbread House.  It is one of our {many} traditions.  I wisely purchased this year's kit well in advance after last year's debacle -- we waited until the last minute to get one and there were none left.  Of houses at least.  We did find a gingerbread train to decorate but it just wasn't the same.  Once the pre-assembled house was out of the box, fighting then ensued over who got to do what.  We finally settled on Sophie and Jane decorating a roof side apiece, and Ethan and Grace doing opposing sides on the base.  Although, I guess you couldn't really say Ethan settled on anything. 

Yes, he IS sitting on top of the table, stealing candy, and only wearing a diaper.  That's just the way we roll.

Such concentration and enjoyment.  

The finished product.  Not our finest work.

3.) Haircut

While the kids were finishing up their fights over the gingerbread house, I decided to seize the moment and give Lover Boy an overdue haircut.  Because why not, right?  He was not in the happiest of moods  but I managed to get him trimmed up without butchering his hair too badly.  

4.) Gumbo

It wouldn't be Christmas to me without making a gumbo.  We almost always make one on Christmas day to eat for our dinner meal, but since we knew we'd be out of town this year, we decided to enjoy it on Christmas Eve instead.  And Scott made it all by himself.  AND it was delicious!  

Not an awesome shot, but rest assured that the Gumbo was awesome-ness itself.

5.) Christmas Pageant

Once dinner and baths were over, we moved onto the non-secular  part of our evening with a little Christmas Pageant production.  Using our recycled script from 2 years ago we pulled off the world's fastest reading {and kind of acting out} of the Christmas story that you've ever seen, even with songs scattered throughout.  

Posing before we started.

Mid-production.

Ethan finally calmed down and pulled it together to narrate the story for us.

6.) Ornaments

Yet another tradition -- each Christmas I get the kids a new ornament for the tree.  Some years I make them, some years I buy them, and some years {like this one} it's kind of a free for all.  This year, three out of the five ornaments were originally something else until I worked my magic.  

Unwrapping their ornaments.

Originally a bookmark, I glue-gunned a hook to Greg Heffley's backpack and strung a ribbon through it.  Voila!  {Ethan has been a bit obsessed with the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series for the past few months now.}  

Grace has been a bit obsessed with dogs for her whole life now, and every year when we unpack the ornaments she berates me for never getting her a dog ornament like Sophie's from 4 years ago.  A lapse in judgment, let me tell you.  But at the time Grace really did love Hello Kitty and that's why I got her one for her ornament that year.  I made up for it this year by getting her an ornament with not one but THREE dogs on it.  She was very happy.

Sophie has been begging me lately to take ballet.  And since that is probably not going to happen anytime soon, I decided to get her a ballet themed ornament instead.  And since I still hadn't found one by Christmas Eve I had to improvise.  Luckily, when I ran into The Children's Place at the mall that morning I found a necklace with a bunch of ballerina-y charms on it.  Once I got home, I slipped the charms off the necklace and strung a ribbon through it.  Ta da!

Grace 2.0 -- that is JANE -- has been talking non-stop about Hello Kitty for the last few weeks.  When I saw this ornament {that is almost identical to Grace's from 4 years ago} I just had to get it for her.

I think it has been well-documented that Alex loves balls.  You would think it would be relatively easy to find a basketball (or any kind of ball) ornament but you would be wrong.  I couldn't find one anywhere, so I bought a pack of Little Tykes foam balls, glue-gunned a hook on top, and strung a ribbon through it.  Are you sensing a theme?  Hahaha.  Basically, what you can infer from this year's ornament parade is that a glue gun and/or a ribbon can turn ANYTHING into an ornament.  And that's a fact.

Christmas Eve 2012

7.) Family Presents

Christmas Eve is when we open family presents.  For the last few months, I've had the PERFECT idea in mind for a present that I knew all the kids would love to play with.  I had been planning on giving it as a Santa present, but at the last minute decided that it might not fly as such.  The gift?  A brand-new, giant cardboard box.  Seriously.  Hahahaha.  After hearing Grace proclaim, "this is an odd present," I was glad that I had not saved it for one of their 3 gifts from Santa.  BUT, let the record show that once they adjusted to the idea that their mom had just gift-wrapped a giant box to give them for Christmas, they where all REALLY excited to each have their own.  They spent the next half hour before bed playing with them, writing their names on them, connecting them as a super long tunnel to crawl through, and then carefully stowing them in their bedrooms where they wouldn't get lost or ruined.  I would call that a success.  Hahaha.

8.) Secret Stockings

After a terrible night's sleep (kids waking up, not going back to sleep, coming in our room, the uzh.) we were woken up for the morning around quarter to 6.  Being partially comatose and unable to move due to our lack of sleep, we managed to hold them all off until about 6:20 before we got out of bed.  After forcing them to pose for the annual Christmas-morning-on-the-stairs-before-we-can-all-go-down shot, I told them we would be exchanging the Secret Stockings before ripping into the Santa gifts. 

Ethan had Sophie; Grace had Alex; Sophie had Jane; Jane had Grace; and Alex had Ethan.  And I snuck a few extra things in each stocking as well.

9.)  Santa Presents

This year was another hit!  Everyone loved everything they got -- which is always SO nice to see -- and they played merrily with their gifts all morning long before we had to leave for our trip.

Ethan -- a gaming chair (banana rocker), snap circuits, and Architecto (a game).

Grace -- a bean bag chair, desk (refurbished by moi and filled with art supplies), and another dog junk.

Sophie -- a puzzle, fashion stencils, and a dress-up bin (filled with AWESOME finds from my favorite local thrift store).

Jane -- a doll stroller, play-doh set (against my better judgment), and the Disney princess Barbies.

Alex -- a basketball hoop (thrift store, baby! three bucks!), ball, and Little People helicopter.

Jane loves play-doh these days.  I just hope this doesn't end up all over the house.

Hmmmm.  I wonder who is more excited about these Barbies.  Hahahaha.

Gold sparkly high heels!

A frothy pink prom dress!

I have been shocked and surprised at how much she loves this gift and how well it entertained her on our flights AND how often she is still playing with it today.  

You would think she's never gotten a dog junk before.   {You would be wrong -- she's got like 28 of them.  I made her count them up a couple of weeks ago when she told me she wanted another one for Christmas.}

My Pink Ballet Slipper project.  It turned out SO beautifully!   I couldn't be more pleased.  And Grace loves it, too, so that's an added bonus.  Side-note -- it probably would have been smarter not to wait until the night before to get around to spray-painting the chair to go with it.  

He LOVED this set.  It occupied him all morning long.  I don't even really know how it works but he's figured it out and that's all that matters!

10.) Vacation Prep

And that was a wrap.  After presents were opened, the kids had a few hours to play before finishing up our packing and vacation prep.  It's a good thing we got most of it done the night before, because it was a bit difficult to get much of anything done with such delightful distractions all around.  

Sophie's version of "getting ready to go" -- putting on the play make-up she got in her stocking.

Playing with his snap circuits while Scott and I got stuff ready to go.  At least he had gotten his bag packed the night before.

And that's all folks!  Apparently I am not a good editor.  This post still contains 44 pictures.  Stay tuned for a future post from guest blogger Ethan, who I commissioned to document our flight out to Utah.  It's going to be great.