"Four Christmases" has nothing on us!

Here's Volume 1 of our Christmas 2009 Extravaganza. I'll upload pics of each event. We have a gazillion pictures so I'm just posting a few of us and you can imagine the rest! We started Christmas out with a little time with Aunt Margaret before she left for TX and Robbie was soo excited to open a few gifts. Then off to Christmas Eve morning at Rob & Lisa's (Rob's parents). They go a little crazy at Christmas and we had such a blast hanging out with the family, having breakfast, and opening presents. We still get spoiled like little kids. I can't really explain to you how fun Christmas is unless you have your own kids. Watching your kids giggle and oohhh and ahhh as they open their presents and then jump up and down and scream when they finally get the last wrapping off is so magical.

Christmas Eve night we had some good friends over for dinner. It was a lot of fun to just relax and spend time with our best friends that we don't get to see very often. All five kids were so good and played together really well so Cindy and I could actually have a conversation! A Christmas miracle if you will.

Christmas Morning we got the kids up around 7 and they got to see what Santa brought. Robbie got a new bike and a custom kids set of golf clubs (Which of course every almost-four year old needs.) Elise got a little car to ride (be pushed) in. Along with loads of gifts in the stockings and under the tree from us and my mom and stepdad. Then we headed off to Mona and Papa Boo's for breakfast ....and you guessed it! More presents for the kiddos (and us).

Christmas day we drove down to Tucson to spend a couple days with Pam and David (Rob's other set of parents). And...yes, more gifts. A delicious prime rib dinner and playing the wii. Little Robbie, Rob and David went golfing the day after Christmas and Robbie got to use his new clubs!

From Tucson, we went straight to Flagstaff (yawn...long drive). Rob had a business meeting here Monday and Tuesday and we've been hanging around in our pj's ever since. Monday night we had dinner at my Dad's house with them and....wait for it....more gifts!

Wednesday night we're off to my Mom and stepdad's house for dinner. No more gifts. We're done with that! But Four Christmases has no idea how many Christmases it could be. I think we're up to six. Overall we had a great Christmas vacation celebrating with family and friends and most of all Jesus.

Zoolights

Watching the music/light show.

Rob came home at midnight Thursday night (or Friday morning). We were all so happy to have him home. Saturday night we picked up Aunt Margaret and we all went to Zoolights at the Phoenix Zoo. My mom and her husband bought us a family pass to the Zoo for Christmas and it came with 2 tickets to Zoolights and we also got a discount on additional tickets.

We had a fun time and then got lost in the hood on the way home. Robbie was afraid of the komodo dragon but once again got super excited about the talking giraffe.

Are we there yet?

Rob's gone for another two weeks. Yuck. I'm sure if I was married to someone that I didn't like very much it could be a nice thing that he travels. But I do like him. So it's not a nice thing that he travels. We all miss him so much. This time I made a paper chain for Robbie on the fridge so he could take a link off every morning and count down to the "sleeps" until Daddy comes home.

Today is the first day that I reeeeaaallly feel like, "Are we there yet?" I don't even think I really like my kids anymore. I'm sure deep down I still like them, but just not warm fuzzies. (Don't worry, I still love them--but that's different)

Anyway, the picture above is kind of representative of what Robbie has been up to since his dad has been gone. Shenanigans. That's what. The other day at naptime he colored all over himself with what is supposedly a washable marker because he wanted to be a "bad guy". He was pretty impressed with the results, which is good because it took three days of scrubbing intervals to get the blue marker off.

Three more sleeps people. We can make it.

"Winter Holidays"...whatever

Today I stood in line for what seemed like an hour with my two kids to mail a box to my sister in-law and buy some stamps for the Christmas cards I was about to unknowingly send out with no return address labels...which is just an unfortunate set of circumstances if you ask me. Oh, and I would also like to add that Robbie spilled a cherry limeade in that time AND peed his pants a little bit and then hobbled around the last ten minutes holdiing his crotch because he had to go potty. Oh, and Elise screamed the majority of the waiting period. I LOVE going in public with two kids.

When I got to the counter the woman asked if I'd like the forever stamps or the Winter Holiday stamps. Well, shucks. I'll take the winter holiday stamps of course. Ho Ho Ho! As I looked over the supposed "winter holiday" stamps I was a bit surprised to see a gingerbread man, snowman, nutcracker, and a reindeer. Hmmm...seems to me that I got the CHRISTMAS stamps.

Now, I am not one of those people that is offended by every person, commercial and checkout girl that says "Happy Holidays" to me during the Christmas season. Because I understand that lots of people aren't Christians and don't necessarily celebrate Christmas during the season and there are several other holidays in the same time period. So "Happy Holidays" is cool with me. BUT, if the government is going to deem Hannukah and Kwanzaa holidays that are important enough to necessitate their own books of stamps, then I think it's ok to call the blasted Christmas stamps what they are.... Christmas stamps!!! For the love! I mean they're making a gabazillion dollars off of people who are shipping boxes of CHRISTMAS PRESENTS!

Oh and PS...why the H*#! isn't there a restroom at the post office?

Happy Freakin' Holidays

Elise is juuust loving the Christmas festivities as you can see. This picture just makes me laugh out loud every time. Robbie looks like a little angel (bribery worked), Santa is a picture of Christmas Cheer, Elise looks like I took her birthday away and cut her pinkie toe off as well. The joys of Christmas. Ho, Ho, Ho!

Kids Pics

My friend has a photography business she's just getting started up and she does it in her free time (whatever that means...she has three kids!) So I set up an appointment with her a couple weeks ago to get the kids' pictures taken. I've been meaning to get pictures of Elise taken since she was born....just never got around to it until now. Sarah did a great job with the pics even though Elise wasn't very cooperative, little stinker kept sucking her thumb and pushing Robbie away when he tried to sit by her! Robbie just needed a little bribing because his buddy was there waiting to play on the playground with him and he smiled like a champ.

Check out SEH Photography if you need an affordable family photographer!

Thanksgiving

Happy 2nd Birthday Avi!

Eating and drinking before the real feast.

Well, I guess there's no time like the present. Since Thanksgiving was only a week ago I guess it isn't terribly tacky to upload the three pictures that we took the entire weekend. We had so. Much. Fun. Seriously. My cousin and her husband are in the Marine Corp and they are stationed in Yuma right now so they were able to come, Margaret, my brother and his wife and kids, and some of my mom's friends. My mom and I had done most of the cooking the day before so we actually enjoyed the morning and had very little chaos and stress getting the meal done. We had a great day.

Then came Black Friday. I usually enjoy that. This year I did not. Apparently the economy being in the crapper brought out every single cheap and grouchy person that isn't usually willing to get up before the crack of dawn to get the deals but this year they had to or else their kids weren't getting gifts. The lines were ridiculous. The people weren't very nice and Wal-Mart was a really pointless venture...at least in Flagstaff. However, I did get almost everything on my list and we managed to have an ok-time at it. I am officially done with my sho[pping and now have several projects to complete but that's it.

Friday afternoon we went to the cabin to spend the rest of the weekend with Rob's family. We had so much fun with everyone. Robbie and his cousin Sierra had a blast together and didn't even have enough time away from their fun to bug us or whine which is always a lovely thing to me. Overall the entire weekend was great. The only trouble is that when other people are being responsible and taking pictures of my kids...I don't. So these are truly the only pictures I have of the five days we spent in Flagstaff. My mom and Rob's mom Lisa took lots of pics so maybe someday I'll remember to get the copies from them.