Christmas 2009

The most wonderful time of the year is finally here and almost gone. It has been a lot of fun and I'm glad its nearly over. It has been one very long exhausting day.

First I will start by backing up a couple days. We have been so blessed with such a good church community and friends. We've had so many goodies and treats brought to us. Monday we were surprised with Christmas carolers and Santa! All bearing goodies too. Then Tuesday we were surprised again with the young women group bringing us gifts for the boys and us. When Owen opened his (oreo snacks and a western gun and belt set) he said "how did they know this is exactly what I wanted!?". haha Alex and Brayden both loved their gifts as well and baby Billy loved opening his and Gabriel's gifts. haha! Gabriel got a bath set and immediately baby Billy started taking his shirt off saying "help, bath...help, bath..." until I stopped what I was doing and gave him a bath right then! Billy and I also got some gift cards. We appreciated this very much and wanted to send our thanks to the young ladies and the adults who helped them! :)

Christmas Eve I spent most of the day baking because we want to start a new tradition of delivering plates of goodies on Christmas Eve instead of staying at home and focusing on santa and presents. The boys had fun delivering all the goodies. All  my baking only produced enough for nine small plates which we delivered to the families that Billy is assigned to visit every month, so I apologize to those who didn't get a plate of goodies. Next year I plan to make a lot more!

Bedtime finally came and Brayden laid out cookies and milk for Santa. We discovered that we have a new little Santa's helper as Billy and I heard a sudden clatter coming from the area where the cookies were. Notice I said were. Lady, our dog, decided to help herself to Santa's cookies AND drink the milk too. Yep, she tipped over the milk and drank it all up after she ate the cookies. We didn't tell the boys. They just think Santa enjoyed the cookies and milk. :)

It took a while to get the boys to sleep but finally we did and we, errr I mean Santa, set up all the gifts and special Santa gifts (the ones that we set up and are not wrapped).  Ebay was our big life saver this year! We bought most of the boys gifts used on Ebay (saved tons) and if not on Ebay, then we got them discount on Amazon with free shipping. wohoo!
Billy and I realized that we both got eachother new computer chairs and so he brought both of them in the house and put them together. yay!

We finished early, around 10:30pm but decided to relax a little and watch a movie. Bad idea. At midnight we finally went to bed but I wanted to feed Gabriel because for some reason he had refused to nurse when he went to bed. So unlike him. I tried to feed him at midnight but again he was refusing him. At that time it had been 6+ hrs since he last ate. He shouldn't have been refusing to nurse. So I kept trying but it made him more mad. Now I was dealing with a cranky baby at midnight who wouldn't nurse to go back to sleep. uggh Finally I laid him back down and he wimpered a little but went to sleep. It worried me all night though. :( I didn't go to sleep until 2am.
Annnnnnd a couple hours later, 4:30am, the boys woke us up to go open presents. Seriously? We tried to put a movie on for them (we were all sleeping together downstairs since the presents were upstairs) and hold them off until 5am but it didnt work. Finally at 4:45 am we drug ourselves upstairs.

 

 

 

 

The boys were all very excited for their gifts. I was pleased at how well behaved they were being though. They each took turns and no one got impatient waiting for his turn to open a gift. Baby Billy squealed with each gift and demanded I take his picture every time he opened a gift. Gabriel just crawled around getting into his brother's gifts and pulling the wrapping paper out of the garbage box faster then Billy could put it back in. haha

Then we surprised the boys with their big family gift. We weren't planning on getting it but this Christmas season blessed us unexpectedly and our tight budget suddenly had more room even after we decided to share the joy and buy some presents for another family who we knew was also on a tight budget. (And no Joy it was NOT us! haha)   So for the family gift we got a Beatles Rock Band set with Lego Rock Band game. We told the boys they had one more gift but they had to find it. We had wrote a letter with clues that they had to follow to find it.
Once they found it they were SO surprised. They all gave Billy a big hug. :)

 

After presents the boys were off playing so happily and quietly. It was nice. I took a little nap with baby Billy. haha Then it was time to make Christmas dinner. Billy got a prime rib and found a recipe online that he followed. He invited the missionaries from our ward and another ward to have Christmas dinner with us. The prime rib was soooo good! We ended up having another two missionaries come join us for dinner also. But that big prime rib served our whole family and six hungry missionaries! After dinner Alex brought out his new Halo Wars Risk game and the four missionaries left were excited to play Risk with him. I wanted to take a picture but decided against it. Some people dont like their photos on public internet blogs. haha

Then on Saturday after Christmas we drove up to Billy's mom's house for our Christmas with them. It was a lot of fun and the boys had a blast. Billy brought Rock Band and it was a huge hit. We all (well maybe not me lol) played Rock Band for a couple hours! Beki got me this awesome family sign for our house. I think its my favorite present! We already hung it up: (I blocked out our last name for privacy reasons, afterall this is a public blog. But our last name is on the bottom of the sign)

Thanks everyone for the good time and I look forward to next year!

Brayden's piano recital

I've also posted this on Facebook but I know some people who come here do not read my facebook page.

So here is Brayden's first public debut! haha

He did great, although against his teacher's advice he memorized the song. Of course he can read the music too but its faster to memorize it then play along with the notes I guess. Still though I think he did great having only just started playing the piano 5-6 months ago (I can't remember if he started in June or July!), and also that we have no other piano players in the family.

Brayden has always been the type to just get an idea in his head and run with it. I think its a good aspect to have. I wish I was more dedicated to learning new things and putting my mind to things like Brayden does!

Okay here he is....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUv6DXL9MKg

First Snow

The boys are SO excited. I was dozing on the couch while watching a movie with them when I woke up to shrieking, first from Alex, that it was snowing. Then all the boys got into the celebration and I had boys running outside in barefeet, and Owen putting on the first pair of snow boots that he could find so that he could be the first one to run through the snow.
The first thing he did was grab a big handful and EAT it. He told me a month or so ago that he was so excited for it to snow because, "snow is his favorite lunch". hmm? I guess he just loves to EAT snow.
I told him to stay away from the yellow snow... haha

Also I neglected to update and put pictures up but Billy and the boys put up the Christmas tree last weekend. The pictures of the boys decorating the tree are too fuzzy, my flash was not on because the flash washed out the pretty lights. I need to figure out my camera settings better...
But I DID manage to get a picture of all the boys sitting in front of the finished tree. What the picture thankfully didn't show is that immediately after it was taken Alex, Brayden and Owen started hitting each other again and Billy Jr threw Gabriel off his lap. *sigh*.  That's just life in a house of five boys!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. More and more I'm hearing bad news around us. Suddenly our little issues seem so trivial and we're just thankful to have each other, a roof over our head, food in our bellies, and friends and family all around us.

And now the pictures.....

The boys after decorating the tree and before World War IV (lol)

Alex first discovering the snow. P.s. don't you love his shirt? So true...

The other boys running to the back door to see the snow.

Alex throwing out the first snow ball

Owen the first to run outside in snow boots

A happy Owen with his favorite lunch!

All I want for Christmas....

I just have to brag about my sweet little boys for a moment...

The boys really haven't told me much of what they want this year, except for a few ideas they've casually tossed out. However in the past it seems they've had this one special toy that they couldn't stop talking about and really really wanted.

I'm at a loss for what to get them, although I have a few ideas, and so I asked each of the boys individually what they were really looking forward to this Christmas. I asked them when they think about Christmas, what are they really excited about, or what do they really really want.

I asked Owen first and after a long time of thinking he just said, "I just want my family."

I asked Brayden next, and he said "a hamster!" after two seconds of thinking.

Then I asked Alex later when he got home from school and he thought for a long time too and then said, "I just want to be together with my family".

What sweet boys I have! :)

On a sad note, I've gotten a lot of bad news just within the last week about friends and family. So all I want for Christmas this year is healing and comfort for those who need it.