It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

What a fun Christmas.  More proof that God is a God of Miracles.  Mike is still one month from getting his first paycheck, but thanks to the hand of God and many generous people and anonymous gifts, we didn't feel the pinch.  Thank you to everyone who had a part (you know who you are) in making this a wonderful Christmas for us.

Jane yelling "CANDY!!!" 
She found the stash Santa left.

Cole dumping his sock.

Macy opening her Santa gift.

Ali's desk chair from St. Nick

Jane's favorite Dora movie.

Cole never disappoints in the reaction department.

Yup.  We give cereal as a gift.  The kids LOVE it.

Watching Dad unpackage something...
isn't this how parents spend most of Christmas morning?

The gang's all here
(Here you're catching a glimpse of the cold just starting
that wiped me out all that day and the next).

What's Chrismtas without garbage bags full of wrapping paper?

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve

We had a fun Christmas Eve this year.  My parents joined us via Skype.  We had Mike's laptop aimed at our fireplace "stage" and they had it set up on their big projector screen and joined in on the fun from afar.

This pic is from Christmas morning, but you get the idea.

We decided our kids were old enough to start Mike's family's tradition of having a "talent show" on Christmas Eve.

Macy and Jane danced (ran in circles) to the Carpenters "Jingle Bells."
Cole sang along with Glee's version of "Jingle Bells"
Ali sang "Silent Night."
I read a christmas story
Mike read a special arrangement of the nativity story with scriptures and christmas hymns mixed together beautifully.

The kids then got to sleep together in the same room (minus Jane).

It was a great night and even more fun to be able to share it with my parents!

Macy a.k.a Rupunzel

Macy received this "Tangled" headband as part of her 12 days of Christmas gifts from her Nana and Papa.  She insisted on wearing it all day for multiple days on end. "Can I wear this in my bath, Mom?"

She is infatuated with the idea of having long hair (I was too at her age, wore half slips on my head... my poor girls inherited my hair that won't grown 'til their 5).  She tried brushing it, had me put it in a ponytail with her other hair, "Oh, Mom... it looks so beautiful!"  She would dance and spin letting the hair flip around.

Now it's a mangled, gnarled mess, but every few days it come out and the twirling starts again.  Love that four year old imagination.

Ali's New Glasses

Ali's New Glasses.
Hard to tell in this picture, but they are blue.
So cute, Ali!

Jane Train is Two!

Happy Birthday Jane Train!

It was Cole's turn to take the pictures and although I SWEAR he clicked

10 or 12 pics, this is all we got. 

Enjoy.

She's thrilled.  Can't you tell?

Jane hugging her Dora card from Nana and Papa (squealed when she opened it).

One of my favorite things about Jane is that you get the excited reaction to the present
BEFORE the wrapping paper comes off.

Love you Jane.

On the 2nd day of Christmas...

Every year my Mom and Dad do a fun 12 days of Christmas for my kids.  They send 12 simple presents for each of the kids and they get to open one a day for the 12 days before Christmas.  Still a bit of birthday thunder ("Guess what's on Monday guys?"  "The first day of the 12 days of Christmas!!!!"  "I was thinking of my birthday, but ya, that's true too.")

While my Mom was helping us move my Mom noticed that Cole is an engineer in the making.  The kid will create anything out of... well... anything.  So on the second day of Christmas Cole got a roll of red duct tape (my parents were kind enough to gift him things he can create stuff with so he stops draining me of toothpicks and tape). Here's what he made with it and a binder clip that day (made one for his friend too).

Christmas Snow

Still don't miss the snow, but I LOVE this photo of it. 

"Christmas Snow", photographer Michael Kimble.

Monday

Monday, December 13th was a big day.

Mike started his teaching job.
Kids started opening their 12 days of Christmas gifts.
And the least anticipated of the three... I turned 33.
Pretty sure the years are just going to snowball from here.

Doesn't she look smart!

Ali has been complaining that things are blurry for a month or two now, so I took her in to get her eyes checked.  Sure enough she needed glasses.  Both Mike and I wear contacts, so I knew a few (or all) of our kids would gets our (okay... really just my) blind as a bat genes too.  I'll post pics of Ali in her cute blue glasses once she gets them.

Welcome to our far-sighted world, Al!

Bethlehem

A family in our ward invited us to go with them to a "must see" in Texas.  In a little town about an hour northwest of us a baptist church built a replica of the city of Bethlehem.  For the first two weekends in December every year it is open to the public.  People dressed in garb similar to what would have been worn in Bethlehem wander the streets of the city, selling their goods, weaving baskets, making yarn from wool, making rope, offering you some of the Jerusalem bread they made in a large stone oven.  You see all this as you move through the torch lit streets, into their homes where they are having dinner, to the Inn where Mary and Joseph were turned away, past camels, sheep, chickens, ducks and end at the stable with Mary, Jospeh and baby Jesus.  I thought it was a fun experience.

According to the family that we went with, this year was abnormally crowded (we waited in a "Disneyland" line for over an hour... it usually is a ten minute wait).  It all ends with free cookies and cocoa.  Here are some pictures.

We left smelling like campfire.

Soldiers in the streets, even a prison in the center of the city. 
All of the walls are real stone.

Family having dinner

Loft is where they slept, underneath it was the table and living space.

Making ladders, I think.

You could go in and upstairs

Real Camels

Joseph, Mary and Jesus.  Stable was more like a big cave. 
There was even a star lit above the stable you could see from anywhere in the city.

HALLELUJAH!!!

HALLELUJAH!!!  Mike has a job!!!  He was hired at Blanton Elementary in the Austin School District as a 5th grade teacher.  He starts in the Middle of December.  We are THRILLED!

The school is predominantly hispanic (more than 80%, with blacks being the next highest percentage).  As Mike put it after his "teaching" interview (he had to present a math lesson to the class he would be teaching while the principal watched), "Let's just say, I didn't have one white kid in my class."  It is an English speaking class, but I am sure his spanish with be handy at parent teacher conferences and such.

The principal liked him enough that while Mike was doing his teaching interview she got up and left.  Mike assumed he had run too long and that she needed to be somewhere.  He later found out that she was so impressed with him she had left to call the district and find out what it would take to hire him.

You rock, Mike!

Girls will laugh at boys when they're not funny....

Rob and Becks came and spent Thanksgiving week with us.  It was lots of fun having them around.  Not only did we school Rob at Hand and Foot (crazy fun and addictive card game), learned that you have to remove the roasting pan lid in order to brown a turkey, and that 20 potatoes makes a few too many mashed potatoes (my bad), but also that Whitney LOVES Rock Band.

My kids were already familiar with it from living with the Bagleys.  With Whits it was pulling teeth to get to play (at first), but once she got a hold of the microphone and "Life is a Highway," she was set.  The girl knows how to rock.  Her Mom and Dad should also know that she will probably be getting the cold that Ali, Macy and myself have right now... since singing just isn't singing for Whits without her lips on the Mic.

(Don't try and make sense of the title of this post... unless you know the song and heard Macy sing it OVER and OVER and OVER again, it won't make sense.)