Bad dog, no biscuit!

This morning started out great, we all slept in and it was just a generally lazy morning, UNTIL . . . . I stepped out onto the back porch to let Sophie outside and THIS is what I saw! My brand new snow boots have now been initiated quite nicely, thanks to some sharp little teeth and general boredom from a very active little cocker spaniel! Needless to say, Sophie received some 'discipline' and as I turned around to go back inside I saw that Brianna had been standing there and witnessing the whole thing. Her comments on it? "Well at least I was a good girl, can I have a cupcake now?" :)

Christmas with Elmo(s)

One of Brianna's most requested gifts this year was a talking Elmo. Now, she has asked for these types of animated creatures before but never had her wish granted, my practical side always questioned spending $20.00-30.00 on something that doesn't really do ANYTHING, and what is does do, well it just does that over and over and over, well you get the idea! :) I finally gave in when I found the little red guy on sale at Wal-Mart and we had one happy little girl on Christmas morning! While I was shopping for Tyler I picked up the TMX edition of Elmo for him, to say the least he is not very impressed! He, well, seems bothered by the mere existence of Elmo and is quite content to watch from a distance, I'll let the video speak for itself!

Don't be fooled, the only reason for Tyler's smile is that Elmo
is standing still, not rolling around on the floor making all
sorts of odd noises!

Becoming a little better acquinted

Christmas Part I

Posing this morning with their new stuffed animals from Grandpa and Grammy, thanks a bunch! :)

We had a wonderful Christmas Day, it started out with everyone sleeping in until 8:30am, so nice! Even then Brianna was just peeking into our bedroom to see if we were awake, of course we were but were just waiting for the kids to wake up. I had been sooooo sick Christmas Eve,(just a touch of the flu, I think) and was still a little woozy the next morning, so instead of the nice Christmas breakfast I had planned we just skipped eating entirely and went straight for the presents! :) I don't think anybody minded and we all had fun opening gifts.

Opening the puppy from Grandpa and Grammy
Christmas Eve, a game that she wanted for a looong time, from Poppie and Mem-maw
Christmas morning, getting right into the middle of it!

"How do these work, Dad?""Ok, I get it, I can really do some damage with this one!"

Drum set, am I a little crazy for buying this one? :)

I have MANY more pictures and a few cute videos to upload but those will have to wait for another day, I need to go try to organize the chaos that was once my neat and tidy living room!

Scenes from the Christmas Tree

A look Back . . . .

Our 2nd Christmas, I was 4 mo. pregnant with Brianna

Christmas 2003

Christmas '04, Brianna- 18 mo.

Christmas 2005 - First Christmas in Nebraska

Christmas '06 Brianna-3, Tyler- 3 wks.

Christmas 2007

I saw this idea on a friends blog,(hope you don't mind that I copied your idea, Jamie!) and enjoyed going back through my pictures and memories. What a difference just a few years can make! Merry Christmas to everyone!

Gingerbread Trains and Holiday Baking

This week has been FULL of baking, I don't remember the last time I baked this much! I originally had visions of making a gingerbread house completely from scratch but those plans quickly fell by the wayside, I saw all the cute kits at Target and thought those sounded like a much better idea! I did most of the assembling with some help from Tim,(I'm not good at directions, even the simple ones!) and Brianna loved decorating with all the candy!

Carefully placing the little candies in the right order,( didn't know there was one!)

The finished product!
"Reindeer Cookies"

The 18 tins of candy and cookies that I made for all the guys at Kaufman Trailers, the company Tim works for.

Shopping and Santa

This is extremely rare for me, I'm actually blogging before my children wake up, (and maybe before I actually wake up, I think I've misspelled almost every word I've typed! Mornings are NOT my strong point) Ok, well maybe Brianna is up, she is so sweet, she tiptoes around the house until she can peek in my bedroom and see if I'm awake, obviously she hasn't been in here yet! And Tyler, he's such a sweetheart too, he never makes a peep either, he just waits upstairs in his crib until I go and get him up! Well, enough about our mornings, how are yours going?

This past Saturday morning we woke up to several more inches of snow and some freezing rain, but did we let that keep us home from Christmas shopping? Absolutely not! :) Tim was nice enough to drive us and we all went to town, AFTER he had his morning of Pheasant Hunting, of course! I'm happy to say that except for just a few small things I am done with the shopping! I was really happy with the gifts I found on Sat, now to just get those Christmas cards sent out, I'm a little late this year. I plan to get them done this morning so that Tim can mail them on his way back from his lunch break.

A funny thing that happened on Saturday: We were leaving the mall and instead of turning right to go to Wal-Mart, Tim accidentally turned left, I told him that he had gone the wrong way and then we heard and "Uh-Oh" from Tyler in the backseat! That happens to be be his favorite word at the moment, and it just so happened that it was perfect timing for it!

One other thing we had planned for the day was to visit Santa and get a picture. Now up to this point I have never had a bad Santa picture, even when Brianna was 6 mo. old she loved him. This year the spell was broken and we now have a horrible Santa picture, none the less, it will be scrapbooked, after all, they are still memories! I know most of you are wondering why the dead, mounted , animals in the background, well, Santa happened to be at Cabela's and the pictures were free! For all you Moms out there that have paid $10, and sometimes $15 for a Santa picture, you know that this was a pretty good deal! Even though the 2nd one is horrible , at least 'Mrs. Claus' captured the animals' antlers, unlike the one below where all you see is this giant rump! What did I just say about memories? :)

Beautiful Snow

We are certainly having our share of snow around here. In the last week I think we've probably received about 8 inches or so. It's so pretty as long as I don't have to go outside in it, I did manage to step outside for just a couple minutes Sat. morning to snap a couple pictures, it's so beautiful just after it falls without any tire marks or footprints in it.

Brianna's Preschool Christmas Program

Oh, what an evening! Last night was the Christmas Program at the Baptist Church where Brianna attends preschool. The teachers told us to be there a little early so we arrived at 6:45pm for the program that started at 7:00pm. This being our first Christmas program we didn't releize how early people got there, all the good seats were already taken! Note to self: Arrive 30 minutes early next time! We ended up getting an ok seat but not the greatest for pictures, so I ended up standing in the back along with a lot of other parents to get some pictures.

Waiting for the program to start . . .

Receiving some last minute instructions

Let the songs (and hand motions), begin! Excuse the dark pictures, dim lighting looks great for programs, but my camera didn't cooperate too well with it.If you notice the shaking of the camera, it's because I was trying not to laugh, but didn't really succeed, she was so intent on ringing that bell and just sure that the little boys beside her should be having just as much fun as she was having! No stage fright for Brianna, no way, she doesn't even know the meaning of it!

She was the 'Donkey ' and the song they sang was 'The Friendly Beasts'. The kids sang the verses in groups of 2 or 3, I was so upset that I didn't capture the first couple words, I though the whole group was going to sing a verse first and then Brianna but instead she was first

Celebrating the birth of Jesus with a birthday cake and a chorus of 'Happy Birthday, Jesus'!
Just some snapshots at home after the program, notice the red Kool-Aid mustache!
Our Christmas tree

My oven today

Yes, the time to make jerky has come, here's hoping the smell doesn't linger in my house for too many days!

A busy week

Have I mentioned that I absolutely LOVE the holidays? I love the busyness and hustle and bustle of it all, not something that everyone likes, but count me in on it all! I am finally finished with all the decorating, all that I am going to do anyway. It seems like every year I decorate and decorate and then there comes a point that I'm just too tired to finish those last few things and the rest gets put back in the tote that it came out of. I look at it this way, its that much less that I have to take down after the holidays!

This week Brianna has 3 days of school instead of the normal 2, they've added an extra day for some extra Christmas program practice. According to the teacher today the kids really need the extra practice! That just doesn't sound very good considering it's the day before the program, does it? :o) So, after Brianna gets up from her nap today we're going to be practicing the songs they have to sing. She and another little girl have their own verse to sing as a duet, Brianna knows and sings that very well but I'm not sure how well she knows the other songs. I think I might stay at the school tomorrow to help out with the practice, maybe it won't take up the entire 2 hours and we can come home early. Wed. evening is the Preschool Christmas Program, I already promised Brianna that if she did a good job and stood very still (she's quite the wiggle-worm sometimes) that she could open a Christmas present early, she reminded me of that today and is very excited about it!

Our Church has revival going on this week, I didn't remember it being this close to Christmas last year, but we'll try to make it to the services as often as we can.

Our good friends, the Forbes, have an Open House Christmas Party every year and that is always a lot of fun. The party is Friday night and I have quite a few things to do before that, but I'm not complaining, didn't I say that I love this time of year? :)

Christmas Card Photo Shoot Fiasco

No, it wasn't really a fiasco, it just required a lot of patience and deep breathing on my part! After a few discipline issues and a couple of tears wiped away we came away with some cute Christmas pictures! Yay, we all survived yet ANOTHER one of our annual traditions!

And we're off to do more shopping!

This time Christmas gifts aren't at the top of our list but instead baking supplies! Around this time of year my Mom and I used to do a lot of holiday baking, making candy and cookies and I still love to do it. My plan is to make up a box of assorted goodies for all the guys that work with Tim, that is 18-20 total, hopefully I can get it all done! Here's the list I made the other day of things that sounded good that I'm planning on making this year: Divinity, Raspberry Almond thumbprints, Peppermint snowballs, Chocolate Carmel Candy, Candy Cane Biscotti, Cheesecake bites, Cookie Dough Truffles, Buckeyes, Pecan Tassies, Peppermint Bark Hearts, and Carmel Candy Bars. I know, that is a lot of baking but I'm up for the challenge! Now to just get it baked without too much sampling on my part!

Shopping and Snow!

Ok, so did anybody else brave the crowds on Black Friday and go Christmas shopping? Well, we slept in and probably left the house around 11:00 am or so for some Christmas shopping, I know, not exactly 4 am or anything but it's the best I could do with 2 children and a husband! Surprised that Tim actually agreed to go with me? Well, believe it or not, it didn't take too much convincing, he needed a few things at Wal-Mart too! Sooo, after a few more purchases Friday, I can proudly say that the majority of my Christmas shopping is done! Except for several gifts card to pick up and a few small kids gifts to get, everything else is done! To be honest, I've shocked myself, I'm usually the one that is still shopping the week of Christmas! I do feel great though, I feel like I can enjoy the holiday season so much more when I'm not thinking about what all I have to buy. I have several gifts ordered, I just love on-line shopping! One of my favorite things we bought Friday was a little sled for Tyler. It's for toddlers and has a back rest and seatbelt, it's so cute and works really well, Tyler loves it.

Friday evening, on the way home it started snowing. The weather man predicted that there would only be about 1 inch of accumulation, turns out he was wrong and when we woke up Sat. morning there were 3 inches of snow on the ground. This delighted Brianna to great extent and she immedientely wanted to go play in the snow. I bundled everybody up and sent everybody outside to play and after snapping a few pictures, I went to clean, organize and purge the junk out of my attic! My goal was to get it completely done, it's not enterily but almost, I feel so much better! In the end there is one bag of clothes and 3 boxes of household stuff for Goodwill, and a huge pile of trash. My new motto is" If I don't use it, don't store it, throw it out!" I'll probably be looking for half the stuff in a couple months wondering why I threw it out but for now, it's out of my hair!


Now, on to the pictures of the snow and sledding:

Awww, get away from me, Sophie!

Best Buddies even in the coldest weather!
Driving in the snow, mostly getting stuck, but some driving!

Weeeee, this is fun Dad!

Happy Turkey Day!

Brianna's artwork from Preschool

Our "Spread" included Turkey, Mashed potatoes, Gravy, Rolls, Cheesy Peas, Corn Casserole, Stuffing, and Sweet Potato Casserole. For dessert I tried a new recipe: Carmel-pecan Cheesecake Pie, VERY rich but good!

We hope everyone is having a great thanksgiving, we all have so much to thankful for! We enjoyed today just hanging out as a family and stuffing ourselves at the table! At one point Brianna pushed back from the table and said"Wow, my tummy is really full!" I think we all had our limit and the good news is that I don't have to do any cooking for several days, we have lots of leftovers!Tyler really liked the turkey!

Who can resist a good card game after a great meal? :)