Happy Christmas!!

I'll have to end on this last post since I've been doing this for a while now. Christmas was awesome this year. We went cheaper on the gifts, but they still got a good amount.. (my dad and Kay bought Tatum that Barbie house which she absolutely adores).

My top favorite things about Christmas and this time of year:

1). Burning my Christmas candles.

2). All of the decorations and lights both inside and outside of my home.

3). Our neighbors in our cul-de-sac who really go all out with blow ups and lights.

4). The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (Jim Carrey edition), A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, The Polar Express, Charlie Brown, Frosty and Rudolph vintage cartoons and a new favorite, Olive, the other Reindeer.

5). Wrapping presents.

6). Jesus.

7). Family/friends.

8). My Uggs.

9). Eating lots of yummy things including sausage logs, cheese balls w/crackers, cookies..etc..etc..

(not in any particular order of course).

The kids got to open one present on Christmas Eve night. Santa left Tatum a letter and a present under her tree for Christmas morning (I don't have a picture). He also ate the cookies we left out. Marley loved her stocking as well.

I'm sorry we have not sent out a Christmas card this year (the first year since we've been married). I'm sure you understand since I do keep up with my blog as good as I can :)).

Christmas Night with my dad's side of the family

Christmas night at my house was just not the same this year. My Aunt Marcia was diagnosed with leukemia a while ago, so she was not there (and neither was Mark). Christmas was just not the same, but we expect her to be here next year and for many years to come.

I used the recipe from the Oprah show for the turkey and gravy and everything turned out really well. You know you did good when there were barely any leftovers and no turkey leftovers.

A few more randoms...

For the past few years, we've been going to the Anthem Outlet mall to see Santa. There is never a line and you go right on in and Santa will gab with the kids for a while because he can. Well I decided to go a few days before Christmas this year (the week when every kid is off of school). I really wasn't thinking. We ended up waiting in line for almost 2 hours! But we got a really cute picture:

We baked a cake for Jesus' birthday and the kids decorated gingerbread men (I found a really yummy recipe which has a bit of spice in it..so good).

It's that time of year again...

Christmas with my cousins side of the family. From about the time I was 7 or 8, we always had Christmas at my Aunts house in Mesa. Now that everyone is married off with families of their own, we have Christmas a week before so everyone can still come. I love, love, love getting together with my cousins and having our kids play. It's really the only time of year we can do this since everyone lives so far away.

Krystal's family is in Utah now and wasn't able to make it. My brother and his family weren't able to make it either. Hopefully next year everyone will be here!

Randoms

The kids love to go outside when the hear the neighbor boys playing outside. I especially love it because it's like a play date without the mess lol.

Tatum loves to bake with me. We made a bunch of Christmas cookies, gave some out and ate most of them ;P.

Okay, so this is Corbin's grrrr face. He's just started making it (sound and all). I'm thinking in the future, instead of me asking him to smile (which he won't...it only makes him want to pout lol), I will ask him to growl. Tatum wanted to make some silly faces as well :).

Christmas Eve I put rollers in her hair for overnight. Her hair was curly in the morning and by the time I actually was hoping her hair would be curled (Christmas at our house later that day), it was almost out (her hair does not work well with a curling iron..mostly do to it's length). Then 10 mins before 4:30 (our party), she stood in the rain. So we didn't have curls for that night, but at least she had curls Christmas morning :)).

Praise Jesus!

Tatum had a Christmas party in her preschool class a few weeks ago. She has an amazing group of friends. I just wish everyone could go to the same kindergarten class next year, but because of how many schools we have out here (one for every neighborhood it seems), that probably won't happen :(.

Oh, and the reason for the title is every time they pray in class, the kids raise their hands in the air after amen and yell, "Praise Jesus".

Do You Believe?

Over the weekend we went up North and stayed with my in-laws in Flagstaff. On Sat night we went on the Polar Express to the North Pole to see Santa. It was the kids first time on the Polar Express. It was a rainy/windy night so unfortunately, I wasn't able to get really good pictures of the train or outside. The kids refused to take off their coats/hats/gloves while on the train (although Tatum did take off her hat when Santa came on the train).

So when Santa came on the train, he looked right at at Tatum and instead of asking her what she wanted, he asked her if she ate her vegetables. Her eyes about bulged out of her head as she quietly answered, "yes". She is not a good veggie eater and she knows that. I always tell her that Santa is watching, so it was pretty ironic that he asked her that question. So maybe she will start to eat her veggies from now on now that Santa really is watching.

Unfortunately for Corbin, it was not his night :(. As soon as we got to the North Pole, he was in full on melt down mode and missed out on it (for some reason I thought we got to get out of the train and walk around, but we stayed on). The North Pole part only lasts for about a min with a few lights and you see Santa waving outside until he made his way on the train. He was much happier once he received his bell though. The whole train ride from start to finish is about a half an hour. We all wore our jammies just like the movie. So much fun to wear jammies in public lol.

I was glad we had the opportunity to go and it will be a memory we will never forget.