December Crafts

Are they pretty?  They are hair clips.  One of my goals for the new year is to have some extra craft time.  Have?  Ha ha there is no having craft time is there?  Making craft time I should say.  So here is one of my first projects. 

Christmas Day

So even though I will back date this I'm not kidding anyone that is paying attention. This is a Christmas post written in February. Why? Well one of Teagan's gifts was a camera. His camera for some reason takes better pictures than mine. So I found he had these great pictures on his camera and decided to wait to post them until I had time to find his cord and download his pictures. Teagan accidently erased all his pictures. All of them. Now we are stuck with my fuddy duddy fuzzy pictures but here they are.  And they are better than nothin'.

Jade got an easel for Christmas.  Chalkboard on one side, dry erase on the other and it comes with a roll of paper for coloring or painting.  She loved it.  They drew pictures while they waited for Mommy.

Gauge got a car.  He pretty much wouldn't leave it.

Santa brought movies.

Movies wrapped in golden paper.

Gauge was still in his car.

Teagan made me this at boy scouts.  A recipe holder.  I like it because it doesn't take up as much room on the counter as my previous one.

Daddy helping Gauge open a present.  He still won't get out of the car.

Jade got a pinano.

And Gauge got drums.  Let's start a band.  Notice how they got him out of the car.

Teagan got a little stereo with a couple Kidz Bop cds.  We reccomend the Dance Party one.

Back in the car.

Jade got a pretty awesome Polly Pocket set which she had to play with at the table.  So this year the kids got three gifts.  Like the three wise men brought to Jesus except different.  I liked doing the three gifts.  We are going to do it again next year.  After presents we went to Christmas breakfast at Bob & Fay's and then on to a lunch at Grandma & Grandpa Johns.  It was a good day.  It was a good Christmas season too.  I hope next year is just as wonderful.

Family Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was great this year.  Just relaxing at home and having all the time in the world.  That evening the kids helped collect the presents from all over the house.  We couldn't put them around the tree until the last minute because Gauge would have opened them for us.  They have fun arranging the presents around the tree.  Teagan made a star for the tree this year.  I couldn't find one I was in love with so he made a gold one with glitter.  It's up there but he made it that night so it was still drying and didn't make it all the way to the top of the tree.

We couldn't find our stocking this year.  Can you believe that?  Yeah we still haven't found them.  It's not often things around here get genuinely lost.  I hope we find them because they are pretty special to us but it was kinda fun to be all matchy matchy this year too.  Five stockings.  That is pretty wonderful to me that we started with two and now we have five.

And speaking of those extra stockings.  I usually do new jammies for the kids every year but this year Gauge and Jade had just got new ones the month before and Teagan had plenty already.  So I decided not to buy them just for the sake of tradition.  I'm relaxing about a lot of things and I love it.  Ask if I touched the tree after the kids decorated it?  Not once.  Some ornaments hung on for their lives and I just let them.  It was nice and I'm sure the kids appreciated mommy respecting where they wanted to put them.  The tree turned out great.

So I thought it would be fun to get out the little people nativity and have Daddy read the Christmas story.  The kids really liked it.  It was really funny because Gauge kept trying to steal baby Jesus the whole time.

Milk and cookies for Santa.  Teagan picked the ones he wanted to leave for Santa.

Christmas Lights

One evening when we had some time we got in the truck to go see Christmas lights.  I took pictures of the ones the kids liked best.  It was so nice to have plenty of time this year to do all the fun stuff.

Christmas Cookies

Okay I just thought this picture was funny.  When I was a kid we would tell a joke.  For part of it you would say, "I gotcha where I wantcha and now I'm going to eatcha."  That is cookie dough she has in her hand by the way.  We were making our traditional gingerbread cookies.  I love making them and the kids love them because they don't taste like regular gingerbread.

Jade was ready to help.  She did a great job and ate lots of dough.

Teagan was a big helper too and really excited.

We got them baked and then it was time to decorate.  This year I just gave the kids the frosting and let them go to town.

They both made lots of cookies and had lots of fun.

Compton Christmas Party

The Christmas party this year was at the Wigwam Resort in Litchfield Park, Arizona.  Pretty isn't it?  It was nice to not have to drive all the way to Tucson this year.  I got to spend a lot of time relaxing in the room which was wonderful.  I brought the laptop so I had something to do.  I found after so many years without tv I pretty much have no interest in it.  So I was so happy to have the internet. 

After Ian's meeting we went shopping and had some fun.  The actual party was the last night.  They had really good food this year and it was nice to spend time with Ian's coworkers.  The morning after the party we stopped at the farmer's market they have there.  Then headed home.  He did some shopping and stopped at our favorite italian place.  It was a much needed time away for Mommy & Daddy.  Life has been so busy that it was great to just stop for a few days.  Can't wait for next year.

December Pack Meeting

This was the first pack meeting that I was able to attend.  I was soooo proud of Teagan.  He did such a great job and he was confident and happy to be there.  Jade stood in the front of the room the whole time.  I made a bigger scene trying to get to her to sit down than she was making standing up there.  Teagan got his patch for finishing his Bobcat and got a beltloop for flag football.  I got my first mom pin.  Here Sister Bolton is talking about the gifts that they made.

Here Teagan is singing a song.  I can't remember which one it was but he did so good.  You could here him singing and everything.

Afterwards they had some yummy treats.  I really love this program.  Teagan loves it too and is so proud of his achievements.  :)

Christmas Parade 2010

Teagan was very excited for this Christmas parade.  I'm afraid I din't get very many great pictures with the odd lighting but I got some of the stuff the kids thought was cool.  Jade made a little friend on the street.  I went to school with her friends mother but I can't remember her name and there wasn't really an opportunity to ask.  They talked and played and the little girl kept sharing the candy that was thrown with Jade.  Jade of course was giving me a heart attack by insisting on sitting on the curb of the narrowest part of the street.  I let her until there was a nervous horse and we all nearly had to jump out of the way.  After that I decided I was worried for good reason.

How cool is that?  World War II.

Border Patrol had a ton of cool vehicles.  This was one.

This is the float for our street.  Funny huh.

And this is what we came for.  The pirate ship that Teagan saw at the college.  When we saw it there was only the car and the shell.  It turned out really cool.  It was a fun night.

Actually there is Jade's little friend right there.  With the dark hair and the pink jacket.

Gingerbread Houses With Friends

Jade's House

Aren't these fun?  I'm not sure how long we have been doing them now.  It's been a long time.  I'm pretty sure the year Jade was born we started doing them with Teagan.  The kids had fun and made some great houses.  Jade loved having friends there. 

Mitchell's House

Teagan's House

Emily's House

Christmas Tree Farm

We nearly didn't make it to the Christmas tree farm this year.  We've been so busy that we were just too tired to think about traveling over to Yucipa and doing the whole thing but we knew the kids would have a blast so we went.  This year we didn't go on a weekend thinking that we would beat the crowd.  Well we didn't know that the rides and bouncers only ran on the weekend.  The corn maze and the petting zoo was open though so we were set.

Here they come!  Jade just saw this picture and said, "I like those goats!"

Jade got rubbed on by a little billy goat and left her shirt up in case he came back again.

Gauge didn't like the goats.

Our tree!  It took us about 1 minute to find it.  We are getting good at this.

We spent a lot of time in the corn maze.  I think we took every wrong turn possible.  But we enjoyed the walk.

The kids wanted to get a picture with an elf.  Teagan and Jade picked out an ornament for themselves and Gauge.  We had a really good time.  I'm glad we went after all.