Christmas 2011

Every year I want Christmas to be special for our family. I also want to send out cards, deliver goodies to neighbors, and help a family less fortunate.....Unfortunately the farthest I ever get in accomplishing any of these things is just thinking about doing them. So if you're my neighbor, friend, family, someone less fortunate, know that I THOUGHT about doing or sending you something nice. Someday I hope to actually carry out these things.

I do, however, think I some-what make Christmas time special for our little family. This year we have a dvr so I was able to record all the Christmas shows at all hours of the day for us to watch when it was more convenient for us. Many a chilly day or night was spent watching one christmas movie or another.


Looking at lights is always something we enjoy doing. When Brody was Ryder's age he was so much fun when we looked at lights. He would oooh and aagh and be so excited. We wondered how Ry-ry would react. He did not disappoint. Dispite a skimpy amount of lighted houses this year, Ryder would make this growl sounding word sounding somewhere between a whoa or wow! It was hilarious! We looked at lights so many nights that Brody knew where the best houses were, and what their displays were. He would say things like, "Wets go see the house wif santa cwaus going down the chimney!!!"

Christmas shopping with kids isn't very productive, but we did pick a few things with them, but the best part of any shopping trip was going down the aisles with the holiday decor. The boys would get so excited about every little thing. It just made Christmas so much fun with them.

Snow has been very limited, but just before Christmas we had a pretty good storm come in. Brody couldn't be happier because he kept telling us it would be Christmas when it snowed.

I am no crafty mom, but I did roll up my sleeves and me, Brody, and my nephew Aftyn, made a couple things that even I was proud of. One was a simple christmas countdown chain that they both thought was pretty awesome. Brody looked forward to pulling one off each night and then counting how many days until santa would come. The other craft was a snowglobe made out of sculpey clay and baby food jars. Thanks to pinterest for that super cute idea. (and of course, no pictures)

Finally, Christmas day came. It was great. Ryder didn't wake up on the right side of the bed and it took him a while to warm up, but Brody couldn't get the covers off him fast enough when Trevor went to tell him Santa had come. I had two cameras ready, but do you think either one behaved? Not really. The truth though, is that even if they did work properly I sometimes feel like you miss out on reactions when you are looking behind a lens waiting to get a good picture. I don't want to even get into details of who got what, but I will say this: Trevor was surprised, I was excited, and the boys were tickled pink. I can't complain about having too much family to visit when so many people are far from family, but we spent a good portion of the day running from our house, to my mom's, to Trevor's family several times. We truly feel blessed to have family to be with, and were really grateful and surprised by some of the things we did receive.