Over at last...

We LOVE Christmas in this family, but it can get quite exhausting around here! This year we managed to knock our Christmases down to about 11- it was sooo much more enjoable, hardly stressful at all, but still exhausting nonetheless. Just keeping up with the schedule and loading/unloading kids over and over throughout the day is tiring- add to that, the actual visiting, opening gifts, playing with gifts, eating and eating, and eating, chasing kids, etc... phew! It was finally over for us last night. And it was still one of the best Christmases we've had. We just had SOOOO much to be thankful for this year, and we are!

This is just a sampling of pics (still a lot) from a sampling of family gatherings:

Ge & Ba's:





Nana's:


Nonie & Pap's/Meme's:


They looove Brobee and Ming Ming!


Santa!:
Look at their sweet sleepy eyes :) And notice Cale turned and went for what was left of Santa's cookies instead of what was under the tree...
(All their matching pj's were from Mommy and Daddy).




(I looove this picture of Cale! I asked him what Santa got him...)

Pop's:

Deda & Poppy's:


Poppa's:

Mimi's:
I LOVED my girls' outfits! Layla wore white tights and her purple cowboy boots... but I didn't get a pic of them together =(

2008 in review

I stole this from another Mom of Multiples (identical triplet boys!). Really made me think about my year- thought it might make you do the same.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
go on vacation with all four of my parents and my brothers, see alaska/canada, go to the beach as a family of five (went without nathan last year).

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
there was too much going on last year. my resolution was just to survive- i guess i did then! this years is to complete the marathon and hopefully lose weight (and keep it off), and learn to play my new guitar. i'm ambitious.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
a few someones- meg had gracie, anna had asher. i know there's more i'm just now thinking of right now...

4. Did anyone close to you die?
my grandmother.

5. What countries did you visit?
canada!

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
confidence. trust. money!

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
sept 4- my whole life changed.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
healing my marriage. i'm quite proud of us!

9. What was your biggest failure?
i wouldn't call them failures, but a few setbacks in emotional health.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
does heartbreak count?

11. What was the best thing you bought?
a working vehicle really made our lives a lot easier, as did a bed for layla.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
ha- nathan's!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
well, that was nathan too.

14. Where did most of your money go?
groceries, bills, the usual... nothing too extravagant.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
my beautiful guitar from nathan and his reasons behind it. very very sweet.
and also our cruise =)

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
mandy moore- extraordinary.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? waaaayyy happier.
b) thinner or fatter? about the same right now.
c) richer or poorer? about the same. but so much richer in life :)

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
excercise. date my husband.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
eat. cry.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
bouncing from here to there. getting much more enjoyable and less stressful though.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
absolutely. all over again. it's wonderful :)

22. What was your favorite TV program?
brothers & sisters, so you think you can dance.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
no new ones, no.

24. What was the best book you read?
Five Love Languages... changed our life.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
kimya dawson/moldy peaches.

26. What did you want and get?
commitment.

27. What did you want and not get?
wii fit. lol.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
juno! the departed.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
26- nath and layla made me pancakes that morning and i had a photo shoot that night.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
winning the lottery... amen to that.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
i pretty much stuck to my mom uniform. sweats. tees. jeans. blah.

32. What kept you sane?
the same things that made me insane- my babies :)

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
i still love angelina (but not brad for some reason?). i adore mariska. britney entertained me a lot this year!

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
i was much more into the whole election this year than ever before.

35. Who did you miss?
the p's mostly. i got to spend a lot of time with them last year, but not so much this year =(

36. Who was the best new person you met?
does etta james count?! that was awesome.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
Just one?
Don't forget in the dark what God told you in the light. (V.Raymond Edman)

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again".

Jesus' Birthday Party!!

Tonight is Jesus' birthday party- yay! We always have one at Dad's on the 23rd to remember why we are kicking off the Christmas season in the first place. Complete with cake and song, of course. I volunteered to make the birthday cake again this year. Layla is really getting into cooking and baking so I thought it would give us a fun project to do together.
I am actually making 2 cakes this year- one is Emeril's popcorn cake just bc I thought my dad would like it. Sounds kind of weird to me, so we'll see... IF I can even pull it off! I wanted to make yellow cake with chocolate icing (my favorite! and I'm sure it's high God's list too), but Layla Paige has insisted that He would want a "theme" cake and she chose penguins for him?!?! Thank goodness Walmart had little winter-themed cake decorations with penguins included! That was gonna be tough! So now we are having yellow cake with chocolate icing and penguins on top!!




Layla ended up making the cake almost completely by herself! I am so proud of her!

Gator Giggles.

Our kids were SO excited to get their gator from their grandparents for Christmas last night (almost as excited as Mommy and Daddy were to get a weekend getaway for TWO!). They are all definitely going to need some driving lessons- they didn't know what to do with that much power! The funniest thing was finally getting Evan to keep the wheel turned and his foot on the pedal and they just continuously drove in one big circle sqealing and waving everytime they passed us! It was too cute. And actually- it did get even funnier... right about the time Brynn fell out (if someone was going to fall out, it should be her- she'll pop right back up). Anyway, in an effort to get Evan to stop so we could put B back in her seat, my brother stood in front of the gator and pulled E's foot off the gas. That was his first mistake. His 2nd was not getting out of the way before Evan put his foot back ON the gas. Brandon rode on top of the hood for a little bit before trying a spread-eagle manuever to go over the gator, before getting stuck on top of Layla's head! Oh my word! The hilarity of it all! I am so grateful that my little point-and-shoot camera has video capabilities and that I was able to record the whole thing! (I am having trouble getting Blogger to load it at the moment, but I'll keep trying.) My batteries were low too, hence the psycho flash and blurryness of some of the pics. Oh, what a way to start off our Christmas! Good times =)

Squeaky Clean, Jellybean.

Aren't they precious?! Check out Brynn's hair, lol. I have had it braided in front for the last couple weeks and just took it down. And Cale's lashes.... oh pretty boy =)



Splashing each other...


Teamwork!