Christmas Memories 2008

We always end up having multiple Christmas festivities to either attend or host. This year there was no different.

We were suppose to go up north to celebrate Christmas with my Dad's side of the family, but unfortunately Emily wasn't feeling well. She threw up the morning that we were suppose to go. I was really bummed. I do try to see my Dad and Grandma on a regular basis, but don't tend to see my extended family beyond Christmas, weddings, and funerals. So I knew that we would probably not have an opportunity to see them again until next Christmas. We missed last year because of our Cruise vacation, so that made it that much more disappointing for me. Hopefully, this will be the last time something like this happens.

We celebrated with Ken's family on Christmas Day at our house. We kept the food simple, mostly finger foods. We played Rockband, ate, and enjoyed each others company. It was nice and relaxing! Of course the kids got spoiled, as usual, with more presents than they needed!


Ken, Gram, and Dad


Our Family - the best of the bunch since Emily didn't want to cooperate!


Alex


Noah


Emily




Nicole






We hosted my Mom's side of the family at our house, and it was memorable to say the least as we didn't have any power that day. It was cold and we had to light the burners of the stove to heat up the food. We made the best of the situation and didn't let it stop us from catching up and enjoying each others company. My Aunt Sheila was here from California visiting and I can only imagine how cold it felt to her! Unfortunately, I didn't end up taking a lot of photos. We had to quickly eat, open gifts, etc... before the sun went down and we didn't have any light.

Some photos of Zoe, my niece, enjoying her first Christmas. She took a lot of interest in her presents. She was warming up for her first birthday in a few short days!




A few shots of the girls showing off their goods! Despite all the gifts they received, surprisingly enough neither of them received any duplicate items.








Another successful holiday season comes to an end! Hope yours was as blessed as ours!

Christmas Morning 2008

Santa was again very good to the girls, as was everyone else! Nikki was extremely happy to receive her most requested item, Rockband, from Santa. The other thing she asked Santa for the past two years was a big stuffed snowman, and obviously her little sister was listening to her requests. Miss Emily got Nikki the cutest Mommy and little snowman set.







Emily received a ball pit from Santa to play in. She was however more interested in opening gifts than anything else. We had to work at making sure she was only opening her own as she would grab a hold of anything she could and proceed to tear it open. She just really enjoyed the feeling and sound of ripping paper, something she had started practicing a few weeks earlier at her birthday party. She is now a master present opener!















We are trying to make a more conscious effort to take some photos of ourselves as we tend to just take pictures of the kids. Emily wasn't really into posing so this is the best one of me with girls. The one of Ken and I together, Nikki took, and I have to say that it turned out pretty well. Hats off to my budding photographer!

Car problems, sickness, and other tales of woe!

So I promised to post our Christmas photos a few weeks back, but we had some bad luck. The previous week I had car problems everyday, which were only made worse by the really cold weather we had here. Two bad batteries, a bad auto starter, had to get jumped a few times, and I had have someone follow me to the gas station so I could guarantee that my car would start after I filled up to name a few. Good news is that we now have two vehicles that are working very well, so if this should happen again anytime soon, I will have something reliable to drive!

This past week we had the sickies visit our house. So far just Em and I had to endure it and mine was minimal compared to her's. I was just exhausted and had this raging headache for several days that no medicine would touch. Emily had a more extreme version of mine that includes things coming out both ends. She is still trying to get over it completely. I could go into greater details, but I don't think that is necessary to get the picture!

Sorry if two tales of woe aren't enough but that is all that I have got and as far as I am concerned, more than enough! So those are my excuses for not getting to posting the Christmas pictures and I am sticking to them!

Christmas, Halloween, New Year's - What the heck holiday is it?

So I am looking back through my blog posts and realized that I never even posted the Halloween pictures from Trick-or-treating! I just went straight to Emmi's birthday. Silly me! So here they are! Better late than never.

I ended up taking a vacation day for Halloween because Nikki had a half day of school and that way I could hang out for her Halloween party. She always asks me to come with her to school especially for Halloween for some reason. One of the best photos I took at school was of Nikki with her friend's, Kaylee and Gabby. These girls are her best friend's in 2nd grade.

This year Nikki was Hannah Montana. We purchased a wig and microphone but opted to create our own costume using regular clothes. That way when it was all said and done with she would still have something she could wear. She wore the wig for her entire school party, but the wig only lasted for about the first fifteen minutes of trick-or-treating. Note to self; use spray hair coloring next time a wig is required! Even I got tired adjusting it on her head!









Miss Emily was ladybug. We reused a costume Nikki had used. We actually had two different ones that you can see in the pictures, but we opted for the heavier one for that evening. It wasn't really cold, but by wearing that one, she didn't have to wear a coat and everyone could see her costume.





We went through the neighborhood as we usually do along with our neighbor friends, Mason, Dale and Chris Kolmetz. Mason had the funniest costume, he had a blow up costume of a sumo wrestler. It was great and fit his personality perfectly!





I think this was the first year that we didn't stay out the entire 2 hours. The kids were done within an hour or so, but they still got a ton of candy.

Now that we are getting caught up, look for Christmas pictures to come shortly. I promise! :)