Toys! - December 31

The kids and I are taking advantage of their time off from preschool this week and have spent lots of time playing with their new toys. Here are some of their favorites...

Cranium Cariboo (they have learned to play it without me sitting right beside them!)...

gears that let you build up high (Thanks, Noni!)...

a microphone to make their band complete...

Tinkertoys (even Zane likes playing with them!)...

an alphabet desk (Monique loves carrying it around!)...

and a magnadoodle especially for Zane.

Merry Christmas! - December 25

After opening presents at our house Christmas morning, we drove down to Lubbock for more present opening and Christmas dinner with my family. Here are just few snapshots from the morning...

Noni, Colter and Wyatt

Craig, Abi and Kim

Colter, Sabrina, Megan and Nathan

Monique, Cathryn and Jerod

Zane and Papa

Merry Christmas, from our family to yours!

Christmas Eve Traditions - December 24

Over the past few years we have developed quite a few Christmas Eve traditions that have made the day a lot of fun...

We love baking, decorating and eating Christmas cookies. We always seem to make dozens and dozens of cookies during the month of December, but they are usually for other people. The kids love that these cookies are just for them (with a few left on a plate for Santa!)

We also eat tamales for supper and go to our Christmas Eve service at church. After we come home the kids get to open one present each (their Christmas pajamas) and one family present (a game to play together).

After everyone is ready for bed we play our new game (this year it was Cranium Cariboo) before climbing into bed for one last sleep before Christmas morning.

And then, by some miracle, this is how everything looks when the kids wake up the next morning! : )

Monique's Special "Weekend" - December 21-22

We weren't certain Monique could handle being away from home for two nights, so we modified her "weekend" and made it an overnight visit during Christmas break. She had lots of fun and was very excited about her special time with Noni and Papa.

Monique was so excited when she climbed into Noni and Papa's car she could hardly contain her excitement!

She took all sorts of pictures on the drive to Lubbock. This is my favorite!

One of the highlights of her weekend was going to see a Christmas movie at the Omni with Papa.

Christmas Goodies - December 20

The kids and I have been busy with Christmas projects over these past few days...

Christmas almond bark (complete with red and green sprinkles!) for our friends in town...

tags for the bags of almond bark (the kids finger painted holly leaves for me)...

reindeer cookies for Colter's Christmas party at school (I used my new KitchenAid mixer - our Christmas present from Danny's parents - how did I ever live without it!)...

cute little felt mice to give as gifts to all the kids classmates at preschool (3 classes = 52 mice!)...

And of course our Christmas cards - without a doubt my favorite Christmas project!

"Ho, Ho!" - December 19

Zane has been avoiding everything related to Santa since the beginning of December. But today he brought me one of our Santa hats and patted his head. I put it on him, he said "Ho, Ho!" and walked away. Maybe he's decided Santa isn't so scary after all!

Sights, Sounds and Tastes of the Season - Dec. 1-15

We love...

the sight of a roaring fire...

and pretty Christmas lights...

the sound of jingle bells...

and "Christmas drums"...

and the taste of warm hot chocolate!

Painting the Paper - December 14

Painting our Christmas wrapping paper is one of my favorite holiday traditions. This year we had five little pairs of feet slipping and sliding on the wrapping paper.

In the end the wrapping paper was beautiful...

and the kids were messy!

A Big City Christmas - Dec. 12-13

We went to Lubbock this weekend for all of our "big city" Christmas activities.

Friday night we went to the Ranching Heritage Center. All of the buildings and grounds were decorated for Christmas.

On Saturday we went to "Santa Land" to see more lights and decorations. The kids loved the big Christmas tree!

A Visit with Santa - December 13

The kids had a chance to visit with Santa today. Here is their wish list...

Wyatt wants "a microscope that is a little better than the one I got last year"!

Sabrina wants "a microphone" so that she sing while Wyatt plays his guitar.

Colter wants "a pirate ship" for his Playmobil pirates.

Monique wants "some clothes for Baby Stella".

And Zane (who refused to get anywhere near Santa!) wants a travel magnadoodle. This was decided by his brothers and sisters who are tired of sharing their magnadoodles with Zane!

Playing with Daddy - December 12

Wyatt really looks forward to Danny's post-call afternoons so that he can "play with Daddy". They may head outside to work in the yard, sit down and read a book or play around on the computer (recently Danny taught Wyatt how to use Google earth and they went "mountain climbing"! Today they played Transformers and then worked out together. This is a little boy who loves his Daddy!

Snow? - December 9

We had our first snow of the year today - sort of. The snow was falling, but the flakes were so fine that they didn't stick to anything. At least it was pretty to watch and made it feel a little more like Christmas!

Rockin' Out - December 8

Wyatt decided we needed to have a "Christmas Band" this evening before supper. The kids had a blast "rockin' out" to our Third Day Christmas CD. And yes, that is Danny on the ukulele!

Christmas Wreaths - December 5

We made Christmas wreaths with cornflakes today. The kids had lots of fun and got really messy!