A Chilled Out Christmas

I was thinking this morning that I better get on with doing a Christmas recap before - 
A: A ridiculously long amount of time goes by and you are all saying, "What?  Christmas was so last year." or B: I forget the details and have nothing Christmasy to blog about. 

So...  We did really have a wonderful Christmas, besides that fact that there was no snow, and I got to read on facebook what seemed like everyone else I know saying how great their White Christmases were.  We did get snow the day after Christmas, which has stuck around, and it snowed again last night, and I've heard that the high is supposed to be in the teens on New Year's Day, so I guess Mother Nature and Jack frost are in cahoots to make up for the brown and green Christmas around here.

As I'm sure you can tell from my previous posts, Brennan loved everything about Christmas this year.  Our Christmas Eve festivities were no exception.

He was very diligent about putting the reindeer food in the front yard just right.


And he insisted that Santa needed to have three cookies.


When Christmas morning came, all the presents were fair game.  I think he helped open every one.






After all the presents were open we ate a big breakfast.  Quiche and cinnamon rolls, yum, yum!  The rest of the day kind of followed suit; we ate plenty of cookies, cheese ball and crackers, ham, mashed potatoes, corn, homemade mac and cheese, deviled eggs, apple pie, and some candy and hot chocolate thrown in for good measure.  Since it was just the three of us, we had plenty of food to spare.  This will be the first night we have something different for supper.  We've been living on the leftovers!  (We're having lasagna tonight.  I just thought you might want to know that.)  : )

There were so many new things around that Brennan didn't realize that the stockings were full, too, until sometime around lunch time.  It was fun having a second round of presents.


Aside from all the eating and playing with our new toys, we spent the rest of the day watching Christmas movies.  There also might have been a nap or two, and not only by this pooped puppy.


The last couple days we've been taking down the Christmas decorations and putting the house back together.  We even got adventurous and rearranged the living room furniture.

As far as Christmas decor goes, the tree came down none too soon.  The night before it got disassembled, these shenanigans began. 

It all started when Brennan's new bowling ball rolled under the tree and he asked Jason to help him get it.  Before the night was over Brennan was throwing his ball under the tree on purpose, and the space under the tree limbs became the official boy's clubhouse.  Somewhere along the way Brennan has learned the phrases "low crawl,"  "move, move, move," and "keep your butt down."  Do you think it had anything to do with the G.I. Joe movie we were watching?  Since the tree is gone, I've been tasked to sew a clubhouse tent to fit over the dining room table.  Oh, the projects of a boy's mommy. (And the wife of a man who loves G.I Joe and Indiana Jones.)

So that pretty much catches us up to today.  Right now we're just relaxing on the couch and trying to stay warm. 

Oh, and of course, we're watching an Indiana Jones movie.  I feel a movie marathon in the making. : )


Until next year...

Hugs,

Wrappin' It All Up

Brennan and I have been busy little elves this morning.  We finished up the last of the house cleaning, laundry is steadily going (and I've put the clothing mound in our bedroom away), and we're getting ready to make a cheese ball and some food for Santa's reindeer.  Yummy!

We also made Snickerdoodles, because we just know Santa is going to be extra hungry after he brings in all of our presents.  The only cookies we have in the pantry right now are Nilla Wafers, and that just won't do.


Brennan was in charge of putting the dough balls into the cinnamon and sugar.  I think he found that to be a very tasty assignment.  Obviously, I wasn't able to avoid using my new stove until Christmas.  Darn.

Brennan spent his time between batches of cookies "dancing" to Jingle Bells.  It was the only song on the CD he wanted to listen to, and I think we've listened to it about 437 times today, give or take 50.  Notice the dog and his mad skills at getting on the couch.  ha!  He had been following Brennan around his coffee table dance circuit, but he must have gotten worn out.



I'm surprised Brennan wasn't wearing his Santa hat, too.  I don't know what he's going to do when it's time to pack that thing away.


Dinosaur jammies and a red Santa hat is a very stylish combo, don't you think? : )

That was a picture from last night, and since I'm sharing pictures I took last night, here's a couple more.


Such boys!  These wrestling matches go on quite a bit around here.


Copper Dog.  He looks like he's wanting to be rescued, but he's just as rambunctious as the other two.


And here's my current favorite picture of Jason and Brennan.  Love it.

Well, this will probably be the last post for a few days.  Jason starts vacation tomorrow, so I just plan on sitting back and enjoying our days together.  I know it will all go by too fast.

Oh, and I didn't forget.  Here is our Christmas card this year.



Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Christmas Around Our House

I really wanted just to not do this post.  But I said I would, and we're running out of Christmas-y days.  Not that I'm bah-humbuggy or anything, it's just that it's that time of the month that the exciting part of having Christmas decorations up is kind of over, and you just want to have your normal house back.  Am I the only one that feels that way?  I can't wait until the  weekend after Thanksgiving to put everything up, but then I am almost as happy to put it all away.

It might also have something to do with part of the lights being out on the tree, one of my village houses being all dark, and all of the lights being out on the entertainment center garland.  For as little time in the year we ask these lights to work, you think they would last much longer.  And I know I'm not the only one that feels that way.  Maybe next year we'll do it It's A Wonderful Life style and put the tree up on Christmas Eve.  Nawww.

So now that I got that out there, I'll proceed with our Christmas tour.


Might as well start with the tree.  Sorry for the crappy picture.  For some reason, I couldn't for the life of me get a really good picture of the tree this year.  I tried at night and the white balance came out way off, in the daytime it jut looks kind of blah.  Sooo....just know it really looks much better in person.  If you want to check out some of our ornaments from Christmases past, you can check them out here.


If you checked out that link about the ornaments you know that Jason and I add a family ornament to the tree every year.  Here's this year's.


And here's Brennan's.  You knew it had to be a "Choo-choo-whoo-whoo," right?" : )


Here's our Christmas village, tucked safely away from little man and puppy on top of the entertainment center.  Jason is the city planner and construction crew for this thing.  I've found that once I've decorated the tree and found places for all the other stuff, I have no patience for building a village.  He really enjoys it, so it works out well. 


The mantel and a cute kid checking out his St. Nick goodies.  Oh, and the infamous stockings, one of the new additions this year.


Usually I tape all our Christmas cards up around the front door, but this year Brennan has a fascination with tape (and sticking it all over the place), so that wasn't the greatest idea this time around.  Instead, I used the old iron fence piece I have hanging in our dining room and just stuck the cards wherever they would stay.  I think it's kind of cute.


My Santa collection is hanging out in the kitchen.  Here's the hutch.  The rest are on the cabinets and on top of the refrigerator.  (My snowman collection is in the foyer, but I forgot to take a picture of that.  Sorry.)


I was determined that my cloche was going to stay out with the Christmas decorations.  I had a bad feeling about it getting broken.  This Santa head fit it perfectly.  I love it when that happens!


Ho Ho Ho!


And last but not least, my favorite decorations this year are all of the little cuties that Brennan has brought home from school in the past couple of weeks.  I have them all through the house and I just love them.

That's all I got.  We have decorations all through the rest of the house too, but I didn't figure you wanted to see a picture of our bathrooms, or the mound of clothes (thankfully clean!) in our bedroom, so I'll just leave it at that. : )

Hopefully everyone has almost wrapped up (ha ha!) all their Christmas wrapping, buying and baking.  I have a couple of more presents to wrap, and then it's on to food prep and baking.  I'm making a from scratch apple pie for Jason this year.  I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out. : )

Christmas Around the Neighborhood

Well, we didn't get to go to Salt Lake over the weekend.  The weather has been c.r.a.z.y around here.  It gets warm, it gets cold, it rains, it snows, it hails...blah.  It ended up sleeting and hailing the night we were supposed to go, so I'm glad we just stayed put.  We're hoping to be able to go yet this week, but in the meantime we took the neighborhood tour of lights to get our holly jolly fix.

I guess I should have started the tour with a picture of our own house.  But I didn't, and I'm not going out to take one now because it is snowy out there and I'm all warm and toasty in here.  Let's just say Jason really gets into stringing lights, and we are the only house around here that has lights on the front and back of the house, as well as around the whole perimeter of the fence.  You can spot our house right off from the interstate.  It's like a little beacon on top of the hill.  And just so you know, we are in the flight path for the Salt Lake City Airport, but so far no pilots have gotten confused.  I wonder what our house looks like from up there?

Anyway, on with the neighborhood tour.

These are just a few of our favorites.  I took all these pictures with my phone, with a wiggly puppy sitting on my lap, so some of them turned out a little blurry.

Like this one for instance:


This one was really neat.  They had everything synchronized to music.  It took me a couple of times to get a shot that most of the lights were on.

It would have been better if I took a video, but again wiggly puppy on my lap, and Brennan yelling "Move Truck," from the backseat every time we stopped.

All pretty with white twinkly lights.


Ode to M&M's, the newest Christmas icon.


There's always got to be one - little bitty yard filled to capacity with every imaginable light up plastic Christmas statue and inflatable decoration.  Those yards always look so sad during the day filled with random Christmas colored nylon blobs.


A red and green classic.  I love how the window panes are done individually.


So there you go.  I hope you enjoyed our tour.  I'm not promising anything, but hopefully tomorrow I will post about the decorations on the inside of our house.

p.s.  If you were wondering about the computer problems I was having the other day, the FedEx truck came yesterday afternoon with my new power cord and battery, so I am a happy camper now.  Funny thing is, it was at the same time that the repair guy was here trying to fix our broken and randomly buzzing stove. (Buzzing stove, I know, weird right?)  Turns out it was good and broke, so now we have a pretty, white and shiny, brand new stove...just in time to bake a Christmas ham. 

Do you think I can get away with not using it until then? 

Santa 2010

Of course we had to make a trip to go see Santa.  I wasn't sure how it was going to go this year, but Brennan wasn't scared at all.  He went right up to him, picked some candy canes out of Santa's sack and sat up on his lap.  Afterward, he got some cookies.  Since then he tells us several times a day that he "sat on Santa's lap," and that "Santa brings presents." 

He is so proud of himself.
Our big boy.

Friday Favorites - Candy Cane Edition

Update:  We are still having technical difficulties.  (Not much of an update, huh.)  But, we were able to borrow a power cord to charge the battery in the laptop, so I was at least able to download the pictures off my cameras, and add them to this post and to publish it.  And I do this just for you.  Because you know it is the Christmas Season and all.  Merry Christmas!  

Just ignore that the title says Friday, or just pretend.
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I don't know why everything that made me happy this week (well, not everything, but you know what I mean) had to do with candy canes, but it did.  Cool like peppermint, don't you think? haha


My first favorite candy cane thing is this little ornament.  Brennan made it in school the other day.  When we got home and I opened up his bag and pulled it out, I almost cried.  His very first handmade Christmas ornament.  Awww.  I will tell you, though, that right now it's not even on the tree.  We tried to hang it up, but Brennan is so proud of his creation that he wants to move it around about every 15 minutes or so to get it into just the right spot, and every time he pulls it off the tree it gets a little more bent out of shape.  I don't want it destroyed, so now it is resting on top of the refrigerator.  Out of sight, out of mind for the short one in the house.



Next up is Peppermint Mocha Latte mix.  You know the Maxwell House International Coffee kind in the rectangular tin.  I am so glad they started copy-catting all my favorite flavors.  Since  I became a stay-at-home mommy, I can't afford my several times a week Starbucks habit, so this is my little indulgence everyday.  I add a little candy cane swizzle stick and it just puts it right over the top.  Yum!!  It's even better when I use my coffee mug that I got from my Grandma several years ago.  See that little red bird on there.  Every time I see it I think of her. *Smile.*


I'm sure you remember me mentioning the advent calendar I made a time, or two.   One of the things I used for stuffers were candy cane ornaments.  Brennan loves that he gets to decorate the tree.  I let him hang them wherever he wants.  After a long drawn out process that goes along these lines:  "Up high.  Noooo.  Back here.  Noooo.  Over here.  OK.  Oh noooo.  Right here.  Nooooo.   By this one.  OK." 

...And then they always end up right here.  A little happy candy cane family.


And last but not least, (well yeah, I guess it is least on this list because you know The Cat in the Hat show is not my favorite).  Yesterday, while we were getting our daily dose of Cat in the Hat, Brennan kept saying "big candy cane on there."  For the life of me I couldn't "get" what he was trying to tell me, one because the show was about jumping and not remotely about Christmas, and two, somedays the more words Brennan learns and uses the more I think somebody is teaching him French or Portugese on the sly and I have no idea what he is trying to say.  Well, it turns out I was the big dummy.  (I finally figured it out after having him go point to what he was talking about.  Then I wonder why the tv screen is always full of fingerprints.) 

Anyway...

He was trying to tell me the Cat's hat looks like a big candy cane.

Well obviously.  Duh, Mommy.

I hope everyone has a geat weekend.  We're planning on watching Christmas Vacation and going to Salt Lake City and check out the lights on Temple Square.

...and this time we won't be without hot chocolate and Peppermint Mochas.  : ) 

Technical Difficulties

Really, I don' know what it is with the Holidays and our electronics.  Last year our tv died...this year...the computer. 

Gahhhh...

Thankfully, I think the problem is only the power cord.  The bad thing is that a new cord won't be here until the 22nd.

So...in the meantime I am trying my hand, or I guess fingers, at blogging from my phone.  So far it has not been the most fun.  Like just now, my phone wanted to change "blogging" to "flogging," and "fun" to "cub."  Flogging a cub with my phone...that would have brought on some interesting comments.

Maybe that's why they say you can't always believe what you read on the internet.  Somebody just fat-fingered the facts. Ha ha.

Anyway, we have a fun weekend planned;  Santa, more Christmas movies and a trip to check out the lights in Temple Square.  I'll post pictures of all that as soon as that becomes possible.

Think about me in the meantime, I'm sure I'll be having computer withdraws.

...absolutely, positively sure.

A Holiday Stroll

Saturday night we went downtown to Ogden to check out the Christmas village in the park on 25th Street.  It was crazy packed so I didn't get any shots of the individual buildings, but I did get some of the overall lighting.  Each individual cottage was decorated in a theme, and they were all automated, so you could look in the windows and see elves baking, or Mrs. Claus getting a pedicure, or Santa checking his lists.  It was really neat.  It was kind of a bummer that all the snow melted earlier in the week, because then it would have been a real Winter Wonderland instead of just a Holiday Stroll, but it was fun all the same.


Since we were on 25th Street, of course I had to take a picture of Union Station. 


25th Street


The big bear.  We had to walk in the grass to get a picture of this guy.  It was muddy and I wasn't wearing mud boots.  Silly me for thinking we'd be staying on the sidewalk; I had on suede shoes.  Wish me luck cleaning those up!




Train of lights


Wow, look at that!




In front of Santa's cottage.  We didn't go see him, the line was WAY too long.  It was already crowded, and that would have just been a recipe for a meltdown disaster.  (I won't tell you from who.) :)






Daddy and Brennan




Taking it all in.




















 
As you can see we saw a lot of cool lights.  The only thing missing besides the snow was some coffee.  It wasn't too cold, but it would have been nice to have a Peppermint Mocha handwarmer. 

We'll have to remember that next time.