December 2008 - Part Deux!
I had a chance to post a couple of pics during the month of December but I didn't get to put up some pics of Christmas Day. This is our first Christmas in our new house and I believe the 7th Christmas spent somewhere different. In other words, we haven't spent Christmas in the same house two years in a row for 7 years. CRaZy! It is amazing that Santa finds us each year. This first picture is of Jantzen and his homemade gift to Kelsey. He made her a couple of journals and some flower pens. You can't see it from this pic, but there was a lot of leftover glue! He had so much fun glueing - I even let him take a crack at the hot glue gun! You can read about our homemade Christmas here:

Here are some pictures of the kids lists to Santa...with the exception of Josh. He didn't know what he wanted this year other than Lego Batman, so he didn't write a list. This is a picture of him with some art projects he did that month. I can't stand having crap - I mean "art" projects that the kids have made at school all over my house. So I let it hang up for a short time and then I take a picture of it and throw it in the recycle bin. Josh hates it, he can't let go of stuff. He keeps everything. The funny thing was when I started calling them in and handing them stacks of papers and putting them in line for a photo, Jantz was asking what I was doing and I downplayed the situation of course to avoid a meltdown from Josh. He casually said with a sad voice, Oh brother Jantz, she is throwing away all our stuff. He got in line and tried to muster a smile. He is getting better at this.....this time he even tried to look like the elf in the picture.

Abby's list to Santa - courtesy of the Toys R Us big book
And Jantzen - who hasn't quite grasped the idea of just asking for two or three things....his was two sided!

This brings us to Christmas morning. I have to put a bench in the hall so they can't go in and see before the other wakes up. This year was kinda funny. My mom and dad were coming over to see them open their presents from Santa this year, I told them to come around 7am. I thought that was about the time that Jantz usually gets up, but I figured they would all be up before that, but I wasn't willing to start any sooner so I figured I would just hold them off until 7 if I had too. Well Josh woke up at 5:45am. We sent him back to bed. Dayt and I set the alarm to get up and have a shower since we knew there wouldn't be another time during the day to get one. We were ready to go at 7am. My parents come. The kids still sleep. And sleep. We sit down and talk with my parents....still sleeping. So we finally decided to wake them up and get this show on the road. I think that morning was for the record books. I don't think that will happen again until they are non-believing teenagers! I put this bench in the hall so that noone gets up and views the goods before the other one...

Here are just a couple of pics....Abby opening her Nintendo DS. I think every kid her age asked for one of these this year.

Josh received a "surprise" gift from Santa because he didn't ask for anything. Santa did a good job - he knows Josh well - he LOVED his surprise - ROCKBAND!
Santa must also be crazy because I don't know how else to explain this shirt finding it's way to our house.

Rufus loves Abby's pink chair. It is HIS spot! He made Josh share the chair while he played a new video game on the Wii.

Abby took a crack at the drums.

Grandpa Donahoe stopped by and brought with him a crowd pleaser - Lagoon Season Passports!! Our family was sooooo excited! Now we can hang with the rest of the neighborhood all summer! Just look at these faces!

Jantz with his Batcave.

Derek and Mandi stayed for a bit to hang out. We were soooo happy they spent a little extra time with us because we don't get to see them very often.
Derek and Dayt played a little Rockband.

Abby and Jantz broke out the moonsand....Jantz has been waiting for this moment for months! He was so into it he wouldn't look up for a picture.

Josh worked for literally hours on his lego set - this is RARE for Josh.

After Derek and Mandi left Dayt decided to take a little snooze

Then Great Grandma Gibson stopped by. I am pretty sure she is thrilled to be here. LOL
I guess Christmas gets a little boring when you have lived through over 90 of them!!

Normally we head out to Great Grandma and Grandpa Jackson's for Christmas dinner but because there was a storm coming in, they had canceled Christmas dinner. We were really sad! I look forward to Grandma J's cheesy potatoes all year! Instead, we through something together that paled in comparison. Then we got out the rockband again. Rufus slept through all the racket on his fav pink chair! Check him out! He wouldn't let Abby have anymore of the chair than that. He would scratch at her or nip at her when she tried to push him off. Silly cat!

Josh showing his skills at singing and playing guitar at the same time - so talented!
Then Dayt and I went out to shovel the snow.
My cute little friend London brought over her son Kenyon's old Power Wheels for Jantz. It was sosoooosooso nice of her! She told me Kenyon doesn't really use it anymore because he got a mini quad for his birthday and she offered it to Jantzen after the whole Power Wheels story. You can read about that here. I think she was just doing a sweet thing....she is VERY sweet and thoughtful. She made Jantzen's day! He had a BALL cruising up and down the streets. Thank you so much London and Kenyon! He put all sorts of stuff in his "trunk" in back and took off all over the place. Look how excited he was....

The storm brought about 6 inches of snow and lots of wind. I thought this picture was a great way to sum up Christmas day 2008. You know how sometimes different images just stay ingrained in your mind? Well this picture will stay in my mind forever I hope. Our first Christmas here was picture perfect. We hope it is the first of many "consecutive" Christmases. I love the way the snow blew up against the house. I loved listening to the wind throughout the afternoon. I thoroughly loved spending time with all the family members that stopped by to make the holiday special. I loved sitting inside my house warm and cozy by the fire as the snow softly fell. I loved listening to happy children talking about all the magical things about Christmas and so many other wonderful memories. It was a perfect white Christmas Day!

Coming soon: Update for January 2009 - I am cruising right along!