It's Julie's Birthday!

Since I know Julie won't do this herself, I thought I'd take a few moments to reflect on a few things about Julie in honor of her 29th birthday. Here goes!

1) Julie loves her kids, even though they drive her crazy some (most?) of the time. At the end of the day, her love for our children is always evident, no matter how difficult the day may have been.
2) Julie loves her family. She works to have a relationship with each and every one of her brothers and sisters and her parents, and is always concerned for their physical and spiritual well-being.
3) Julie is a great example of compassion and service to others. She is always willing to give of herself to help those in need, and will often go out of her way to do so.
4) She loves books. I never thought anyone could read a Harry Potter book in less than two days, but I have seen Julie do it frequently. She has introduced me to some of the best books I've read (even if it does take me two months to read them).
5) Julie enjoys cooking, as long as it's not cookies because they take too long to bake when you have to keep going back and forth to the oven.
6) Julie is not particularly fond of math, which is odd because she's worked as a cashier and a bank teller. I guess you just can't escape it.
7) When we were first married, Julie didn't like to drive our car. Of course, she got used to it rather quickly. Later, when her parents let us borrow the Nissan, she wouldn't drive that either - she was too attached to the other car!
8) When Julie was a little girl, she shared a bed with her sister. Julie would frequently end up with her feet on the pillow, and often entwined her toes in Janice's hair. Thank goodness she broke that habit!
9) Julie loves holidays and always makes our home a very festive place to be.
10) Julie loves her crazy dog, although I don't think she loves the dog quite as much as she loved her cat, Morgan. I mean, really, has she ever taken a bath with the dog?

We love you Julie. Hope you day is great!

Graham Cracker Houses

Some families make gingerbread houses. In our family we make graham cracker houses!

We made these houses the day after Christmas while visiting Grandma and Poppa J. We split up in to teams to help the smaller kids get the job done. Here they are:

Matt and Kellie's house.
(Kellie was all about the eat and run approach, which left Matt to build with relatively little interference.)

Aaron and Julie's house
(Note the red Santa hat on our enormous snowman out front!)

Caleb and Grandma's masterpiece.
(Grandma should get a gold star for bravery for helping the sprinkle- happy 4 year old. Bless her!)

Christmas Day 2008

Tickly, Heartwarming Lyrics

In our family, it is not unusual to change the lyrics of our favorite songs. sometimes it is just something silly, occasionally it's indecent, but it is always brings either a smile or the roll of the eyes.

This morning we were singing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!"

Before long our lyrics were changed to " She's the Most Beautiful Girl in the World!" Which brought a giggle from Kellie.

After a few rounds of this, Aaron (my sweet little guy), turned to me and said, "Kellie is not the only beautiful girl in the world. You're beautiful, too, Mom!" (Don't you just love that?)

You would think the story could end there, but there is more. The lyrics changed again to "Matt's the most TICKLY guy in the world!"

As you can imagine, you can't sing a lyric like that without the accompanying choreography...
So, Aaron and I ganged up on my very extra tickly, very sensitive husband. hee! hee!

I've got to say it was the most fun morning I've had in quite a while. (Even though Matt might not agree...) :)

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

To school today Aaron wore the following:

socks and underwear

pants

undershirt

turtleneck

t-shirt over turtleneck

heavy coat, zipped up all the way, with hood up

scarf, under coat and around face and neck

gloves

hat, under hood

boots

If I had thermal underwear his size, I probably would have put that on him too!

It is SO COLD here in Colorado today. When Matt left for work about 7:30 am the temperature read -19 degrees. By the time we left a bit later, it had warmed up to a whooping -9 degrees.

Our high today is not supposed to be above 15 degrees in the heat of the day, with a chance of more snow this evening and tomorrow. I guess it's time to break out the hot cocoa again!

Cute Quotes...

My Mom and Dad came and spent the night last night so that Matt and I could attend his Christmas Party at work. (Thank you!) As always, the kids are extra cute when some of their favorite people are around. Here's some highlights from the last two days...

Caleb (singing): "You better watch out! You better not not scream! You better not cry! You better obey! Cuz' Santa Claus is coming to Town!" (I did NOT teach him these lyrics, by the way...)

Aaron: "Come play with our Baby Jesus playset!" ( I laugh because the kids refuse to call it a Nativity set, and insist it is their 'Jesus set'.)

Kellie: Making kissy sounds at Grandpa and shoving her stuffed dog relentlessly in his face for him to kiss over and over again.
Grandpa's response: "No, Kellie, I don't know where that dog has been- I don't want to kiss it!"

Caleb: (upon hearing that Grandma was going to make cookies with him while I took Kellie for her check- up) "I better go get my cookie shirt on, because it says COOKIE INSPECTOR on it and that means I get to eat them all!"

Christmas for "Little People"

For the last several years I have wanted to buy the Fisher Price Little People Nativity set for our kids. It was always just a little more than our budget could handle, so I never got it, even though I really, really wanted it. This year, I finally budgeted for, and bought it. We opened it a little early, so the the kids could enjoy it all month long.

The kids were fascinated with it. We presented it to them at FHE tonight, and I honestly don't know the last time we had a FHE that everyone sat quietly and paid attention to every word of the story. I'm glad we finally bought it!

(The star on the top lights up and sings "Away In a Manger.")

They love it!

I have a cute story to tell...

After FHE, we let the kids get down and play with the nativity set until bedtime. It was so cute watching them retell the story to each other.

At the end of the story, Aaron said "That's it, we're through," and Caleb corrected him.

"It's not over, silly! I think the baby Jesus wants to go for a ride now!"

He then put the baby Jesus in the donkey's cart and took him for a stroll through Bethlehem, introducing Him to everyone. I'm pretty sure that part isn't in the scriptures, but I thought it was pretty sweet!

Baby Jesus "going for a ride!"

My Favorite Christmas Things

I mentioned earlier that we got our Christmas tree up last Saturday. What I forgot to mention is that everything else was still in boxes, piled in our living room. I decided that today is the day to get it all up and the boxes put away. I always love pulling out the familiar decorations, remembering where they came from and making our house look extra special.

Maybe it's the 5 inches of snow out there, but I am just really starting to feel all Christmasy inside. Here's some pictures of a few of my favorite things...

I bought this Nativity at JC Penney's the first year we were married. It is a complete set, including the shepherds, wise men, animals and angels, but I don't always set the whole thing up, because the kids tend to get into it.
I love our stockings. Matt's mom spent many hours making all of these needlepoint stockings for us. Every one has a different Santa scene. (Matt's stocking is actually behind Kellie's- I need to get more hooks!)
Caleb. When I was taking pictures he told me to take a picture of him because "HE must be" one of my most favorite things ever! Our decorated light. Actually, this is not really one of my favorites, but I love watching the kids get all excited during dinner when they look up at the light. I love it because my kids seem to love it.

Santa Brought My Toys Back!

On Saturday, we pulled out the Christmas tree and started decorating. Normally, we would probably wait a week or two, but our schedule is so hectic that when we looked at the calendar, we realized it was now- or the week before Christmas, which is a little too late in my book.

We put the kids to bed and we started cleaning house. A few months ago I took ALL the kids toys away because they were so rude and nasty about helping me clean up. (They even told me it was MY job to clean up after them!) They have been earning them back, slowly. In the mess, I decided it was time to bring the toys back out and put them away properly.

When Caleb woke up Sunday morning, he ran downstairs to see all his toys back on their shelves. He ran up to our bedroom, burst in through the door and yelled, "Momma, momma! Santa came last night- EARLY- and he gave me all my toys back!"