~Christmas 2009~

Christmas was wonderful this year, as with every year I get to spend with my family and friends. It was busy with love, laughter, food, crazy kids and lots of people we care about. It started early for us this year... On Dec. 18-20 my mother, my aunt Lisa and I all went to the local "Mexican Store" and stocked up on all the ingredients to make homemade manudo, pasole and tamales! We kneaded, chopped, boiled, spread and shredded 3 pork butts!!! By the time I was done my right thumb was numb because I had worked through the pain and every muscle in my arms were sore!! But it was all well worth it, the food is so good and was made with lots of love! Then on Christmas eve we had our traditional fondue dinner with the Royce's and that is always fun, we then all got to open one gift. Grandma Royce made the kids some really cute little robes, all with their names on them. They haven't taken them off since! Then we were off to go see Grandma and Grandpa Earl and Jameson's dad and aunt Sara. Once again the kids got to open MORE gifts! Then we went to our very good friends the Wood's. After all that we went home, and again the kids opened another gift. It is so hard trying to teach them that presents is NOT what Christmas is all about. We had a Christmas prayer and they sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, after that James said Jesus' birthday was better than his! Ugh, obviously all the talking I had just done went right over his head. Christmas morning at 5:30 Jameson came running into our room begging us to get up because Santa had come! I made him lay back down only to have little Rori Ana wake up an hour later. Finally we gave up and all just decided to go down and see what Santa had in store for us. This is the first year where the 2 girls are close enough in age that they fought over each others presents, they fought over EVERYTHING!! One was always better than the other or cooler or bigger. It made me happy to have just my one boy because I couldn't do this with 2 boys too! I remember when I was shopping for the girls thinking should I just get 2 of everything or let them have their own things and be individuals? Well, you live and you learn! Next year its 3 of everything!! I will never do this again! I might get them 1 special little thing of their very own but for the most part they will all have the same.
Soon after opening our presents we were headed to the Royce's once again where we had Christmas breakfast and got open even MORE presents!! It was fun to sit around and enjoy our family's company. That afternoon we went to my mom's house where we gathered up the whole family to go tubing up at Soldier Hollow, all 4 of my brother's came and that doesn't happen all the time! The kids had a blast and I think we are going to try to make that a new Christmas tradition. After that we finally got to go home and just sit around and play with all of our new toys and fun things and be together, just us. We all had so much fun and I loved being around so many people we love and care about. I am so grateful for all of our family and friends.

Now I have put ALL of Christmas away, I know this is so bad but that is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I love when all the lights and decorations are up but I also love when I take down all the clutter. Tonight we will welcome a new year. I am excited to see what this year has in store for us all! I will welcome all the surprises (good and bad) and once again I will try to be a better person and make new resolutions. We are like a fine wine, every year we seem to get better and every year we are stronger because of the obstacles we were given. This year I WILL lose the rest of my baby weight, I will try to be a better mother and have more patience with EVERYONE. I will try to give more and ask for less.
I am now busy cleaning and have already started to pack for our upcoming trip. This is going to be a great year!!

Thanks to all of you for being a part of our lives! We appreciate and love you all!!

I'm sorry I have NO time, or should I say my kids will not GIVE me the time, so I cant really write anything now. Promise I will tonight... after I'm done strangling my kids to bed. I mean, putting them to bed...

1st Place & Snow Angels...

Jameson had his first BMX race last weekend and he took 1st place!! I was so proud, I know I'm supposed to say winning doesn't matter and usually I do but, it sure is way more exciting when your baby takes first!! I even rewarded him with cotton candy?! I never let my kids eat that junk!

James is the one with the red helmet wearing black & white. It was the best picture I could get, I had all 3 girls and was yelling at the top of my lungs all while taking pictures and video taping. Not easy!

Chanel raced "Big wheels" again this year and she got a trophy or frofee as she would call it. I think its time to put her in the big games and let her race for real. We are seriously considering getting her out there.


Our little cheer leader!!

Yesterday we got a lot of snow and it hasn't stopped! Of course the kids wanted to go play in it and me being the WONDERFUL mother I am bit my tongue grit my teeth and went out and played for 2 HOURS!! I must have been in a very generous mood?! I hate the cold! Funny, so did Ava...

The older 3 LOVED it! They were like pigs in the mud.

Good ol' Jazmine even managed to get up and play for about 1 min.

Jameson

He is flexing and trying to show his teeth in this picture. Hes concentrating so hard I think he might fart!

Jameson was really on a roll yesterday! He had me cracking up all day. It started when he got home from school and I had all 3 of the girls down for a nap. I told him he had to be VERY quiet so he didn't wake them up. I went upstairs to do some laundry when all of a sudden I heard him yelling at Tweeder, so I come running down and got after him for it, reminding him again to be quiet. I went back upstairs and I heard him turn on the TV and then he jacked the volume all the way up?! Again, I come running down the stairs and I am standing behind him telling him to turn it down! He didn't look at me or anything, he didn't even budge! It wasn't until I walked up to him that I noticed he had EARPLUGS IN!!!!??? I plucked one out and he jumped so high! You could tell that he all of a sudden realized how loud he was being! I asked him why he had the earplugs in and he said he thought it would help him to be quiet, I don't think he understood that the earplugs only made it quieter for HIM, not for everyone else around.


Then I got on the phone to pay a bill, he asked what I was doing. I told him I was trying to pay a bill and I was getting very frustrated because I couldn't get a LIVE HUMAN on the line for the life of me. I told him I don't like doing this! I hate bills! Well, sometimes (a lot of the time actually) I call him Bill, its a little nickname I gave him when he was little and it stuck but, only I call him it. When I looked at him he had this very sad look on his face. I asked what was wrong? He said in a sad little voice "Do you hate this Bill?". SO SAD!!!! I hugged him and explained the difference in bills and Bill and told him I loved only 1 bill and that was him. So cute.


That night his front tooth was loose and it had been bothering him a little, I think because the other one was trying to push it out of the way. I told him it was time to take it out. For the first time ever in his history of tooth pulling he was TERRIFIED! I put him up on the counter and tied a piece of floss on it and told HIM to pull it out. He tried a few times with all of us cheering him on and telling him to pull harder and he let go of the string and said "IT WONT COME OUT!" That's when mom stepped in... I grabbed it while he was distracted and yanked. Out it came but, not without Jameson gasping in disbelief and screaming. It was soooo FUNNY. Then we were off to wrestling practice, we were in such hurry because we were running really late with the whole tooth thing. This was his first practise so I was explaining some of the rules. I told him to come to me if he needed a drink because I had his water. He said " Ok Mom, you just hand me the water through the cage and I will take a drink and hand it back through the fence holes." I was so confused at first until I realized that I had caught him not to long ago watching Ultimate Cage Fighting on TV!? I said OH NO Jameson, you are NOT cage fighting! Needless to say, he was very disappointed. This is also about the time that Rory and I realized he can no longer say his S's! AT ALL! We were laughing so hard! We kept having him recite Sally sold seashells by the seashore. Now that's comedy!!