Our Christmas 2007

I can't believe that Christmas has come and gone already. We had a great one despite a nasty cold virus that Mya and Alena had. Here's a summary of our past week.

Thursday night Noi and Nee, Teng, and Savannah came over for a mini Christmas get-together. The kids were very excited to be opening their first presents of the season. Friday morning we went to my family's in VA. Saturday we made a day trip to Boone, NC to visit my Mom's side of the family and Sunday was busy with church and the Christmas cantata that Dad and Mom sang in (Emma actually got sick and didn't get to sing). Monday we just took it easy and prepared for all the excitement to come on Tuesday. Gabe went to sleep fine on Monday night but woke up at 3am and ran out into the hall. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I was just checking to see if anyone was up yet." I assured him that everyone was still sleeping but he was not in the least sleepy. I think he finally went to sleep around 4:30 and then we were back to sleep until 7:30ish. That afternoon Carrie, Robbie and RuthAnne came over and we had a delicious dinner and played our traditional bingo game. All in all it was a great day. Here are the pictures to prove it.

Gabe with his marionette puppets. I had picked these up when we were at the beach in August - I knew he would love them.
Mya playing in her new "house."
This was acutally Christmas eve night when the kids were allowed to open up one shared present and Chrisa and Emma opened their gifts from each other - another tradition.
These after Halloween clearance costumes made great stocking stuffers.
So excited about opening up those stockings.

I realize we don't have that many pictures of Alena but rest assured she did enjoy the festivities as much as a snotty, coughing seven month old could. She did have a nice smile here getting ready to check out her stocking.
Gabe and Mya admiring Grandaddy's new knife.
Grandmama and Alena after everything was all over.

Merry, Merry Christmas!!!

My Silly Kids

After a full week of coughing, snotty, kids, it is fun for me to see these pictures and smile - we have had some laughs. Gabe and Mya have really been into dressing up lately so I present to you:

King GabrielFarmer girl Mya (they alternate between calling this their "farmer hat" and their "nativity hat" I have no idea why) Doesn't she look ready to go drive a tractor?

And Alena, not dressed up, but with some pretty funny hair and doing her new favorite thing - pulling up

My Husband the Champion CVS shopper

We've been shopping at CVS for a while now thanks to this website money saving mom. Lately, Nae has taken over the shopping part after I figure out what "deals" we should try to get. Well, this week he's done everything and has done a great job if I do say so myself. Here's what he got: everything you see in the above picture plus another box of tissues, another pack of batteries, and another box of Tylenol and Advil - all this with a grand total of around 7 dollars (the regular price for one pack of batteries) plus 6 dollars back in ecb. Keep in mind that this was several trips to CVS, however. He has a CVS near his work and on his way home so no making a special trip just to stop by.

Sheep and such

Gabe always keeps us on our toes - coming up with new ideas all the time. This was his latest. Can you guess what they are - if you guessed a shepherd and sheep you get the prize. On Sunday Gabe and I went to a "Walk through Bethlehem" at one of the local churches and he came home wanting to re-create the entire thing. After being in his room for a while, Gabe comes out leading Mya with this "leash" and said, "Look, Mya is my sheep!" Good thing Mya is such a willing participant. Tonight was our church Christmas program and here are the kids all dressed and ready to go.

Christmas Crafts

A lot of the fun of Christmas comes, of course , with the preparing and planning. It's the perfect time of year to do crafts with the kids and I've been trying to do a couple things a week with them. I find many of my ideas off others blogs or magazines and I thought if I put these here then next year I can look back and remember what I want to repeat.


First , our tree,which was by no means perfect when it was put up, but now after a week and a half of little hands touching, rearranging, and in general loving the ornaments, it looks well, pretty sad. Just this morning I was feeding Alena and looked over to see this hanging on the tree. Apparently, Gabe thinks that carabiners make pretty Christmas ornaments. Our project for today was cutting out cookies (only the refrigerated dough) and decorating them. The entire time we were preparing the cookies for baking, Alena was screaming in her mega saucer and by the time the cookies were cool, Mya was rapidly entering the grouchy stage so only Gabe made it to the actual decorating.
I got the idea of hanging the cookies from a magazine and I wish I could post the picture of their perfectly iced/decorated cookies because it makes this one just all the more cuter. Who needs those perfect cookies anyway?

Our finished product on display.

Another magazine idea and I really did most of this wreath, but I thought it was a different idea for Christmas decorating. The picture is off center because I was trying to keep myself from reflecting in the mirror. After completing the above wreath, Gabe and Mya decorated these Christmas trees with the left over stuff.
Finally our annual favorite from when I was little - gum drop trees and thankfully neither Gabe or Mya like gumdrops so there are no wet, sticky, licked off sugar gum drops on these trees (Emma!).

Birthdays and Stuff

We enjoyed celebrating Mathu's birthday this weekend, and I can't believe we didn't get very many pictures. The big birthday surprise was Bing flying in from Minnesota and Na, Todd, and Henry coming in from Arkansas. This was the first time in three years that all the siblings had been together so here's a picture of everyone.

(L-R) Na, Nae, Nee, Bing, and Noi Here are all the cousins (L-R) Mya, Alena, Gabe, Henry, and Savannah.

I don't know why I haven't gotten many pictures of Gabe lately. I'll try to get a couple this week. Here is Alena posing on Sunday in her Christmas dress (thanks RuthAnne for letting us borrow it.)
No, your eyes aren't fuzzy, Mya's pj's are turned inside out. This child loves to undress (pajamas and diaper) and then go to sleep. I have gone in several nights, hours after she's gone to bed, only to find her completely naked, diaper less, and sound asleep. I was worried about her getting cold but last week after she peed in the bed I decided something must be done. We were safety pinning them but she got the pin out so now we're trying this idea Carrie had. She can't get to the zipper this way - at least she hasn't yet. As you can see from the picture, Mya is simply thrilled.