Favorite Things of Christmas 2011

Here are some of our favorite things from this Christmas season...

Jackson's last day of school before the break was pajama day, so he got to wear his "Christmas PJs" to school that day...  (please excuse the tree needles on the floor)...

The older boys just loved going for a drive to look at Christmas lights after baths in their PJs and slippers this year.  They went at least 10 times.  Phil usually took them by himself because Reid was usually asleep by then, but we all went together a few times...

I was holding my hands up in the air to get them to look up at me and they both did the same...  :)

Probably our most favorite thing this year was reading all of our Christmas books.  I got this idea from a blogger last year and it has just been the most wonderful thing.  At the beginning of December I wrap up a bunch of Christmas books and put them under the tree.  We use them as a kind of advent calendar thing and the boys unwrap one book each night until Christmas.  Actually, though, we usually ended up opening two almost every night because I have so many and we skipped several nights due to getting home late, etc.  I really had no idea that they would love all of the books so much, but we read them all. the. time. throughout the month.  Of course they loved to have me or Phil read the books to them, but I was surprised at how much they loved to look at them by themselves.

This isn't a Christmas book, but I looked in the playroom the other day and J was "reading" this book to E.  I'm so, so happy that they are enjoying books so much.

Another favorite thing was making and decorating gingerbread cookies.  I really tried hard not to worry about a mess and let the boys help me with every step.  That book that E is reading in the above picture is one of their favorites and is about a gingerbread boy, so they were excited to make their own cookies.

I even stripped their shirts off and let them go nuts with decorating.  They LOVED it.  It is so funny how different they are in some ways.  Jackson had not one drop of frosting on him afterwards and E was covered.  :)

One of the Christmas books we have is "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and on the very last page it has sheet music that goes with the song.  After reading it to the boys one time I got a wild hair to pull out my flute (that I haven't touched in about 14 years) and try to play the song.  I could not believe how my fingers just went in all of the right places even though I haven't attempted to read music in such a long time.  I thought for sure that those brain cells were long gone, but I guess reading music is like riding a bike.  Jackson really loved seeing me play that flute.  He tried to do it himself, but it was hard for him to get a sound out.  Later, when Phil got home he pulled out his trumpet (since we don't own a tuba) and let Jackson try to play it.  J was so excited because he was actually able to play a bunch of different notes!

J seemed really excited and interested in the instruments.  I hope he's a future musician like his parents! Phil and I had a bunch of laughs that night because I was trying to play songs from our pregame show at FSU on my flute.  I couldn't even remember how to play our fight song or the war chant!  Phil helped me by playing the songs off of our computer and when I heard them out loud most of the notes came back to me... but I was still missing a bunch and we were cracking up.  I guess we're still band dorks at heart!  :)  I could tell I'm really getting old, though, because not only could I not remember how to play the songs, but I also couldn't even remember the names of most of the songs from FSU pregame!  Or maybe I'm just trying not to remember how old I really am... college was like 15 years ago!  Ugh.

Speaking of getting old... my 35th (aka halfway to 40... double ugh) birthday was last week and I got a present that I've been wanting for five long years...

That's an iPhone for any of you who may not be familiar.  I have wanted one since they came out in 2007 and my sister got the very first version.  We (Phil) never wanted to switch from Verizon to AT&T, so we had to wait until Verizon got the iPhone.  Then when that happened last year I still had to wait because... and I quote, "Your Droid phone works fine and does everything an iPhone does." :)  Which, to be honest, he's right about.  But sweet hubs used the upgrade available for his phone and bought me this shiny new iPhone for my birthday anyway.  Thank you, Phil!

He also bought some Oreo cupcakes for us all to share.  And by us all I mean me and Emmett.  :)

Jackson just licked some of the icing off the top of his.  ;)

Emmett fully enjoys all of his sweets, just like Mommy.

I'll post some pics from Christmas day soon!  Hope you had a wonderful holiday!

Jackson's Christmas Program

We all loaded up after dinner the other night to go up to Jackson's school for his Christmas program.  We were excited to see how he would do this year since last year he took one look at us in the audience and started to cry!  He also wouldn't sing or do any of the hand motions last year.  Well, this year was a totally different story!  He did so great!  He looked so happy the whole time and was really having fun. The kids all dressed up in little costumes to represent the people and animals present at the birth of Jesus (obviously).  :)  Jackson was a sheep.  The program was definitely nothing fancy or showy... just cute little kiddos singing songs about Jesus. We really love this little school and especially his teachers this year.    

These two made picture- and video-taking pretty difficult.  They did really well considering it was bedtime when we left the house, but they were very squirmy.

The church had obviously gotten their tree from the woods, too.  It was huge and beautiful.  This church reminds me so much of the one that I grew up in when we lived in Rochester, NY.  Such great memories of that church!

Here's a video that is probably just for grandparents of J singing "Away In a Manger."  The camerawork is terrible... sorry about that!

 

We were so proud of Jackson!  I had a feeling he was going to perform better this year because lately I had been hearing him randomly singing songs while playing around the house.  My favorite was to hear him sing, "Now bring us some biggy pooty, now bring us some biggy pooty, now bring us some biggy pooty and bring some RIGHT HERE!"  He obviously didn't get what figgy pudding was.  :)

Meeting Santa

Last weekend Phil had to work and on Sunday Santa came to the base again.  I took the boys to church that morning (Yes, we are finally going to church again!  We've found one that we both really like and feel comfortable at and the children's program is just awesome there.  E got to go in the three-year-old class that day and he loved it.  I am so happy about this new church situation!) and then we met Phil at work.  I was planning on dropping J and E off and going home with Reid so he could nap, but then when I got there I really wanted to stay.  R was a trooper!

Here are J and E plugging their ears because of jet noise.  E only does this because he sees J doing it.

And here I asked the boys to hold hands so I could take a picture and you can see how Emmett felt about that!

So I just took a regular, non-handholding picture.  :)

This year we were some of the first ones out to the flightline to see Santa taxi up, so we got to be right in the front.  We hadn't had lunch yet and it was kind of late, so we got the boys some chips to avoid a meltdown.  :)

These earplugs stayed in for about 5.2 seconds....

It's so fun to see how excited the kids get when Santa gets out of the jet!

And then wonder of wonders... Santa walked right up to our boys...

... and picked Emmett up!  All I kept thinking was, "Please don't freak out... Please don't freak out!"  E did great, though!  He never smiled, but didn't squirm or cry.  I think he was a little in shock.  :)

Right after Santa put Emmett down he walked over to J and shook his hand and said hello.  I was glad for that so that J wasn't left out.  :) You can see J's head in the bottom corner of this picture.  This all happened so fast that it was hard to get good pics.

Then we went inside and Phil took the older boys around to play some games while I nursed Reid and kept him happy.  We passed on waiting in the huge long line to sit on Santa's lap again this year.  We're so thankful that our little tiny base has this fun Christmas family day every year!

The other day in early December the boys and I were driving somewhere and I asked them, "Who says Ho-Ho-Ho?" They both paused for a second and then said almost in unison.... "Jake!"  I cracked up laughing because Jake is the kid from the pirate cartoon they love who always says, "YO-Ho-Ho."  I clarified the difference right then and now that we've talked about Santa a lot and read a bunch of books they get it. :)

O Christmas Trees

We had a fun time at our squadron's Christmas tree cutting party this year.  We were a little late getting there (thanks to Reid's nap and getting a little lost because Phil and I both thought the other one knew where we were going), so it was kind of a quick trip, but it was fun to see everyone and we got two really nice trees.  It was pretty cold that day up in the mountains (about 20 degrees, I think), but the sun was out and it was a really pretty day.  I was kind of surprised at the amount of snow... we haven't had snow since November and I didn't think there would be much up there at all.  There was a lot more snow than I thought, but it was really hard and crunchy.  Here are some pics from when we first showed up.  There was a nice fire going and hot cocoa and treats!

Reid was all snuggly in his bear hat and front pack.  :)

Here's J trying to make and throw a snowball...

Heading off into the woods to find our trees...

J's hat is a little big and kept falling over his eyes!

The boys loved walking on the crunchy snow, but it was slow-going because every so often they would fall through and stumble.

So here's Dad trying to get them to walk in the tire tracks, which were hard-packed and much easier to walk in....

Guess who obeyed right away and who wanted to be a rebel?  Ha-ha!

We walked quite a ways up several hills looking for good trees.  I found one fairly early on but kept on trucking a little bit more.  Then I got tired from punching my feet through the crunchy snow (Reid was still in the front pack), so I stayed back by the tree I wanted and let Phil go on ahead to find another one. When he found it he yelled for me to come look at it, but I just didn't have the energy.  I just yelled back at him, "I trust your judgement!  Just cut the darn thing!"  :)  Here he is hauling our trees back down the hill...

Then we all trudged back to the campsite and hung out and chatted with everyone for a while.  Here are some of the squadron ladies that were there...

This is my friend Andrea who just had a baby girl a few weeks ago.  With all of our sicknesses and busy days I hadn't even seen her baby yet!  And I really couldn't see her very well that day because she was all bundled up in the cold.  But I have since been able to snuggle her and she is such a cutie!

And here are our trees at home all decked out in lights.  First is the one Phil picked.  It is a perfect shape and the needles are almost like rosemary.  Really cool.  Good choice, Phil!

And here is the one I picked.  Of course it is huge and way too big for our room.  We cut about two feet off of the bottom.  I really love how sparse and tall and skinny it is.

I still haven't put any ornaments on the trees, and to tell you the truth I think I'm going to be a big Scrooge this year and not decorate the trees.  With Christmas next weekend it just doesn't seem worth the effort!  I can't believe I just said that!  I think I burned myself out too early with the decorating this year.  I kind of want to pack it all away already.  What is wrong with me??  The trees look beautiful with just lights, though, and the boys don't miss the ornaments so I think it's all good.   :)