Thursday, December 23, 2010

One More Before Christmas

I just knew I had to get one more post in before Christmas. Why?
Well, we've done about five hundred and fifteen things (even though I've only taken about twelve pictures) and I know that once the Christmas celebration hits I will forget it all if I don't record it now.
I won't try and make you privy to all 515 things, I'll just hit the highlights.

This was probably one of Ryne's favorite days!
Kade was at school, I was needing to get some cooking done, and he busied himself in the pots and pans cabinet. Believe it or not this was the first time I'd ever let him do this. Yes, he had a blast. Completely cleaned out the cabinet for me. And in the meantime, I got some work done. Guess we were both happy?!
The boys got to open their first Christmas gift...

Lissa stopped by one afternoon before she left town for the holidays and delivered presents.

Spider Man Christmas night-nights!

Toy Story night-nights!
Two very happy little boys who went to bed that night sporting new pj's.
Lissa also dropped off their fish, Rudy, and we are fish sitting for her and Derek while they are out of town. Kade is certain to check on him every day.

We've had some parties...

The college Life Group came over for spaghetti dinner one night.

We had a great time with them! And of course the boys loved having them here.
Even got to play some cards that night which is something we don't often get to do anymore. It is so much fun to hang out with those kids. They make us happy!

We had a neighborhood Christmas party.

With LOTS of food!

And sweet stuff!

And yummy hot apple cider in the cute snowman dispenser!
I totally didn't take any pictures that night once people arrived. Sorry.
It wasn't as big as our neighborhood Christmas has been in the past couple of years. We think choosing the last Saturday before Christmas was probably not the wisest choice. But we still had a great time. And we got to spend time getting to know our brand new neighbors Jordan and Rose. They moved into the house that Michelle and Dave just left. Super sweet couple! Expecting a baby boy in the spring. We are so glad that God put nice new people in the house that our friends left. He is always so good to us like that!

Anyway, we ended up having so much food left from party number 1 that we just carried on and had party number 2 after church Sunday night. Derek, the Jenkins crew and our friend Sandra all came over and we laid the spread back out. We all had a great time. And believe it or not, I failed to take a picture one, AGAIN! Not sure what has gotten into me with this lack of picture taking. I'm sure I'll get over it come Christmas morning. Ha!

Let's see what else...

Oh, see this couple. Yep, that's me and my sweet hubby. We had a date night. Not that date nights are entirely unusual, but they do come fewer and far between now that child care is a bit harder to come by. But this particular night our friend Jenny and Regi had traded us out a babysitting night. Told us to drop them off at 4pm and they would keep them until 11pm. Now that is a date night!
We finished up Christmas shopping and birthday shopping for the boys. Went to dinner. And get this....we went to the movies!!! Big deal, right? Isn't that a normal date night thing to do? Well, for us, not so much. We hadn't been to the movies in over three years!!! Nope, that was not a typo, three years! We saw the new Chronicles of Narnia movie and it was good. Not sure if we enjoyed it because it was really that good or if we had just been missing the theater experience that much. Either way....we had a great date night!!

It was such a good time that we were encouraged to actually have a family date night. We took the boys out for pizza one night and then drove around to look at Christmas lights. More great fun!

This is all so out of order but I'm just typing as it comes to me. So bear with me...remember it was 515, surely you didn't expect me to remember all that in order.
Excitement in our world on Sunday! Oh, yes, church was good and exciting but I'm actually talking about something else. Remember my friend Laura that we had a baby shower for?
This is her:

And this is Baby Levi...

He was born on Sunday! And he is precious!
Kyle kept the boys and let me make a trip to the hospital on Monday to meet him. So happy for Laura and Moises! Levi is perfect and we are looking forward to watching him grow up

Oh, what else????
I know.
This guy...

Got to go to school with this guy....

this week! Kade's preschool did a special "parents day out" week. So on Tuesday and Thursday this week Ryne and Kade both went to preschool from 10am-1pm. What did I do with myself??
Well, Tuesday, was stocking stuffer shopping day and that completed our Christmas shopping!
YIPPEE!!!
Thursday (that would be today, actually) I got to go have a nice brunch with Kyle and then he and I went grocery shopping for Christmas. Planning on going a bit nontraditional this Christmas. Steak and baked potatoes!! I'm thrilled! For more than one reason. I do LOVE me some grilled steak and baked potatoes. But I also LOVE the easy preparation and the even easier clean up!!! Plus we won't have left-overs to eat for an entire week following.
I mentioned it to Kade and he was all for it. I said we might have salad too and he quickly requested that we have croutons to go with our salad. I told him I was sure we could probably have croutons since it was Christmas and all. He was so excited that you would have thought I had told him he could eat chocolate chip cookies and drink chocolate milk all day. I love how the simplest things can make children so happy!

Presents under the tree also make them happy. All the gifts are wrapped and although the boys have been curious, they haven't even tried to open them. I'm quite proud of them.
They are both so excited about Christmas. Kade has kept up with the "countdown" each day. And I wish you could just hear Ryne say "Merry Christmas," it is the cutest ever! Anytime he even sees Christmas decorations he lights up and with the biggest grin says, "Merry Christmas!"
Of course, we've been doing our best to remind them that Christmas is Jesus' birthday celebration. I think Kade totally gets it. However, when I asked Kade if he thought we should make Jesus a birthday cake, his response was, "nah." I was completely caught off guard because my boys are always all about some birthday cake. So, of course, I asked him "why not?" To which he simply replied, "well, Mom, we can't get up to heaven to give it to him."
I guess I should just be proud that he didn't want to make Jesus a birthday cake because he knew he couldn't take it to him in heaven and therefore would get to eat it all himself?
They have been practicing their "happy birthday, Jesus" song, though. I think they will have it good and ready come Christmas morning.

Well, since I promised not to tell you all 515 things, I better wrap it up.
We took the boys to see Santa here in town a while back. They took pictures and we made orders and have been waiting for them to come in the mail. They FINALLY arrived. No worries, except Granna has been expecting Santa pics since November. Sorry, Granna. We did manage to get them before Christmas day. And at least Ryne isn't crying this year. We will try to do better next year so you don't have empty frames for so long.
I'll leave you with the pictures Granna has been waiting for....



Sure hope that you all have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

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