The Lodge + The Ganems + Snow = FUN

During our visit to the "Lodge" we...rode the Ranger (and froze our butts off)....

played Laser Tag (thanks to Xander)...

played Settlers of Cataan...again and again...the women dominated (sorry Ian...I know that's a sore spot and I know you got sick of my "I just won!" dance)....

played in the snow (and in Elliott's case - ate snow)....

made cookie art and played "Close the Door" with Evan - the WORST game in the world, by the way...

got warm by the fire....

sledded....

and sledded some more....

and rode the Ranger some more...

and roasted marshmellows by the fire.

All in all - one of my favorite family vacations - EVER!

P.S. Thank you mom and dad for letting us stay at the Lodge. That place is AWESOME!

I love Brad Pitt

Ian and I went and saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tonight. It was a weird experience. First of all, the movie was long. And not very action-packed. And the movie theater was PACKED. Yet incredibly quiet. The whole time. And there were quite a few teenagers in there. We were mesmerized. It was a beautiful story and Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett make the movie. They become their characters. Which makes the unbelieveable story, believeable. At least I thought so. There was humor and lots of emotion (which translates to: we cried. ALOT.).

Easily one of the best movies I've seen this year - right up there with Iron Man and Juno (though a TOTALLY different movie).

Here's what my Christmas looked like...

and since I'm going to be out of town for the next few days, I am posting LOTS of photos (but I didn't post them all and believe me, I wanted to)


The boys are waking Evan up so they can go get their loot. We must've been crazy (or just sleep deprived). We paid for it the rest of the day.


All ready to start unwrapping!

Evan is happy with a truck. Any truck. Xander's going to shoot his eye out. I know it. But it did do my heart good to see Xan and Ian bonding over the gun. And other guy stuff.

At 9:00 we ventured to my mom and dad's for the Christmas story (straight out of the Bible), venison and gravy (thank you Jared for slaying the beast) and presents of course.

Dang that Emmy is cute.

As are all the girls.

LOVE Max's face in this one.

Ro and Evan riding the Panda.

Joshua and Jared playing dolls. I had to take a picture.

After a short nap at home, we ventured over to Ian's parents' house for more presents and Christmas dinner (sooooo good).

Sean & Meg. Meg is preggers and glowing.

One of the best gifts was a race track that Ian's parents bought for the boys. They loved it. Although Evan couldn't understand why he couldn't put his trucks on the track.

It took him a while to get over it. Max cheering Ben's car.
It was a wonderful day. Lots of food and family. One of my favorite parts was early this morning when Max came over to my bed and whispered, "Santa came! and he brought me deodorant!" Max has been asking for red? deodorant ever since Ben started wearing it. "How would you know what Santa brought you?" I asked (the boys aren't supposed to look at their presents or stockings until all of us are up. He quickly back peddled, "I don't know. I just think he brought me deodorant." That kid's a terrible liar. (By the way, he did get more than deodorant - but who knew that's what he would be most excited about?).

What was the best part of your Christmas?

Projects and Potty Training

I don't know why, but I do this every year. I wait until the last minute and decide to do some sort of scrapbooking project for someone. The thing is, I don't even really like to scrapbook. But I know it makes a great gift and I have TONS of scrapbooking stuff (thank you, Tiffany!).

My first project is a book for Ian's mom like the one Tricia made me for my birthday. Here are some of the pages:

Project #2 are the calendars for my mom and grandma that we do every year. Lucky Kim, Tricia and Trina help. Here are a few of my pages (sorry the first picture is turned wrong, but I'm too lazy to change it).

And, because I didn't have enough things going on, I decided to do a small desk calendar for Ian's dad. This one was by far the easiest. I kept it really simple.

I even found time to bake some goodies for a few of Ian's customers.
So, you can imagine my stress level has been pretty high. And I've been a tad grumpy (due mostly to lack of sleep). Xander has been managing the house while I've been holed up in the attic with my "projects". He is even attempting to potty train Evan.
I kid you not.

That boy's a keeper.

Holiday Cheer

Last Sunday we congregated at Jared & Tricia's for our annual gingerbread house making. All I'm saying is that next year we are buying the pre-fabricated houses. Most of our time and energy was spent trying to keep our house intact. Don't you LOVE the Sparky on their wall?


Ian finishing the roof.

All finished (well, not really but we were sick of our house by then). Notice the candy cane that is holding up the roof. And notice how good the roof looks - that's because we did that first. After that we ran out of steam. I must say Ian wasn't into it this year. One year Ian did a replica of our house as our gingerbread house. It was amazing. Thursday Evan had B.L. over to play. They played so well together that I was able to bake rolls, do work and mail a few cards. We even had Joshua over for a little while too.

Now for the highlight of this post. Tonight was our annual family adult Christmas party. We had a contest for the tackiest Christmas costume. I'm the hot one in the middle.

Guess who won for tackiest?

I was robbed!

We also had a white elephant gift exchange. And I walked away with this beauty. Yeah, that's right. A portable hair dryer. I know you're jealous. Ian got a big box full of cast-offs from Game Stop (Adam works there). I think his favorite was the Tomb Raider book. There is a drawing of Angela Jolie on the front. That's all I'm saying.

The highlight for me was Kim's pumpkin-pecan dessert. It is a slice of heaven.

I love my family.

Seriously.

Michael

Everybody loves Michael. He's silly. Quirky (sometimes just downright weird). Smart. Kind.



He will watch Xander's magic tricks. Or help him with his book. They talk about girls and school (but especially girls). And sometimes they talk about their "band".

They make each other laugh - alot.

Michael pays alot of attention to Max. So Max loves him. It's as simple as that. Michael will play Bionicles with Max and sometimes even Spiderman. They jump on the trampoline and make up pretend "games".

Michael will play Guitar Hero with Ben all day. Or just talk to him. Or listen.

Everyone over here loves Michael and looks forward to him coming over.

Happy 11th Birthday Mikey!

Xander and Michael writing a song for their band.

Everybody needs a Michael.

All you need is love

Every year I struggle with ways to show my kids what the true meaning of Christmas is. Then I usually get tired, run out of money and forget. This year I got inspiration from Kristy's blog when she mentioned that her kids draw names and do service for each other. So, Monday night I pulled out one of my favorite Christmas stories: Christmas Day in the Morning. As soon as Ian saw it - he got a funny look on his face and said, "NO!" I think he didn't want his children to see him cry (too late, Ian). While I was reading it the tears started to flow and then Ian walked by with tear-stained cheeks. It gets us everytime. The book's main message is that the best Christmas gift you can give is love (service).

Then I had each of the kids draw names. And encouraged each of them to do one act of service for the person they drew every day. Max was hilarious - it soon became evident that he had drawn Xander because he kept staring and Xander and smiling. Xander and I went on a little date later on and when we came back "someone" had made his bed. Max was beaming ear-to-ear as Xander went on and on about how happy he was that his bed was made :).

Today I went and bought this cheap tree at Target. Every time one of the kids does an act of service, I'm going to have them hang an ornament on it. For me, to see the tree full of ornaments on Christmas will be the best Christmas gift. I can't wait!