Hangin' With My Homies

I have known Merilee Bogle (now Cameron) since I was a little girl. In fact, I remember in the 6th grade she used to kick me in the shins all the time (or was that me kicking her?). Mer is such an awesome, unique person. And so much fun to hang out with. She now lives in Oregon with her hubby & three adorable kids but was in town this weekend so some of us got together for dinner at Mattas last night. Kevin & Marcy are in town from Slovakia and they came too. It was nice to see familiar faces and reminice. Steve generously offered to pay for everyone's meal (thank you Steve!) and afterwards Elise, Marcy, Merilee, Ian and I hung out at our house until 1:00 am. It was so much fun...although more than one person made the comment that if it were 15 years ago we might be doing something michievious or slightly illegal (cough...sneaking into the cotton gin...cough). I love keeping up with Merilee on her blog and hope I don't have to wait another year to see her again :).

Which reminds me...Ian and I first met at a party for Elise at the Bogle house. So the Bogles sort of brought us together...

Random Stuff

My baby is sick. It's really sad. We've been lucky because Evan has never been sick before...until now. Ian and the boys went over to Jared and Tricia's last night to watch the ASU game (btw...check out Tricia's blog if you want to see some more pictures from Christmas Eve) and I stayed home with Evan. I held him the whole time. During that 3 hours period I dosed him up good with Tylenol and Motrin but his fever wouldn't go below 100. Surprisingly he slept soundly all night but I am taking him to the doctor today.

For the last few days I've been thinking that I'm not as young as I think I am. For instance, if I sit in one spot for too long my knees lock up and then it's hard for me to get going (I blame myself for running up to my 9 month of pregnancy with Max). Also, I love to ride my boys' razor scooters. The are so much fun. So on Christmas Eve I was riding Ben's home from my parents and crashed. BIG TIME. I don't think anyone saw me but I rolled twice. I have a bruise on my hip and I scratched up my elbow pretty good. I think I can do these things and then my body says, "NO!". It sucks.

Something else...the other day Ian and I were watching t.v. and a Target commercial came on. Max sat there, glued to the screen. Then he says, "I know they just want you to go to Target but that was AWESOME!". An advertisers dream. I should have Ian tell the story of Alexander and Benefiber. Alexander is also an advertiser's dream...hmm...let's all hound Ian to tell it.

Lastly (is that a word?), Alexander wants to start a college fund for himself. He is very concerned about going to college. He got a little bit of $ for Christmas and wants to open a savings account. My mom already said she'd contribute to it on his birthday. O.k. what 9 year-old is more concerned about saving for college then having $50 to spend? Maybe he knows he can't count on his parents...

Christmas

On Christmas Eve we go to my mom's for food (Chick-Fil-A & Some Burros) and each grandkid gets to open a present (which is a blanket). Then we go home and open p.j.'s. This year we all snuggled on the couch and watched a movie before we went to bed.

Christmas morning was nice because the kids let us sleep in a little. Nevermind that Max snuck into our bed sometime during the night and kicked the stuffing out of us...Xander & Ben came in about 7:15 - they had already "peeked" at their presents. I tried to be mad, but really it was nice to get that extra bit of sleep (especially since Evan was up a lot with a stuffy nose). We didn't have a ton of presents this year - each child had 3 things to open (including the p.j.'s) and then a present from Santa. We were done opening presents pretty quickly, so we just hung out and played (mostly Ian played with the boys' Star Wars toys).

In following with tradition we all met over at my parent's house at 9:00 am. Every year since I can remember my dad has read the Christmas story from the Bible on Christmas morning. It always gives me a minute to slow down and reflect. Then we all line up youngest to oldest and file into the family room to open presents. Mom and Dad cooked a big breakfast that consisted of eggs, biscuits, sausage, freshly squeezed o.j. and caribou. That's right, we had Rudolph for breakfast.

After chillin' out at home for a while we headed over to Nana & Papa's (Ian's parents). The boys had a blast opening another round of presents :). We stayed a while and had a delicious dinner of ham, potatoes, rolls, veggies & sweet potatoes. There was cranberry cake and apple pie for dessert. (notice I am obsessed with the food). It was a nice, low key Christmas. I enjoyed spending time with my family and just enjoying the day. Hope you all had a great Christmas too!

The Spirit of Christmas

The Christmas spirit has somewhat eluded me this year. On the whole I've been grumpier. My poor children - the littlest thing has set me off and let's face it when I'm not happy - no one's happy! Last year Stacy & Paul's family delivered sack lunches with food and socks in them to the homeless in downtown Phoenix. This year they invited our whole family to come. I hope it's a tradition we continue. We all pitched in and bought enough things to fill about 100 sacks. Last night we congregated at my mom's house and decorated and filled the sacks. This morning we added pb&j's to them. We all caravan-ed over and parked on the side of the street. People started running toward us right away. I had to stay by the car because Evan was asleep inside but I watched my boys hand out sacks. Tears filled my eyes when I saw Ben approach a man, hand him a sack and then the man held out his hand for Ben to shake. I thought for sure that Ben, my shyest child, wouldn't want to participate. Not only did all the kids participate, but they were loving it! Max was just as excited as everyone else - he kept searching for people to give his sacks to. It warmed my heart. I kept remembering the scripture, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (that might not be the exact wording but you get the picture). When Joseph got back into the car he exclaimed, "That felt really good!" I was so happy that my children could experience the spirit of giving.

Merry Christmas!

Another Tradition

Tricia's cute shoes

Yesterday was our annual adult dinner at my mom's house. I cooked turkey & rolls for it. We also had mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn, salad and yummy cookies & brownies. Good food, great company. Afterwards we had a little program where everyone had to share something. Ian shared how high he can kick :). Jared Ammon & Adam played & sang "Silent Night". Tricia sang "Where Are You Christmas?" beautifully - I love her voice. It was alot of fun. We got a little silly at times...Ian and Tricia thought my lap was comfortable and camped there for most of the program. I love that Ian was able to come this year because we did it on Saturday (instead of the usual Friday night).

Today at church we had a Christmas program. Even though my kids were being horrendous I really enjoyed it. My friend Drea played a beautiful piano piece that was Fur Elise and We Three Kings together. It gave me the chills. My favorite was a couple who sang, "I Know That My Redeemer Lives". It's not a Christmas song but there wasn't a dry eye in the house. I bawled like a baby. I'm crying now just thinking of the words. It's one of my favorite hymns.

Merry Christmas (to me)!

Yesterday I felt a little (o.k. a lot!) overwhelmed. I had scrapbooking pages to make, rolls & a turkey to cook, presents to wrap, presents to buy and a house to clean - because I won't be able to enjoy Christmas with a dirty house. I did manage to make & bake 5 dozen rolls and do my scrapbooking pages yesterday. But I still had a lot to do...so this morning I got up early, went running (and about froze my fingers off) then came back and got ready to go out and finish my Christmas shopping. I also wanted to find something to wear to church tomorrow. I left all of the kids home with Ian. Let me just say the Christmas shopping is so much more fun by yourself! I got the rest of my shopping done and then found a skirt for church at Target for $9.98! I had previously looked at Banana Republic, J Crew, jjill and Gap. Everything was either too expensive or didn't fit right. The Target skirt was perfect. I feel energized and recharged! I'm off to cook the turkey...

Oh yeah, another pleasant surprise - Kevin got in last night from Slovakia and he and Marcy brought us a bag full of European chocolates this morning - including those famous chocolate eggs with the prizes inside! My kids were lovin' those!

Let's BOWL!

My children's winter break officially started today. yeah. Yesterday after school I let Xander & Ben both have friends over. The thought of it stressed me out but it went surprisingly well. I thought I would have to do some entertaining. But the boys entertained themselves. We did go to Peter Piper Pizza for dinner but that was as far as me having to entertain them went. They were both great boys. Alexander's friend spent the night and we went bowling this morning (I had a coupon). At first I thought I would just watch Evan and watch the boys bowl but after the first game I HAD to bowl. I love it! It's so much fun. I did win both of the games I bowled but hey, I did take that bowling class in college (I kid you not...I also took volleyball...both classes were with Ian and Kim. If any of you have ever played any sort of sport with Ian you will know that he was the best in both classes...ANNOYING! but I digress). My first three frames were strikes. Max said to me, "Mom, you're supossed to let kids win!" I disagree. Anyhow, I think everyone had a good time and it was a fun way to kick off break.

Holiday Cheer part #2

O.k. here is the picture of us in front of the Dorsey's village. I'd say this picture shows about 1/8 of what the village is. It is incredible! and parts of it moves. The Dorsey's house is decorated absolutely beautiful (I am kicking myself for not bringing the camera). I think they had something like 8 Christmas trees. My favorite thing was the village.

P.S. The jars turned out so cute. I filled the teachers' jars with movie candy and movie tickets. Alexander wanted one for himself!