Little Sisters

Lucy and Gwen are treating their dolls as little sisters. They received these sweet nightgowns from friends for Christmas and they were very ready to get the girls ready for bed tonight.

Four sweet little ladies are tucked into bed by their mommas tonight. I can't wait to to see how they play with the little sisters in the weeks to come.

Christmas For 7

Christmas morning arrived with excited boys and girls bright eyed and bushy tailed. We followed our typical pattern of reading the end of our Christmas story (this year was Jotham's Journey) and then we started in with stockings.

To decrease the craziness and increase the ability for Eric and I to actually watch the kids open their presents we allowed a free for all with the stockings and then the kids took turns opening presents one at time. There were enough presents for several rounds each of the kids and they were all so excited with their stuff.

The girls were very excited with their bitty twin dolls and Reid was thrilled with his cozy coupe police car. The big boys were very excited with Legos and a new Wii game that they played for the rest of the morning.

Eric and I kept it pretty simple this year, he got some new work boots and socks and I got a cupcake carrier and 20 chickens for World Vision. It was a wonderful Christmas morning in just about every way possible.

Christmas Eve

 The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

A Gingerbread House... Finally

We have been super busy this month and finally, FINALLY today we got to the gingerbread house we bought a week and a half ago. Lucy in particular has been beyond excited to decorate the gingerbread house.

Thankfully the houses came already made this year from Costco. That was the hardest part of the whole project in the past. So Eric was particularly glad to avoid that piece of it.

A whole slew of excited munchkins!

To keep the fighting to a minimum we separated the candy into individual bowls for each kid. After many many years of they got to put more of the gumdrops on! fighting I have learned to keep it even.

Reid spent the first half of the time eating the candy rather than putting it on the house. I think he was confused with what we were doing.

Zane was meticulous with his candy placement and actually ended up being the last kid with candy left to place. Totally out of character for him. He usually just dumps the candy and moves on to something else.

Finally Reid figured out the candy was supposed to go ON the house rather than in his mouth. Although I think about half of his candy was sucked on before it got placed. No strangers will be eating the candy off this house!

Beading Fun!

Gwen was given a bead kit for Christmas yesterday. Last night she sat and made a very cool necklace. Today she decided to make a bracelet and she was so kind to allow Lucy to make one too.

This activity has kept them busy and not fighting for quite awhile. Now I apparently need to find more beads for them. Or secretly cut up their bracelets and necklaces so they can reuse the beads. I wonder if they would notice...

An Early Christmas with Reece and Angie

Reece and Angie are having Christmas at their house in Puyallup this year so we trekked down this morning to have an early celebration this year.

It was fun to join Reece, Angie and Rory at their church and hear a good message with them. Then we headed a couple of minutes up the road to their house for lunch and presents.

Everyone was so excited!

Zane got a new Seahawks shirt. He is turning into a HUGE football fan and was really excited to get a shirt to cheer on his favorite team!

The girls got a hair kit and a jewelry making kit. I see a lot of necklaces and trips to the imaginary beauty salon in our future.

It was so much fun to get to see Rory. He really does love his Auntie Sam the very, very best.

Zane really loves Rory a LOT.

Zane and Uncle Reece checking out the score for the Seahawks game. Zane is quite the fanatic and wanted to track the game the whole time we were there. Reece is just as bad though. They made quite a pair.

Reid managed to stay awake the whole afternoon but he was definitely on the fade by the time we left. Andrew was really excited to get a Lego kit and could hardly wait to get home to build it!

Christmas Cookies!

The time has come for cookies to be made this Christmas season. We are going to Reece and Angie's house tomorrow for an early celebration and I was in charge of bringing some cookies! Guess we needed to get on that!

I wised up for the first time and used cookie sheets to keep my table from being an utter train wreck. There are still sprinkles all over the place but hopefully they will be a quick clean up and not all over the floor. Especially since I swept earlier today!

Reid loved the decorating. Or at least his version of it, which was eating a cookie while the rest of us decorated. The kids all did great and it really is a quick project with so many hands helping. Now to just enjoy the results!