My Christmas Style

Alright I'm going to steal it too. (My sister stole this from her friends blog and I'm stealing it from her)

1- Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. I always have different wrapping for santa presents, but I always wrap everything in paper. Sometimes with bows. Mostly without. Just as simple as possible.
2-Real or artificial tree? Through the first couple years of our marriage we always got a real tree, but over the years I convinced Norm to get an artifical tree because real ones just made too much of a mess. We have had an artificial tree now for 5 years
3-When do you put up your tree? We usually always put it up on Thanksgiving day, after our feast
4-When do you take the Christmas tree down? Usually sometime right after the 1st of January when I get around to it.
5-Do you like eggnog? Yes! I love eggnog but nobody else in the family does so I usually don't get any because I can't drink a whole carton on my own.
6-Favorite gift received as a child? We got a secret santa when I was 10. I remember getting a watch and a sweater. I can't remember much else just that my parents were so excited to see us open our presents. They kept telling us to hurry up because they wanted to see what we got. I got a whole trash bag full of presents as well as my brother and sister. I remember Becky got a sit-and-spin. It became her most prized toy she owned.
7- Hardest person to buy for? My brother in laws. Its not so hard now that David is married but Randy is impossible to think of anything fun.
8-Easiest person to buy for? My little girls. I know them so well that they don't even need to tell me what they want anymore, I just know!!
9-Do you have a nativity scene? Yes! I've owned several over the years. They have all been nonbreakable until this year. The kids have just learned now to leave it alone.
10-Mail or Email Christmas cards? I mail them when I ever send them out. I always forget and never get around to it. I've send cards out only 3 out of the 14 years.
11- Worst Christmas gift ever received? I can't remember. Now that I'm a Mom I don't usually get too much for Christmas so I'm always happy with whatever they give me.
12- Favorite Christmas movie? The Christmas story. My kids say they haven't see it so we will have to change that this year.
13-When do you start shopping for Christmas? I always do all my shopping before Thanksgiving. I can't stand all the crowds at Christmas time. This year I mainly did all my shopping online.
14-Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Of course, but I would never tell. Actually my brother in law David has this running joke for years now. He left behind one of his presents, a bowling set a several christmas's past and my mother in law wrapped it again the following year. Every year they re-wrap it and give it too him. We teased him about giving it too him as a wedding present but we never actually did.
15-Favorite thing to eat at Christmas time? It's defiantly the fudge!!!
16-What color light on the tree? White, It's prelit.
17- Favorite Christmas song? My most favorite is Silent Night, but I love all the songs about the savior.
18-Travel at Christmas or stay at home? We ususally travel to my parents, but the last couple years have left us at home. This year it is finances but my parents are coming to us.
19-Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Dasher, Dancer, Donnner, and Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Prancer, Vixen, and the most famous reindeer of all Ruldoulph.
20-Angel on the tree top or a star? We actually have a fairy. We have tinkerbell on our tree. The frist couple of years it was Mickey, then an angel and for the past couple of years it has been tinkerbell.
21-Open the present Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning? We always let the kids open one present on Christmas Eve. We always pick it for them and it's always P.J.'s Christmas morning they get to open there stockings and then take the rest of the presents over to Norms parents to open them there first thing in the morning. When we are at my parents we just wait to open them either while dinner is cooking or after dinner, depending on the time.
22-Most annoying thing about this time of the year? The crowds. I hate all the hustle and bustle and the streets and in the stores. Especially with all the snow. It just drives me crazy.
23-What theme or color are you using? We use red/ white/ and silver in honor of our tinkerbell topper.
24-Favorite Christmas Dinner? My dad's prime rib. Yummy!!!
25-What do you want for Christmas this year? I want my kids to have a wonderful Christmas and be with all of my family. I'm able to get the family part so I just hope my kids have fun.

When life gives you lemons..

Make Lemonade.

The school decided last night to make it an early out day because of the weather. Well this is usually a good thing, I have been working on a school project with a group of other moms for today. It was a 2 hour long activity that took 2 months worth of work. Naturally the activity was to start at 1:30 and now the kids get out at 1:15. Needless to say there were some unhappy parents. Well with a whole lot of phone calls and a lot of sweat and tears we were able to fix the whole thing and make everyone happy. We will do part of the activity today and the rest on Monday when we get back. This actually worked out ok, because the other 2 stations that we will be doing on Monday did need some more time to carry out so now we will have 30 minutes instead of 20 to do each station. I guess you can make Lemons into lemonade, even at the last minute.

It's snowing, it's snowing!!!!

Yes it is snowing and snowing. It just won't stop today. Of course I have to be all over town this whole week and my power steering is giving out on me. This isn't the best week for snow. How about next week when I don't have so many places to go. The good news is, we got a gift certificate to Walmart yesterday so we can buy the kids new snow boots. They ae all in need of new boots and gloves so the timing couldn't be better!!

Happy Happy Birthday....

Haley!!! Our baby is 4. Her birthday was monday, I know I'm late I've just been so busy. She has a birthday party sunday at grandmas and celebrated her birthday yesterday at school. I can't believe she is so grown up. It makes me so sad but she sure is fun to talk to.

Welcome our new addition!

So Norm and the kids have really wanted a dog. I am not to excited about it, but I've been out voted. There is a lady that breeds Toy Australian Shepherds and she wanted to trade one of her pups for an ad. She had one that was on the small side and her ears stand up, which apparently for a Toy Aussie is not a good thing. When they have this defect they cannot be used for breeding dogs just pets. We don't want a breeder so Norm traded for her yesterday and they spayed her and got all her shots current. She works with the vet that already trades with us so we got everything we needed for her for free. Right now that is all we could do since there is NO money coming in. She does seem to be helping Norm with all the office and money stress. She has already stolen the heart of Norm and the girls. I'm still warming up to her. Last night she howled when we went to bed so we brought her upstairs in our room and she slept through the night. She is very well behaved just doesn't want to be left alone. Norm has already got her using a box of papers. She peed right away in it, but was having trouble pooping in the box. This morning she figured it out and is doing really well. She is just starting to show some excitement especially around the girls. She is still quite timid. She is also very small and will only double her size when she's full grown. She will be the size of Sparkles (our cat) at full height. Here's a picture of our new baby. Her name is Bella:

Halloween

We dressed the kids this year in whatever was available since we don't have any money right now. Katie was a japanse girl, Lindy was a witch, Emily was a bride and Haley was Supergirl. Everything we owned didn't suit Haley because she really wanted to be superman. Norm and I went to DI Wed. before halloween and found superman pajamas and red pants that we cut to make shorts. Cheryl had some scrap red fabric and made her a cape. The whole outfit was $2. We did alright this year. I don't have pictures yet of the older 3 but I do have cute ones of Supergirl. She was jumping off the bundles and Cheryl got really cute pictures of her "flying through the air"

Disneyland

I just posted the first 7 pages done of our trip to Disneyland on our family memories site. It's all I had time for. The rest will come shortly. Enjoy!

Disneyland!

We are back. We had a really great time. Wed. and Thurs. the park was not very crowded so we were able to do just about everything. Thurs we were given dream fast passes to use on some of the bigger line rides. Friday Mom, Dad and Tim came with us to Disneyland. We had a good time with them and the girls were very excited to see grandma and grandpa. Sat. we mainly hit the shows and used a couple of our dream fast passes. Thanks to Ben and Robyn for making this trip SOOO much fun. We got lucky and everyone was well enough to travel and no one got sick at Disneyland. I got it on the way home, so the trip home wasn't much fun, but then again when is it ever sick or not.

Disneyland

We leave tomorrow for Disneyland, there is just one hitch in our plan. We all got sick. Emily got the stomach flu on Friday and it passed after 12 hours and then I got a touch of it sat. night. Norm, Haley and Katie now have it. It should be gone before we leave tommorrow but we hope it doesn't catch Lindy or we will all be in trouble.

Only...

2 days left. Times are so tough right now so I'm so glad we are going. When we get back I get to look for a job to hold us over until the paper can support itself again. We can't wait to enjoy are escape before we head back to realty again.

Missed one

We haven't had internet so I missed a day in our countdown. Good thing Ben is staying on top of it. Only 3 days left!!!

Four more

We have four more days!!!!!


hehehe. Ben typed this message.

FIVE

5 days to go!!!

Wow

only 6 days to Disneyland! And this is the last offical full day of school for the girls. Haley had her last day yesterday!!!!!!

Opps!!!!

Happy Birthday Emily on Oct. 4th. She turned 7 and had a great birthday party at Grandma's house on conference weekend. She celebrated with Cheryl. With all the disneyland news I forgot to post her birthday. Sorry Emily :( Oh, and only 1 week until we leave for Disneyland. 7 days to go!!!! Emily will be celebrating her birthday there as well as my sister Robyn. Yeah!!!!