Christmas is almost here!

Last night we went over to our friend Sharon and Greg's house and opened presents with them, and today we drove down to Amy and Brock's house. We finally left Bakersfield at 11am but did not arrive here until 3pm or so. Shannon has really gotten good at parking and manuvering our big old trailer! We are parked in their RV parking, all opened up, and hooked up. As soon as we got here I started cooking. We had enchiladas, spanish rice, tamales, and ghetto toffee!
Tomorrow night is Christmas eve. We open all of our presents on Christmas eve, and then Santa brings us presents to play with on Christmas day. Everyone will be here tomorrow night. A full house!
I should have pictures then!
Happy Saturday,
Love,
Shell

The grinch and the grump. . . .

So last night our plans were to go to the magical forest and then to CALM to look at the lights. When we left the house it was raining. Not hard but a little. The magical forest was really cute. It was housed on the top floor of a parking garage. The boys got to visit Santa and they had a small shopping area. These were both on the third floor. On the top floor they had hundreds of Christmas trees with lights and then a bunch of stages around with different themes. This is a picture of the boys in front of the grinch themed stage. After walking around the top level we took the next golf cart down to the parking lot and went over to Jakes to eat dinner. When we got out of dinner it was raining too hard to go up and walk around CALM to see the lights so we drove over to Haggen Oaks and looked around there. That neighborhood always has the best lights. One of the houses even had Mickey Mouse, Belle, Jasmin, and the Beast dressed up, singing on the porch! It was pretty funny, at one point Skyler said he was done and wanted to go "strait home to watch TV."
Hopefully we will be able to go look at the lights tonight. . . . .

Snow. . .

The boys have been asking for quite awhile to go to the snow. We had tickets at my work for a winter wonderland so we all went last night. I thought it would be a lot bigger than it was. They had a little (very little) snow at one end of the ice rink! I didn't get a lot of good pictures, it was pretty dark and most of the pictures are a little blurry. It was cute watching the boys make snowballs. They both even made snow angels. Tonight we are going to The Magical Forest and then to cool light show at CALM! Should be fun. It is colder than you know what outside so I will have to put on my big jacket! Hopefully I will have some cute pictures tomorrow.

Gingerbread Men, Trees, Boots, Stars, and Snowmen!

We had the Gingerbread house kit for a couple of weeks now and it has just been killing the boys that we had not put it together yet. This morning we got up, ate breakfast, watched the movie Barnyard (really cute!) and then sat down to put together and decorate the gingerbread house. After that the boys put on their Halloween Costumes and we went to the grocery store. We got these cookies. They were already cut out, we just baked and decorated them. The boys stuck with me for most of both of the projects, but in the end it was me doing the decorating! I think everything turned out pretty cute!

David's School Christmas Presentation

Even though he didn't sing much (none of the kids in his class did). He did ring his bells (when his finger wasn't in his mouth). He looked really cute!!!

What to do with Christmas???

I have a tendency to get a little overwhelmed with Christmas. It is a really fun time of year, I love all the decorations. I love how excited the boys get about the lights and Santa. The part that truly overwhelms me is the gift buying. I have a belief that most of my family buys everything they want. If they want it, they buy it. Therefore, I find most of my family unbelievably hard to buy for. And because it is so hard for me, I have a tendency to buy them gift cards. Then I feel bad because I am giving them something really impersonal. Then it becomes overwhelming. Maybe if I had a bunch of time to go shopping and someone to watch the boys, it would be different. I should probably try to just do a little bit at a time over the whole year so that when it is the beginning of December I am not feeling like I do!
Oh well, in less than a month I will totally be over it!!!

This weekend I made some really cute Xmas cards to send out. I am working on getting a cute picture of the boys to put in them and then I will get them out. Hopefully this coming weekend! I had a great time stamping them. I am really happy with how they turned out, pretty and glittery! While I was stamping Shannon took the boys to CALM (our little zoo). They had a lot of fun. I have tickets to go back there sometime before Xmas as they really cool light show out there.

Tomorrow is our company holiday party. We are having at at the local casino. A Texas Hold'em holiday party. It is a luncheon so we will go at 11:30, have lunch at noon, and then they teach you how to play, and then have a tournament. It should really be a lot of fun. I will report back on how I do in the tournament!

Well, Happy Monday!
Love,
Shell

Dad's Little Helpers

Holding the ladder

Here's the lights Dad!