Little Lady Kathleen

I made these quiet books for cousins for Christmas. Next year, no homemade gifts. They are too much work and too much money. But they sure turned out cute. Kathleen did a lot of christmas artwork at school (and some at home). She loved to hang it on her door.
So Brandon did too.
Our little lady decided she wanted her hair cut short. We wanted to donate her hair, but the lady at the place we went wouldn't take anything under 10 inches and Kathleen wasn't quite there. I was kind of sad because she grew it out for so long. We decided to cut it anyway.

Before:

Brandon took this picture of Cody while we waited.

After:


She looks way too grown up for my tastes.

Merry Christmas!

Here the kids are all ready to go see Christmas lights. Kathleen had a Christmas party at school. I played my violin for the kids.
The kids have amazing great-grandparents that send money at Christmas time. In an effort to help them be remembered, we take the kids shopping and let them pick gifts from their granparents. Here is what they picked.
Cody was zonked. He usually sleeps in a ball, but not this time.
Kathleen loves being a ballerina. Sometimes she talks Brandon into dancing with her. His dancing, however looks more like break dancing than ballet.

Cody loves to play right next to dad when he plays the piano.
Here is the tree before Santa came. Our kids are pretty spoiled. For some reason, Cody mostly left the tree alone. Go figure.
We woke up Sunday to a light snow. Kathleen was so excited that she put her boots and coat on and ran out in her PJs.
Then after a snowball fight, the family played follow the leader.

Cody was playing foosball the other day and I couldn't get him away from it. He was so cute.
On Christmas Eve, we woke up to "real" snow, something we rarely see in Boise. It wasn't much, but enough to make a snowman. My exact words mid snowball roll were, "This is the best Christmas Eve ever!!!" And it was only 9 in the morning.

For Christmas Eve we had a nice dinner. Mmm. Ham.
The traditional nativity involved Kathleen as Mary and Brandon as Joseph. Baby Jesus was played by Princess Aurora.
Sorry, no room in the inn.

Angel(a)

We got coorinating pjs. Boys had brown bottoms with red tops, and girls had red bottoms with brown tops.




Santa Came!!

Look, he ate our cookies! Mom, the flash is too bright!

Santa didn't eat all our cookies. Look, I found a large crumb.

The kids got some fun couches that turn into beds. So of course they had to watch a movie in them.
And what would Christmas be if there wasn't a kid that appreciated a box more than his hundreds of dollars worth of toys.

Pre-Christmas Fun

The boys had fun playing in the snow on one of the few days we got any. The kids decided there needed to be something under the tree, so they put all their toys under it.
Cody loves to read. I find him all over the place sitting with a book on his lap. His favorite place to sit is my lap. His favorite books are any with dogs. He barks at them and pants.
Kathleen's birthday is in July, so they decided to celebrate July birthdays with December birthdays (since they don't have school on their actual birthdays). It was fun having a pretend birthday party for Kathleen.

The schools now do this "healthy" thing where moms can't bring cupcakes on their actual birthday. Instead, they celebrate once a month and have "healthy" snacks. There is one sugar snack, but the rest is cheese, carrots, crackers, etc. A friend gave me this brilliant idea to make fruit smoothies. The kids LOVED them.
The boys played with the Legos most of the time.
Brandon wanted to take a picture of mom while I talked to dad on the phone. Not a flattering photo, but since I rarely post pictures of me, here's one for free.
Kathleen and Brandon wrapped a present for daddy. They worked so hard on it. Then when they were done, they said, "let's take it downstairs and put it under the tree with teamwork."

A friend brought by this plate as a christmas gift. Isn't it beautiful? I had to take a picture. She owns a vinyl lettering business. Her website is http://www.boards-n-more.com/
On December 18th, Ryan and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. We went out on a date on Friday, but on the actual date we went to the temple, then came home and put the kids to bed. Then we had a chocolate fondu party for two.
Grandma and Grandpa Spear (great) sent Christmas cards with money for the kids. Ryan's grandparents always remember our kids at holiday times. Brandon refused to take the money out of the card. He was way too excited about it. Finally when he noticed Kathleen and Cody coloring on theirs, he changed his mind and joined in the fun. By the way, the cards weren't designed for coloring, but you know my kids.