Christmas Day- Final Pictures

After the boys opened their gifts and we ate breakfast, we headed over to Mimi's house. Our boys always look forward to going there!

Playing with Lexi, Angel, and Abby (the dogs!) This was an ornament in the tree that everyone loved. It's motion censored and his eyes and mouth move. He says "hey, hey......up here........" and then he sings songs. We got a kick of out him this year.

Brothers wrestling

Cooper loved his John Deere tractors. Thanks Aunt Pearl.

Yes, my son did in fact ask for a pumper this year.

It came in handy when the bouncy ball needed to be aired up.

Hudson's shirtTaking over the dogs' crib

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After we left Mimi's house....we headed over to see Poppy, CeCe, Hannah, and Maya. I'm so disappointed that I only took 2 pictures the entire time! Here is aunt Hannah helping Cooper open his gifts.
Aunt Maya with her Dora bubble bath and compact set.

We had a wonderful Christmas with our family. We look forward to a great 2008!!

Christmas Morning

The boys actually slept in a little on Christmas morning. Since we had places to go, I set my alarm for 7:30 in case they were not awake yet ( I didn't want us to sleep in too late) and I was surprised when my alarm went off and I realized that neither of them were up yet. It was great though because it gave me a chance to shower and get ready. Hudson woke up first and came into our room. We waited there while daddy went to get Cooper so that we could walk into the dining room together to discover what Santa brought us.

Most of you that know Hudson, you know that he is a pretty serious kid. Yes, he can have fun at times but he isn't the child that jumps for joy or squeals with excitement. I refer to him as an "old soul" because he really seems so much older at times. For the first time in his life, I actually heard him say the phrase "I'm sooooooo excited!!"

Cooper loved all of his toys too. He's so easy to buy for!

Hudson was so happy that Santa brought him the Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner......."just like at Tatum's house," he said. He especially likes the detachable part with the "fan" that blows the beads around.

Wow, those of you that take pictures of children for a living are mighty brave. Trying to get these 2 boys to look and smile at the same time was impossible!

Christmas Eve day, Hudson and I made homemade peanut butter cookies for Santa. He was adamant that we leave 4 cookies for him. This was perfect because that meant that Jason and I both got 2 each!!! In fact, on Christmas Eve night after the boys were in bed, Jason and I finished getting presents ready, toys out of boxes and some assembled. While doing that, we munched on "Santa's cookies" and we were laughing like school kids. Something about it felt wrong and sneaky. We were talking about how ticked Hudson would have been if he rounded the corner to find us eating Santa's cookies and that got us laughing so hard! We had fun being Santa's helpers and getting it all ready because we knew that the boys would love it all the next morning.Just a few crumbs left!

We had a special morning with just the boys. They had a little time to play with their new toys before we left to spend the day with grandparents. I look forward to many years and wonderful memories together!

Christmas Eve

It's been a tradition for our family ever since I can remember to have a huge Christmas Eve party. My mom is the youngest of 8 so our family is quite large (but sadly it's beginning to get smaller as we all get older!) We have a ton of cousins and aunts and uncles. We bring food, open some gifts, Santa comes to visit the children, we do a Chinese Christmas game. It's so fun and something we look forward to each year. I have fond memories as a young girl getting to see a "real" Santa and play with cousins.

Cooper admiring the Christmas tree

Getting cozy by the fire with mom and dad
With Aunt Pearl, Mimi, and Grandma RubyCooper with Santa

Hudson and Santa

We had a great evening with our family. It's so nice to see everyone and celebrate the holidays together. More pictures are coming of Christmas morning and our day with family.

Christmas, Part 1

On Saturday night we celebrated Christmas with my mom and step dad and my sister and her family. Since Julie and I are both married and we have in-laws to see, we decided to celebrate Christmas together on Saturday night so that our kids could open presents together and we could eat dinner and visit. Of course we still have our annual Christmas Eve party but there will be so many people there.Cooper did not want to sit still so that we could get a group picture of the cousins.Hudson with his new helicopter. He was sooooo excited to get this. I'm not sure though who is more excited because Jason will take off with it and fly it around.His absolute favorite is the "mote comtrol" that came with the helicopter. He loves this even on it's own. He likes to pretend that it will do things and he pretends to plug things up since it has a cord that connects to the helicopter.

Cooper was not really sure about his big present

A coupe for the Coop

Julie, mom, and me

Jason and Brad

We had fun at Grammy and Papa's house!!

Frosty the Snowman

On Friday night, Julie and I took the kids to Casa to see Frosty the Snowman. While it was a fun night overall, we were not impressed with the show this time. I tend to like more of the traditional Christmas shows or ones that are super happy and cheery. This one contained a "bad, Frankenstein-like" frosty that tried to mess things up for the good frosty. Under normal conditions this probably would not have been an issue but my analytical child wanted to know everything about the other frosty so that forced a conversation that I just didn't want to have.

Yes, we did sing "The 12 Days of Christmas" on the way there, thanks to my printed off/handy dandy cheat sheet.

On the way home

12 Random Christmas Things

Stacey has tagged me for this fun idea wherein I have to share 12 random things about myself that are Christmas related. Here are the rules:

1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas

2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm'-word

3. You have to specifically tag people when you're done. None of this "if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged" stuff is allowed...then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you -- but the more, the merrier to get this 'hoopla' circulating through the blogosphere.

4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it and I'd like to get as many people involved as possible.

12 Random Christmas Things About Jennifer

1. I've never had a real Christmas tree. Growing up we always had an artificial tree and now that I'm an adult, I continue that same practice. While the "idea" of a real tree sounds great and all, the idea of having to string all those thousands of lights myself doesn't excite me.

2. I've always secretly disliked December 26th. I guess we spend so much time during December ramping up for Christmas that once it's over I feel a bit blue. Besides, then I have a house full of decorations that need to be packed up and hauled up into the attic.

3. I do feel that every holiday needs to be recognized so we never put up our Christmas tree or decorations until after Thanksgiving. We also don't allow it to stay up past New Year's.

4. I really enjoy getting Christmas cards. Seriously, I can't wait for the mailman to come so that I can run to the mailbox, retrieve those cards and sit at my table and open them one by one. It's so fun to see all the pictures of friends and family. (it's quite ironic that despite the fact that I LOVE getting Christmas cards, I have not sent one out in 2 or maybe even 3 years. However my friends, they are signed and sealed and will be getting postage today. I'm striving to get one out every single year now!) These are a warm reminder at how blessed we are to have wonderful people in our lives.

5. My birthday is December 17th. It's all I've ever known but I have never been bitter at the fact that it's so close to Christmas. Yes, I'd say that 90% of the gifts I get throughout the year all come within an 8 day time frame but it's not really that big of a deal. Also, my mom was the best at making sure I didn't get jipped and that my birthday didn't just flow into Christmas. We had separate parties and she made sure to say "these are your birthday presents and these are your Christmas presents." Now I will say that I made the choice to NOT get married during December and we prayed that we had no December babies....

6. I LOVE Christmas and all the family fun and traditions that come with it. I love getting new holiday jammies for the boys, doing the advent tree every morning, watching Christmas Vacation with Jason, our huge family Christmas Eve party, making cookies for Santa, and finding our new friend, Cronco the elf. I'm still on the lookout for other things to do with the kids!

7. I personally dislike the use of holiday bags for my kids and their gifts. Now granted, when they are tiny it does make it easier for them to just pull the tissue and find the goods inside. However, once they get old enough to open a present I think that is half the fun. Remember as a kid? The best part was tearing through that paper to find out what was inside. I had never thought about this until having kids. I'm a huge "bag" person when it comes to family and friends because let's be honest- it's so easy. For my kids though, I do try to wrap up as many as I can so that they get to experience that fun.

8. I hate to wear a coat. While one side of me really hopes that it's freezing cold and snows on Christmas morning, the other side of me prays that I can get by with running to my car so that I can avoid wearing a jacket. I've always been this way. My mom has rolled many eyes at me for disliking a coat......sorry mom!

9. Every year I find a new holiday picture frame so that I can display the pictures of Santa and the boys. I so look forward to getting these out each year and comparing them and seeing how much they have grown and changed. I have one table in my living room that displays every year so that at-a-glance I can see them all. My decorations would not be complete without these.

10. As of this moment, I do not know every lyric to "The 12 Days of Christmas." I always get them mixed up. I do plan to work on this.....tonight actually. Julie and I are taking the kids to Casa to see Frosty the Snowman and we will be singing this song on the way there.

11. I do not own a nativity scene. (good Stacey, I thought I was the only one!) I would like to change this though. My goal is to have one by next year so that we can use this when we talk about Jesus and the Christmas season.

12. I love to look at Christmas lights. However, we usually do not have them on our house. Jason isn't a big fan of climbing on the roof to hang them so we usually just make the rounds and look at other homes, where someone else's daddy risked their life to put them up. (smile) Last year we paid to have them put up and taken down. We were not happy with our choice of lights and this year we didn't make it a priority to find new lights so that they could be hung. Next year, I hope to have them up the way we want them.

Now, I tag Gim, Heather T., Kyla, Lana, Lynley, Melissa, Laurie, Paige P, Tammie, and Wade.

Naming our Elf and Loving My Monkey

I didn't realize how popular this little 'Elf on a Shelf' was until many of you emailed me the link from the news clip from a few days ago. So, Tuesday night we all gathered around our Christmas tree and we introduced the elf to the boys. Obviously Cooper is too young to understand....he just pointed to the tree and said oooooooh, ooooooooh at all the lights. I read the book to Hudson and stopped along the way to explain the story and the directions to him. The hardest part was choosing a name.

Several months ago, Hudson was on a Cars kick. He wanted to watch this movie all the time and he and Jason even began to use some of the one-liners in their every day talk. I noticed that Hudson would sometimes say "Cronco" but I never knew what it meant or why he was saying it. I didn't think much about it considering he makes up silly words a lot and uses them in his own little world. Finally I asked him about the "cronco" word. He then began to replay the Cars movie to me and he said "cronco"........I quickly realized that he misunderstood the word that was used. He should have been saying "pronto" instead. I got a big kick out of that. Anyway, the reason for this story is that while we were going down the list of names, Hudson decided that his elf needed to be called Cronco. After many attempts to sway his choice, I finally gave in and welcomed Cronco into our home. (sigh)

The last 2 mornings Hudson has been SO excited to see where Cronco is. I know this will be a favorite for years to come!!
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Now, on to the monkey boy. He is still a monkey. Nothing has changed in that department. He still continues to crack us up and melt our hearts daily. His little personality is really starting to come out and boy are we in for a ride! One of his favorites lately is to climb onto his kitchen and play with the light switches. He's not as intrigued with the lights and switches like his brother but he sure is in love with heights and the adventure of getting onto things. (hence the grey hairs that continue to show up in my head!)

I know that I've blogged before and for those of you that know our little monkey man, you know that he never stops. He's always on the go. He doesn't like to be rocked or snuggled because this restricts him from going. Well let me tell you , this boy has learned to rock! I've never been one to rock my babies to sleep. I've followed and stood behind the "Baby Wise" techniques and both of my boys are great sleepers. I did though always rock Hudson during the day, usually before a nap. I didn't rock him to sleep but it was our time to rock and sing and just hang out. Up until a few weeks ago, monkey boy would have no part of this. He finally let me the other day and he realized that it wasn't so bad after all. I think he even liked it a little. So, today after he climbed, ran, jumped and chased he allowed me to rock him while I sang some songs to him. It was just us. Nobody else was home. It was quiet. All was still in our house. Just the two of us swaying in the glider. I was looking at him and my heart was so full of love that I wanted to cry. He's getting so big. In a few short months he'll be two. How did that happen? I wanted that moment to last forever because I know one day soon he will decide that rocking with mama isn't much fun. For now, I'll take every rock he will allow me and I hope and pray that I will never forget how I felt on this day.

Elf on the Shelf

If you know me, you know that I love creating traditions for my kids. I'm always looking for fun and new things to do with the boys. These are things they will remember and it's my hope that our family will stay close and strong because of them.

When I was young, we had a Christmas tradition that I always looked forward to. Our family didn't really have a ton of traditions growing up so for some reason this really stuck out for me. Looking back, it's really quite simple and many of you may think "so what's the big deal?" Who knows. Maybe Julie and I just created a game or something but regardless it was something we looked forward to. Each year, after the Christmas tree was assembled and trimmed, Julie and I would choose the perfect spot for our elf. My mom had been given this elf by a family member. He was small and cute and he completed our tree oh-so perfectly. Unfortunately, our elf got lost after Julie moved away. Since then we have talked about that elf and about how much we enjoyed him each year.

So, you can only imagine the excitement I felt when I got a call from my mom a few weeks ago telling me that she found a similar elf. He's about the same size, although our elf had green in his outfit. He's not made as well (isn't has heavy as our original) but he will serve the purpose. Our elf has made a comeback as "Elf on the Shelf." It's a brilliant idea! I can't wait to start this with the boys tonight.

This set comes with an elf doll and a book. You read the book to your children and explain the purpose of the elf. You must decide on a name together as a family.

The idea is that the elf watches the children and then each night he reports back to Santa. The next day, the elf is in a new spot (so you hide him in a different place every night and the kids will look forward to finding him each morning) It's a great way to talk about manners and being a good friend....and not hitting your brother........... You can start this any time during December and then on Christmas Eve the elf returns to Santa and doesn't come back until next year.

Thank you mom for giving me the elf. I know our family will love this tradition just as much as Julie and I did!

Speaking of traditions, Jason and I have one of our own. Each year, sometime during December, we watch Christmas Vacation together. That is one of the funniest movies ever. So, on Sunday night we tucked our boys snug into their beds and then started the preparations. Jason went to Chili's and got our favorite- chips and salsa. I had a big ol' Dr. Pepper and our favorite candy too. It was a fun "date night" for us. It's something we look forward to each year.

So, what fun traditions do you have with your family?

North Pole Express

Today I gave the boys their new jammies. Each year it's a tradition for me to get them new Christmas pajamas. Hudson was SO excited about this. The boys were running around the living room because it was a great day.....they got new jammies and they got to wear them tonight when we rode the North Pole Express. It felt kind of weird walking out of the house with their jammies on- especially when we made a quick stop to McDonald's for dinner.

Hudson with his ticket

Warm house shoes to matchBefore the train ride, we went into a covered tent and sang Christmas songs......led by a girl that couldn't sing her way out of a paper bag. Jason and I tried so hard not to laugh but it was bad.

Waiting on the train
"Tickets Please!"Hudson was really disappointed with his single hole punch. I noticed his face and when I asked him what was wrong he said "he didn't punch a word for me".........I guess he was expecting it just like in the movie. Also, when we got onto the train he asked me if it was magical. Too funny!

We got a quick little visit from Santa on the train

........then after the ride we went into Santa's workshop and had our picture taken with him. Hudson told him that he wanted a camera, a phone and a pumper......yes, a hand pumper that you would use to air up a bike. I guess it's better than suckers and lemonade which was his list from last year!

Annual Christmas Dinner and Other Stuff

Last night was our annual Christmas dinner with my college roommates. It was so fun to enjoy a nice meal together, without kids. My recent post where I put the 2 different pictures of Hudson made me realize that I have not taken a picture each year with the girls. Man, why didn't I do that? How cool would it be to post and look at pictures from the last 7 or so years? I'm not sure exactly how long we have been doing this but I'm thinking it's been since we have all been back in this area. For a couple of years after college, some lived out of town. Anyway, I decided to start this year and continue on. These girls are so precious and I'm so blessed to have them!The neat thing is that every year one of us seems to be pregnant. I figured it up and we've been pregnant 9 times between us over the last 5 years. This year, Laura and Robyn are both expecting.......in just a few short weeks. We can't wait to meet these little ones.

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I know I've said it before but I'm still amazed at how different my boys are. A couple of years ago, my sweet friend Valerie gave us a ton of cars before they moved. Her son had outgrown them and she wanted Hudson to have them. He has never been into cars so these basically sat untouched until Cooper came around. This kid loves them and is in hog heaven with all the choices!

This is another Christmas decoration that Cooper really enjoys. You press the hand and Santa rocks back and forth while music plays.

Cooper is really getting into Mr. Potato Head. Wow, it seemed like just yesterday that Hudson got this and was fascinated with him. He used to carry him around, almost like his little doll. He even put Mr. Potato Head into time out when he didn't "obey." Where has the time gone?