Christmas 2012

Even though we had so much going on around Christmas this year, the actual day seemed less hectic than usual.  Partly because by then we were living at Dad and Trudi's, and that saved us one trip in the morning.  We just woke up and got to opening presents.  


and eating cinnamon rolls.
 
We headed over to Veronica and Dan's house for Christmas with the Jacobs side.  We ate delicious food and the kids opened even more gifts. 
 
 
The little girls weren't that into it, as usual.  But they did have a couple of gifts they liked.


Now that I'm posting about Christmas, suddenly I'm reminded that I let moving and all that distract me and totally forgot to send THANK YOUs to the people we love who sent gifts from afar.  :(  Sorry.  I better get on that.

We had the usual Christmas dinner at the Cassons, which was fun as always, but I forgot to take any pictures there.  Scary Uncle Chuckie taught Neely a game she's now obsessed with, where you take her outside in the dark and look for a wolf or a "ghost in the bushes".  She loves it.  She's actually a little scared, but she's our little thrill seeker, so she loves it.

Alex and Faith stayed the night with us at Dad and Trudi's, and Cassie was already staying there along with our family.  So we had quite a sleepover.
 
 It even snowed in the morning.  Not that it stuck, but snow was falling.  Our crazy hot blooded little girl wanted to stay out there in this getup:


But we eventually got her dressed in something more appropriate.

 
 
 Caso was carried out to enjoy it for a minute too.

Tomorrow, a post about our last week in Kingman.

Polar Express

We've wanted to take the kids on the Polar Express for several years, but we always forgot about it until it was way too late to get tickets.  :(  This year, thanks to Aunt Mollie and Uncle Tim, we got to go!  It was a lot of fun.  We got the kids into their pajamas and left in the morning, and the older two rode with Grampa, Grama Trudi, Great Grama, and Coco.  Aunt TT rode with us and Neely. 

We had lunch,

 and then met up with the Cassons to get on the train.
 
We couldn't all get seats together, and Grampa, Grama Trudi, and Great Grama were in a totally different car.  Rumor has it they had fun anyway.

 The kids were all really good.  Neely moved around quite a bit, riding with different family members.

 

Caso hung out with daddy the whole time.  Paige loved it, but was pretty quiet most of the time.  Turned out she was about to get sick, we just didn't realize it yet.  She still enjoyed it and sang along with the songs.

She gazed out the windows a lot too.

There was snow the day we went too.

 She and Cason were named and applauded for their help getting the train to its destination.  They were happy but embarrassed of course.  They weren't the only ones getting into the spirit of it all though.

Neely really liked when Santa gave them a bell.  She tied one to Jingle's collar.  So now he has two bells.  I heard later that she stole Uncle Tim's bell too.

We all went for pie after.  We waited outside a while, but it was worth it, and fun hanging out together anyway.

Tyra photobombed me and Cason here and I didn't even know it.

 By this time it was becoming obvious that Paige was about to get sick.  She was so tired, but said she wanted to go get pie too.

We took up several tables inside.

Grama loved having her picture taken, as always.

Paige fell asleep in the chair and missed out on some deliciousness.

Neely did NOT miss out.

It was a wonderful day, and extra special for us, knowing we'd be moving soon.

Ma Boy

My Polar Express post is pretty much written, but I have a couple pictures I need off of our camera and its battery is charging.  So I'll have to post that one tomorrow.  For now here is a picture Cason drew a few weeks ago.  First he drew a bad guy or something and drew an X over him "because he's a bad guy".  Then he drew this one of me:

He said "It's you and you get a check mark because I WUV you!"

December

LOTS to catch you up on.  I'll split it into a few posts.  According to my phone I'm currently loading 1,190 pictures all taken in the last month.  Ha.  First of all, the month of December was good, but CRAZY.  We had SO MUCH TO DO.  Lots of family stuff around Christmas, and packing up our house, finishing some work on the house, and packing.  

Family was awesome about babysitting while we worked on the house several days.  

 

 

The rest of the time we tried to keep the kids entertained while we were busy.  They're pretty good at keeping themselves entertained though, actually.

The last half of the month Caso was stuck on the couch mostly anyway, so he colored, watched shows and movies, played with toys, or games on the Wii or Kindle. 

We took lots of breaks though, for things like a last fire in our house...

For me to work on a few fun projects...

...and for fun trips to Storytime with Sarah, Liam, and Colin.

They had a Christmas craft too, and Neely did such a good job.  I pointed to where the parts of the face should go and she put them on herself.  I just did the antlers for her since it involved tracing her hands, cutting them out, and sticking them on the BACK.  I was really impressed with her, the eyes are really even too.  

We had a cookie decorating date with the Cassons one day too.

The last weekend before school ended Paige told me she wanted me to make Mrs. Arnold a husky ornament like I made for Stacy.  So I did that and Paige made Mrs. Arnold this picture:

She said when she opened it Mrs. Arnold told her if she had that sleigh Paige could ride in it with her.  :)

We went to her cute Christmas program, which was adorable.  She's in the top row.

It was one of Caso's first outings after his accident.

Paige presented us with the ornament she made for us in school.  :)

Then we had her last day.  :(  She came out crying, and we hung out in the office where she cuddled Grampa and Grama and visited a little more with Mrs. Arnold. 

Next up, the Polar Express!   Sorry for those of you expecting a post about our new home, but if I post out of order I'll probably get lazy and never post about Christmas and everything else before the move.  If you're impatient you can check out my instagram, I'm pretty good at posting random pictures there:   

www.instagram.com/BrandiJ514