Christmas!

**Side note: The craft blog is now open for all to see, enjoy!

We had such a wonderful Christmas! So much so it's taken a few days to sort it all out, go through pictures and post a little blurb.

We started the night before by getting the tables set and ready for breakfast.

Then we headed outside to sprinkle the reindeer food on the lawn.

After this we read a couple of Christmas stories and sent the little ones to bed. They were so excited for Santa to come! Tyler went to sleep pretty quickly but poor Cody just couldn't handle it. Not sure when he actually fell asleep, but he was up at 2, 2:30, 3, 4ish, then for good a bit before 6. Just Too Exciting!

So I finally got out of bed at 6am, had to get the cider started for breakfast. I made them go back and get Keith, he was awake, but waiting for his little buddies to "wake" him.

Santa Came!

Pulling down the stockings...

The dump, although I miss the full arm reach in from last year.

They were finally able to open up their big present, scooters!

Cody with his new camera...

Tyler with his...

The "WHOA" face that was present most the morning...

Yay! A track like big Cody's!

And this is where my camera died, like really died for good. After doing the mad dash around everywhere to find Keith's, only to find the battery was dead. I busted out my camera for a few more while it was charging.

Playing with their new remote control cars...




Playing with the new scooters.

Cody's loot, Ty's pile is much of the same...

Keith's family and Eli's Mum Barbara came over for a breakfast of pull-aparts, eggs and sausage. The boy were excited to show off all their new things and we were excited to not have to rush out of the house.
After breakfast we packed up and headed to Keith's family's house to open more presents.


This was pretty much it for my picture taking for the day, little disappointing. We headed home after playing for a while and took some much needed naps before traveling back over for dinner. It was a full day, but very mellow and lovely.

What about the gifts you say, the big one we received was the Wii. So Excited! We finally busted it out on Sat and played a round of bowling before bed.




We also received some lovely gift cards and put some of it towards a Wii Fit, Active and a couple of new games. So excited to put this thing through it's paces!


I'm working on getting a slide show together of the boy's picture from their cameras and I'll post it soon. Might have to start a blog for them, they are just taking too many picture for me to post all over mine.

Twas the day before Christmas...

The boys are so excited for Santa's arrival tonight they can hardly stand it! They've had a lazy day, watching a few of the Christmas shows on TV, baking cookies for Santa and trying to make the clock move faster.

All mixed up and ready for the oven...

Mmm fresh sprinkly chocolate chip cookies...

Testing the product, quality control...

These are some of the best darn cookies we've made in a while!

As the boys have been lazing about, I've been getting the house ready for company in the morning. I've had to make myself stop because the OCD was getting the better of me. But the house looks great, the serving dishes are all clean, cups and utensils sit at the ready. I guess I'm trying to make the clock move faster as well!
After dinner we'll go out and sprinkle reindeer food on the grass. We have a couple more shows on our viewing list this evening, then Christmas stories before putting the boys to bed. Once that happens, it's time to get the tables set for the morning and play Santa. My favorite thing about all this will be watching White Christmas in the process, I've grown to love this movie and it's on multiple times tonight, but it starts perfectly at 8pm just the right time to get it all done.

So Merry Christmas to you all, hope your day is wonderful!

Place Cards for Christmas Breakfast...

Christmas breakfast is coming to our house this year, something my MIL doesn't have to do, and less rushing about for us. Simple it will be with Scotch pull-aparts, scrambled eggs and sausages, add in OJ, hot chocolate and cider and we're calling it a meal! We are also excited to have Eli's mom here from Australia, so I thought it might be nice for everyone to have a place card. Plus, it's a big arrangement that in my head is perfect, so there's less explaining to do that morning.

(Picture quality sucks, sorry!)

Grandma and Grandpa Scollay

Eli's Mom and BIL Stu

BIL Eli & SIL Virginia

The boys'

Us..

Keith's Aunt Carol, who sometimes comes to dinner, so made one to take over.

These are brought to you via Cricut, my paper stash, Stickels glitter bottles and Xyron sticker makers.

As we get closer to Christmas day, I feel as though I've left something out. My house needs to be cleaned, at least the floors were mopped today and the toy room cleaned out, but that's for tomorrow and a bit on Thursday. A few things need to be rearranged to accommodate all the people and Santa's gifts that are coming. Cookies for Santa are getting baked on Thursday, a new tradition the boys have been asking about all week. All the presents are wrapped and under the tree, everyone is bought for. It's just that feeling of forgetfulness. Hopefully it's nothing too major!

Tyler's Christmas Party

Tyler had a great time at school celebrating the season with his friends. They had a pretty normal day doing crafts, playing marshmallow bingo, and decorating cookies. It was his day to bring something to share, so he showed the new BSU ornament Grandma gave him and Cody. Then they had a really long circle time, singing a bunch of songs waiting for Santa to arrive. Once he did, everyone was given a chance to sit on his lap and talk for a minute, then after a candy cane the waited for snack. They sat down for snack while the moms mingled some more and we were off on our two week break!

The cookies he decorated...

Sitting and listening...

Her come Santa Claus!

Chatting with the big man...

Mmmm snack.

Here's a video of some of their singing...

Sshhh, it's a secret!

**Check out the crafty blog for a new post**


One of the cutest things happening at our house right now revolves around presents and secrets. Tyler has really latched onto this idea that Christmas presents need to remain a secret, but he insists on telling you this quite often. Remember the "no peeking" from the previous post, you're still reminded of this when you enter the house.
Secrets being apart of this really took off today with an afternoon spent at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They are working on a Christmas present for us with that the boys are doing, which they all love. Tyler is the first to tell you, "Sshhh! It's a secret!" The whole way home, this is what I heard, with Cody reminding him, "Quiet! You can't tell her! And you can't tell Dad either!"


In other fun stuff....


Tonight I made one last re-arrangement of the presents to accommodate a couple of stragglers. In doing so I put the boys' presents they made at school together, making my heart warm just a bit. Cody's is on the left, wrapped by him with a card made by him, "Merry Christmas, I Love You, Cody" Tyler's is on the right, he stamped the paper and helped wrap it, then made the card to go on top. Can't wait to open them and see what they made!

A friend posted some items she was clearing out of her house for Christmas and among them was a Smart Cycle. This thing is very cool, perfect for rainy days and getting energy out. Think mini spinning bike!

He loves it!

Here's a couple of videos:






Thanks again Charlene, they are loving this thing! (So am I)

Presents are wrapped...

Well most of them anyway, only missing a couple that are waiting to be finished.

So over the last week, I've spent a couple of evenings getting all the presents wrapped and put under the tree. Cody and Tyler were both asking when we would put some under there, so we had the "absolutely no touching!" talk and they started to appear. Anyone coming into our house is told by Tyler "NO Peaking at the presents!" So I'm pretty sure the message sunk in.

From the polka dots to the wall are headed over to my IL's for Christmas morning.

The rest is completely jam packed, a good portion are from the Idaho family, but a good portion are not. Someone got a little excited about the holidays!

Santa's pretty packages...

Love how they sparkle.

The to-do list for Christmas is getting shorter by the day, now we get to move onto the fun stuff. This weekend we'll be delivering some of the baked goodies to friends, a favorite time of the year. The boys are both out of school for the next two weeks starting Monday, wish me luck! Next week will be busy with getting ready for family to come over for Christmas breakfast, and the boys and I have to bake cookies for Santa on Christmas eve. I'm happy to report that all the gift sewing has been completed, some minor finishing construction and stuffing and we'll be on our way.

Tree Lighting and Breakfast with Santa

So far we have had a busy weekend! Friday night we went to the tree lighting at the Orangevale Community Center. Tyler's preschool class made ornaments for the tree and were able to hang them on. Because of the rain, Ms Suzanne was handing ornaments out 1st come, 1st serve, so Ty didn't put his ornament on the tree.

But in all things random, Cody did!

They had all kinds of free treats inside, arts and crafts, and music. Tyler's preschool stood in front and sang "Jingle Bells" with Ms. Suzanne.

The boys were also given a turn to pull things out of Santa's treasure box.

Because of the rain, we didn't stay for the tree lighting, but the boys seamed to have a good time anyway.

Saturday we went to Breakfast with Santa at Cody's school. Being the good PTA mom I am, I worked the door, checking in people that paid in advance and taking money from those that hadn't. Keith brought the boys down later.

Someones excited to see Santa!

Making sure that Santa has a scooter on his list...

Conversing about much of the same I'm sure.

Good times, Good times...

So a Birthday party this evening for Stu and another tomorrow afternoon for a friend of Ty's, busy, busy!

Christmas Traditions...

As we go into our 7th Christmas as a family, little traditions are starting to pop up. I forget about a lot of them until it's time and they happen, less stress that way! For the last few years some of the traditions have included the family trip to cut a tree, walking around the awesome light displays of Dove Wood Ct, opening the advent calendar each afternoon and going to the Holiday parade in old Fair Oaks.
Another that I finally caught us up on this year was a photo ornament for each boy. When Cody was a baby I found cute pre-decorated ornaments from the store. Then we started getting the wooden ones from the craft store that you can decorate. Cody has done his own the last 3 years and Tyler the last two. After looking through, I realized 2006 was skipped, so more ornaments were bought and decorated to fill in that year. So as of last night, our set is complete and current.


Off the top of my head, there's only a couple of traditions left to do this season; pass out goodies to our dear friend and teachers and make Santa his special cookies on Christmas eve. But as mentioned before, I'm sure I've left something out.

What are some of yours?

O Christmas Tree...

**New post on the crafty blog**


Friday we headed up to Apple Hill to cut our Christmas tree, this has become a family affair, with Grandparents and all the brothers and sisters that are around. Goal for this year was sturdy branches.

Heading up the hill...

Tyler decided he needed his own measuring stick and found one, he did a pretty good job hanging onto it, only whacked everyone once or twice.

We walked around for a bit, up and down the same lane a couple of times and then circled back to find a tree we missed the first go. Yep, that's the one, sturdy branches!

Here' Ty measuring with his stick.

Cutting it down...

Timber!

Everyone found their respective trees and we headed back down to the parking lot. It was a beautiful day!

Wrapping it up...

Off it goes...

Before we could head home, we had some investigative work to attend to. Tradition has always been to go to Rainbow Orchard for apple donuts before anything else, they were as yummy as ever, but their prices are raising. In hopes of finding something new, we stopped at Larsen's. They have a nice bake shop, but no donuts. We did however score apples, 40lb boxes for $12. Guess who needs to make applesauce this week?!?! After a second stop for cider, we headed back down to home.

Between all our Christmas tree hunting, decorating and birthday party celebrating, we made time to go to the Fair Oak Holiday parade. This is a favorite, small townish style parade, with the local HS marching band and dancers, 4-H, girl scouts, pageant queens in cool cars, dancing girls, and random odd clubs, ending with Santa (in a Cadillac!) .


By the end of the weekend, we had all our decorations up, inside and out, and the trees were all decorated.

Here's our mini tree in the playroom, complete with the holiday Thomas set.

Ta-Da! The main tree in the front room.

Busy, busy, busy is all we are right now. We have another jam packed week and hopefully I'll be able to finish more projects and gifts along the way.

A new wreath...

Love this time of year, even all the craziness! Somewhere in my internetting travels I came upon Eddie Ross's Craft blog, specifically finding a new and fairly easy wreath to make. It takes a bunch of ball ornaments (all sizes), a wire coat hanger, glue gun, and a bit of ribbon.

Here's how mine turned out...

This took about 1.5 hours to construct, but it wasn't hard, just took a little patience in getting things to lay where you wanted them to. I didn't glue the caps onto the ornaments like he suggested because I couldn't get them to come off, although when it was about finished and it was time to rearrange, a couple did come loose. I'll probably search out a different shade of ribbon for the top, it helps hide the hook of the coat hanger, but it's all but ready for the front door.

Christmas is slowly creeping into the house!

December, Ah Fuuudge...

Well, I'm almost ready to panic. Not quite there, but give me a day or so and I will be. We returned home from Idaho Sunday, a nice drive, little traffic and great weather. Now it's time to step it into high-gear, finish projects, get the house decorated (inside & out), finish the baking, then get everything all wrapped and ready.

YIKES!

The current state of my office: the futon covered in presents and projects.

My desk, with the advent calendar waiting for me to finish it up so we can get on with it!

I'm close, but not as close as I probably should be for it being December 1st. Although I'm happy to say that all the shopping is completed and I'm only waiting on a couple more items to show up in the mail. Yay me!

Okay, back to it.

Rafiki

So today we went to Rafiki to play and catch up a bit with old friends. We have heard great things about it and am glad we ventured out. It was great to catch up with Jessica and see what she's been up to and what some of our other friends had as well.

This place was cool. It had a big climbing structure with slides, a zip line and general climbing fun. So I watched a lot of this...

They also had a coloring area, a bin of "snow", dress-up, play kitchen, train table, baby area, and some other trucks and toys around. Along with the fun for the kids, they have lots of different couch areas set up for the parents, and a coffee/juice/snack bar. Defiantly on our list when we return.