Christmas Morning

We had a great Christmas morning. I made the kids take turns opening presents and we were in no rush. It was great. Usually it seems like the gift giving festivities are over way too fast, but somehow this year we dragged it out 2 hours. It might have helped that the kids had to take a break during the middle while Emmie ate. It was a great Christmas. My favorite Christmas quote goes to Ains who said, "Wii's cost a lot of money and Santa brought us one for free!!!"

I love watching the kids play the wii. Ains gets so into it. She dives on the floor for balls as if she was actually playing. She has hit herself in the head with the controller, hit the TV, and broke an ornament off the tree. Owen on the other hand is completely laid back, puts forth no effort, and is still somehow the family champion in bowling.
Emmie got a bit jipped this year. She got a used bumbo and some awesome blocks that her aunt Shelly made. That was pretty much it. The rest of her budget went to the wii. She'll be grateful for that someday.

Santa also brought the kids scooters. I'm pretty sure that Santa's motto this year was to only give toys that didn't take up space in the kids rooms. We have way to many toys!

The kids also got some great gifts from their grandparents. They were completely spoiled. But hey, it's okay if it's just once a year...right?

Christmas Eve

We did a big Christmas Eve dinner and "program" at our house this year. My parents and Michael and Sydney joined us for the festivities. We had an Italian feast for dinner. We had WAAAAYYY too much food. Lasagna, stuffed shells, shrimp, meatballs, bruschetta, chicken parmesan, lots of bread and salad. It was soooo good! Owen sat like that at the table from the moment it was set. He was so tired. I've never seen him sit that still for that long.

Notice my cute place tags... (I know, I'm amazing!)

Ainsley was in charge of the program this year. She kind of recreated the Nativity she was in for our ward's Christmas party. She used all her stuffed animals to represent the different people. Carebear was lucky enough to be cast as baby Jesus, and Fozzy won the part of Joseph.

Ains and Owen also dressed up and we were all assigned parts to read. Here are everyone's parts. Ains made them up herself. :)

I am the donkey
I love to run
But tonight it’s time for me
To go to the Stable

I am the Ox
Still and small
Someday I’ll grow
Today I see my savior
With my care

We are the angel’s
Who announced
the birth
Of the baby boy

I am Joseph
I care for my son
My newborn son great and holy
We are the Shepards
Gifts we bring to our newborn king
Holy and giving


I am the baby
Asleep in the hay
I am the reason for Christmas day

I am Mary the mother mild
How I love
my tiny child

I am the star
Bright and shiny
So people know
That this baby Jesus is born

Afterward for a game we played "hot and cold" with one of the kids balls. Not quite sure how that tied in, but it was fun.

After the program the kids opened their Christmas Eve pajamas. Poor Emmie missed all of the Christmas Eve festivities due to the long nap she took. Maybe she'll make it into the pj photo next year.

Gingerbread Houses '09

Our gingerbread houses are pretty fancy. They come in a kit from Costco. I do a lot of the piping...

And then the kids put on candy to their hearts content.

This year Owen ate A LOT of candy and A LOT of frosting. I almost gagged watching him eat the pre-made nasty frosting glob by huge glob. Then Owen added a bit of frosting to the house. And by a bit I mean more huge globs.

Unfortunately, our construction methods are not up to gingerbread code, and our house looked like this within the hour!

Sisters

Emmie really does love Ains. And Ainsley is old enough that she has been a huge help! She can hold her forever and keep her happy and can even get her to sleep. We only had one scary moment when Emmie had dropped her binky and so Ains set her down to look for it, but she laid her on some pillows on the couch where she dangled about o fall on the floor. So, now that she knows not to do that, we can let her babysit for us. And by babysit I mean watch her while we are in another room.

9 years

9 years ago today John and I were sealed in the Boise temple. We chose a hectic time of year to get married, it's even my mom's birthday! It seems our anniversary is usually overshadowed by the general chaos of the season. One year I was pregnant with Ains and for our anniversary we went to Red Robin and then stopped by our birthing class. This year is proving to be no different...most likely due to the newborn residing in our home. Luckily we always at least manage to make it out on some sort of a date!

BUT, even though our anniversary is usually brushed aside (more due to my laziness and craziness than John, he would prefer to do everything big!) I had to make mention of it. John is the one who keeps me sane, especially now as I am officially insane and a bit of an exhausted wreck. He keeps our home fun, is an amazing father, and I am truly grateful for him!

Also, I learned while looking for pictures of John and I together that we need to pose for more pictures! How awful is it that I couldn't find a picture of the two of us that wasn't a wedding picture!??? Hence the temple picture...but it is pretty isn't it?

Sledding....

Does it look like they had fun?

Ward Party

Our ward Christmas party was this past weekend and Ainsley had the honor of playing Mary in the little nativity the primary kids did. My mom worked hard and frantically sewed her a simple little costume the night before. It took her about an hour from start to finish, it would have taken me 2 days. I owe her big time. Ains looked great and did an amazing job.

Her lines were, "I am Mary the mother mild, how I love my tiny child. I am the baby asleep in the hay, I am the reason for Christmas day."

Ainsley depicted a beaten and worn down Mary. If you look closely at her eye you will see the injury she obtained hours before the party, thanks to her little brother.

Of course the kids got to see Santa! It was so funny to watch Owen's reaction. He was so excited and so nervous. When we got inside the room Santa was in Owen nervously walked past all the kids in line and quietly stood next to Santa. I had to go get him to wait his turn in line. He rehersed to me his Christmas list moments before it was his turn on the Big Guy's lap...and when Santa asked what he wanted I could see his mind racing. He was quite for a long time and looked around (I could tell his mind had gone blank). After a minute he finally said a puppy. It was really sweet.
Ainsley on the other hand was completely enthusiastic. It is so interesting to watch my kids in similar circumstances and see how truly different they are. Ainsly without hesitation told Santa what she wanted and explained where her injury came from when he asked. You can just see how different they are by the looks on their faces.

After Santa there was a band and dancing. The kids had a blast!

I think my favorite moment of the night was when I told Owen to ask his little friend Brighton to dance. He walked up and asked her and they held hands until the music started and then they danced together the entire song. It was adorable. I think we have 20 pictures of that alone!
Toward then end they both showed off their best moves. Owen's crabwalk and Brighton spun on the floor in her silky dress. A great looking couple if you ask me!

On a more positive note

Today the I took the kids to the post office and while we were in line the kids were fascinated with the drop box for the letters. They knew the letters went in there but they couldn't figure out where the letters went from there.

After giving it some thought Ains turned to me and said, "So do the letters get there by magic or does the mailman take them?" I couldn't help but giggle and the older man behind me got a pretty good laugh. He was chuckling for quite a while.

We must have magic on the mind.

What Now???

This post might come back to haunt me later, but it's how I feel today so I'm going to go ahead and write it. If nothing else, so later in life I can use it as black mail. I know it sounds mean and like I have nothing nice to say...but I really need to vent right now.

Today I am done being a mother to my 3 year old. Maybe it's a good thing I only have one boy, because apparently I don't know how to handle them. Owen has been giving us a particularly hard time lately. I keep reassuring myself that it's just the age, but I"m not so sure. He seems to be a polite little person around other people, I've been told positive things on more than one occasion. But at home it's a completely different story.

I have felt bad for him being at home while I've pretty much been MIA (I guess pregnancy and a newborn will do that to ya). I tried to schedule things for him. John has tried to take him to do special things. We've done play dates, I've tried to have activities for him here at home. He's been invited to many friends houses to keep him entertained. And yet, I still feel like I'm raising a little terror. Owen is the most independent person I know. It might prove to be a positive thing later in life, or not. I'm not sure yet. No means nothing to him and I think he's obeyed his parents the first time he's been asked to do something only a handful of times in his life.

His defiance is getting worse. And he has reached the point where no punishment seems to work. We used to be able to send him to his room. Now when we do that he pounds on the door with bats, balls, cars, or anything else hard until we fear the door breaking in. He has issues following directions (from his parents). It seems lately that he has to be yelled at (in a very mean tone) before he will take us seriously. I've tried being positive and calm with him...it has yet to help. He is getting more and more aggressive. He is down right mean and hurtful to Ainsley at times. He will pull hair, scratch, etc. for what seems like no reason at all.

The other day he wrote all over my table with a pen (that's never coming off). On Saturday while cleaning I noticed that he had colored his wall and the back of his door with crayons. And today, after I asked him to put on his shoes and socks, he instead went and opened the dryer and sat on the door. Now I have to pay a repair man to come and fix it so that we can finish the laundry. I'm hoping it's only $100, maybe that's wishful thinking.

There are moments when Owen can be so sweet and funny and enjoyable. But those moments are getting farther and farther apart. I miss the kind side of him. Today he's brought me to tears because I just don't know what to do anymore. It seems he acts the same whether I put forth effort for him or not, so I'm starting to wonder why I'm bothering.

Today I went out of my way and let him invite over a friend. This meant having to get up extra early for me so that I could at least be dressed by the time I had to watch kids. I let him play out in the snow. We had hot chocolate and watched a Christmas movie. All to keep Owen entertained and busy and feeling special, and not less important than his sisters. How does he repay me. By beating up Ainsley and breaking my dryer as we try to get shoes and coats on and out the door.

So that's it, I'm at a loss. Is my Owen always going to be such a challenge. Is he always going to be the difficult middle child/only boy? I really just feel helpless. And I'm not sure what else to do.

Merry Christmas

John got a Christmas shot of the kids yesterday. We were rushed and were lucky enough to get this on in a few minutes. I think he did an amazing job!

And since I am lazy and we only send out Christmas cards to Grandparents and Great Grandparents...the rest of you can look at the picture here. Maybe next year I'll get more sent out. I wouldn't count on it, but sometimes I surprise even myself!

Here are the cards that the kids helped me make this year. I think we did a pretty good job!

And while I'm at my posting today, I'll include the kids Santa letters. This year we've been doing a Christmas activity along with our regular advent calendar. We've had hot chocolate, gone to the store to pick out a holiday treat, made paper chains, made Christmas cards, written letters to Santa.

And we will be reading Christmas stories, going to parties, watching Christmas movies, making Santa Cookies, buying a gift for a family in need, wrapping presents, cutting out snowflakes, coloring Christmas pictures, cleaning the house for Santa (how sneaky of me to put that one in there, is it mean of me to make my kids help me clean the house on Christmas eve??? Maybe we'll do that the day before Christmas eve if I'm still feeling guilty in a few weeks). Anyways, the list goes on, but it's been fun. A lot of our activities are simple and revolve around things that already need done, but this just makes it more exciting for the kids somehow.

So, here are the scanned copies of their letters to Santa. Owen chose to mail his in the mailbox, and Ainsley chose to burn hers in the fire place. Why would she want to do that you ask? Because she has been told the same story I was told as a child. Apparently there are elves up on the roof top that collect the ashes of the letter to Santa that you burn, piece the letter back together, and then hand deliver your Christmas list to Santa. Kind of weird I guess. But that's what I grew up doing and Ains thinks it's cool. So the next time we are at grandma and grandpa's we'll burn it, seeing as how we don't have a fireplace.

In case you can't read Ainsley's hers says...
Dear Santa Clause,
I want a Belle Barbie Princess
I want a hair set.
That is it.
I really like you.
Love Ainsley
I want a radio.

The Dress

We just ordered this dress today for Emmie's blessing. I think it's gorgeous! She'll look beautiful in it! Thanks Mom!
Although I'm not a fan of the hats...now I just need to find something to put on her hair. I'm thinking a little white bow or a white flower to go on her white head band. Thoughts?