Our Christmas Wish!!

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I found my new favorite Christmas song for this year (thanks Laurie!!) It is truly the Christmas wish of each person at this house and I know Derek's too. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and pause the music there (the little square in the top left hand corner with little bars) then come back up here and click on play (the circle with the arrow) to hear the song.

I even got the boys to draw pictures to go with the song. So here are their drawings of their Daddy in his "dress blues."

Brian's Picture (it says "Daddy1" cause thats what he calls him when they exchange emails)






Andrew's picture (he got a little carried away with the blue marker, and actually was having more fun drawing on the counter than his picture-- silly kid!!):



Jodi's picture (she doesn't draw she uses a camera):


We love you Derek and wish you a very Merry Christmas in Afghanistan!! If you see Santa don't forget to jump in his sleigh!

Santa

We got to see Santa Claus at a Brigade Holiday Deployment Fair. The boys were very excited to finally get to sit on his lap. They really wanted to tell him that they wanted Star Wars toys for Christmas. We didn't have any crying or screaming this year from any of them. Here are some pics of them. There was a long line behind us and I didn't want to take too long so the pictures aren't that great. But at least they are something. You can't tell in the pictures but they really were happy and excited about the whole thing.

Andrew & Santa

Brian & Santa

Timothy & Santa

Gingerbread House

Brian made a gingerbread house at school. He was so proud of it. Here are some pictures of his masterpiece. I think he used enough frosting!

Tuckered Out!

We had a very busy day and poor Timothy didn't get a nap. Then we went to a friend's house for a birthday party and he ran around all over and had lots of fun jumping on the trampoline. He must have totally wore himself out because this is how I found him shortly after we got home:

He was so tired that I think he must have just crashed in motion. Notice the loaf of bread next to him that he was getting into. Silly kid!!

Timothy

The other night while I was getting the boys ready for bed I realized that T was being way too quiet which meant only one thing-- he must be getting into mischief. So he needed to be checked on for sure. I found him in the kitchen happily eating the last few crumbs of our Upsidedown Fudge Cake. (Which I might add is delicious and totally "Andrew Safe"). It had about 3 small helpings left in the dish before he got to it. He mananged to finish it all off. He was eating the last few bites when I found him. He quite enjoyed himself and thought he had gotten a great bed time snack. He's definitly no dummy-- the dish was on top of the microwave and covered with a glass lid. So he must have pushed over the bar stool and crawled up on the counter and gotten it down, opened it, gotten a spoon (which is in the drawer on the other side of the kitchen), and then made himself comfortable on the stool to eat. Notice in the pictures that he had to have the largest spoon he could find too. Silly kid!!
I added some other funny pictures of him too. Most kids keep a sippy cup around in case they need a drink. Well, no need for one here, he just goes in and helps himself to the dog dish when he gets thirsty. It so funny, he crouches down on all fours and dips his face in and sucks it up. If there is ever water on the floor he gets down and slurps it off the floor too. No need to mop up after the kids get out of the tub-- between him and the dog they take care of it. (Ok I don't really let him but he always tries and I have to stop him).
He found one of the boys hats and put it on. I found him sitting here playing with cars with his hat on looking all cool. He thought he was pretty hot stuff too. Enjoy the pics!

Christmas Tree

When Brian came home the other day he was said we needed to get ready for Christmas and he was adamant that we had to have a Christmas tree. We haven't put ours up yet and I wasn't planning on putting it up. Before Derek left we were straightening up the garage and I had him put the tree and the box with the decorations up on the top shelf behind everything--oops! So I can't even get it down. I figured we would be okay because soon enough would be enjoying Grandma's tree anyway. But that wasn't good enough for Brian. He wanted one and he wanted one now. When I told him I couldn't get ours down he told me to get the ladder-- he's no dummy. But even that wasn't enough, I not only needed height I needed more muscles too. I had gotten a flier in the mail that day for a place that had little 18 inch trees on sale. So I tried to talk him into one of those. At first he wasn't going to have anything to do with that. He wanted our big one. Finally I showed him how high it would come up on his body if he stood next to it and he realized that it wasn't a "miniature tree" but a "medium sized tree." He thought maybe a medium sized one would be okay. So he reluctantly went out to the car so we could go get one. When we got to the store and I showed them to him he fell in love with one. He carried it all through the store and held it on his lap all the way home. He now refers to it as "his tree." I let the kids pick out some ornaments and lights and stuff for it. They had fun doing that. Then when we got home we decorated it and they loved that. They are so excited to finally have a tree up. But apparently it still doesn't take the place of our other one. In an email that Derek exchanged with Andrew, Derek asked him what special thing he wanted to do with him when he got home. Andrew's first response was that he wanted "to decorate our big Christmas tree with you and then we can give our little one back to that girl." I'm assuming that maybe "that girl" is the cashier, but I'm not sure. But none the less the kids do enjoy it. Brian wants to plug it in first thing each morning and they enjoy driving their cars and trucks all around it. And yes-- thanks to Timothy it has been redecorated several times already.