Christmas Eve 2010

Okay, so I am finally gonna get caught up from the past couple of months. I'll start with Christmas Eve. We have adopted the hub's family tradition for our crazy bunch-we always stay home on Christmas Eve, just the eight of us. We use this night to come together and celebrate with just our little family. We spend most of Christmas day running all over the place, so Christmas Eve is our time to have with our kiddos. We have a fancy-well, semi-fancy, dinner. We then read the story of Christ's birth, the kids tell us on video tape what they would like this year from Santa, they do a little performance(they all LOVE this part), then they get to open one present(mom and dad choosing this one), we get ready for bed, set out our cookies, milk, and carrots, read Twas the Night Before Christmas, and then it's off to bed. We have come to enjoy this time more than any other time during the holidays. The kids even say they almost like this night better than opening presents, but then they say they still like their presents more.This year I attempted to make ice candles. We ate by candlelight with the kiddos. They got a big kick out of this. Next year, I think I'll get some kind of bowl to hold the candles instead of my pie plates.
This was our nice table set up. The kids love using the fancy napkins.

Here are the kiddos telling dad what they would like this year.

Laney did a song and dance performance. Man, look at those dancer legs and pointed toes. She's a natural. She's so excited to take dance this fall. Right now she just doesn't have the time, because she keeps wanting to do play after play.

Alexis made a comic book for the night's performance. This girl can really draw and write. She's amazing, and keeps amazing me day after day. We didn't even know that this was what she had planned for the evening.

Logan and Noah sang a couple of songs together. Kaleigh also did a dance and song, but I missed snapping a picture, but I got it on video.

As tradition goes, the kiddos' present is always jammies. Alexis was thrilled with her penguins. She just LOVES penguins!

Kaleigh rockin' the monkeys.

Laney pretending to be a penguin in her favorite candy jammies that are PINK too!

Logan got some cool polar bear ones, but unfortunately they have only lasted him one month, due to a growth spurt. They are floods now.

Noah was thrilled with his Mickey ones.

Little Miss Bella in her cutie Minnie jammies. She looks so old in them. My baby, oh where did she go?

After all was said and done for the evening, the kiddos were more riled up then before, but what kid wouldn't be waiting for Santa. I certainly was excited for Santa. We had another fun Christmas Eve with our crazy bunch and can't wait until next year.

Alexis's Christmas Program

This year the 6th grade put on a program for Christmas. They did a cultural spin on it to fit the district's "no Christmas celebrations" guidelines. She picked an ancestor to feature and made a wooden doll for the "Festival of Trees" project. She picked my great-great grandma Pauline who was Polish. She did FABULOUS! The classes also sang a bunch of songs and then served us cookies and juice. They also talked about their own tree projects. They all had to pick a word and do special things for someone that went along with that word. She picked the word "useful" and picked me do serve for 2 weeks. It was suppose to be secret, but I kinda knew already. She makes me very proud and she has grown into a wonderful, caring, helpful, smart girl. I can't believe sometimes that she is my kid, she is SO good. Just look at how grown up she looks.
Here she is telling us all about her ancestor. My pics didn't turn out well because I was wrestling Noah and Bella.

Here she is during her program. I love going to school programs and this one was definitely one not to be missed. So glad I went and saw her in her last program of her elementary career.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Here she is lovin' on the Christmas trees. She is just so cute! I love this age at Christmas time. She gets all into the lights, the trees, the sounds, the smells! Ooh, I just love my kiddos.We have a tradition of trimming the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. And on Thanksgiving, we give the kids a small present-a new ornament for their tree. I like to take a picture of the kids holding their ornament and one of them placing it on the tree. We start the trimming with the new ornament first.
Here's Bella with her fluffy penguin. We got this one for her because she just LOVES cuddly things.

She wasn't very happy putting it on the tree. In fact she cried until we let her have it back. At least until she saw the other kids putting their ornaments on the tree. Then she was okay with it on the tree. She loves coming in to see the tree with all the ornaments on it all lit up. She squeals in delight EVERY time!

Noah, very happy that he got a train ornament this year. This cutie and his trains. Oh my!

We needed to help him put it up high-out of reach of Bella. You can always tell when we have a walking baby in the house, the ornaments start about 3 feet off the bottom of the tree.

Logan got a backpack this year and it's green-his "FAVORITEST" color of all time. He is SO excited to go to school next year and this is to remind us of that. We have been having "mommy school" and he loves it. I'm in trouble though, 'cause I have another smarty in my midst. I still need to put his picture in his ornament-we're having a hard time picking one(Logan mainly).

Laney got a barbie ornament and simply loves it! Her and Barbies are BEST FRIENDS!

Kaleigh got a performing Hannah Montana ornament. It fits her so well, after all she loves the dramatics and performing!

Alexis has an artist ornament. Fitting that it is about drawing and this year she won in Visual Arts. I think I'm pretty good with the ornaments, I picked them out last year after Christmas for this year's ornaments. Not bad, if I say so myself. Yep, there I go again, tootin' my own horn. Don't hate me 'cause I'm awesome and all! :)

Once everyone put their ornaments on the tree, we stood back, and the hubs and I realized...

we just might have to get a bigger tree soon. The thing is packed and we still have a few more years before any children will be leaving/moving out. I guess that's what happens when you have ornaments for 7 kids-yes, we do still get one for Christian every year. The hubs and I will be keeping his always and forever. I am proud and love having that many ornaments on our family tree, even if we do have to get a bigger tree soon.

More pictures of the elves

We finally got all the kids in a picture by the elves. They just love their posing, can you tell?

Our cute little boys enjoying being outdoors and looking at all the elves.

Our visit to the Elves

We decided to visit the elves at Gardner Village with the kids. We try and do it every year, this year we were later than usual because of bad weather. The kids absolutely love trying to find the kids in the elves hunt. They were pretending to dance to the elves' music.

Merry Christmas to All!

I decided to get an updated picture of all the kids this year. I will, however, never do it alone again. I took all the kids to kiddie kandids thinking it would be quick and painless. I knew the boys would be hard to get a smile from, but the girls would be a piece of cake. Whoa was I ever wrong at that. After about an hour and a half, and about 80 shots we finally walked out with about four pictures. My lovely boys had smiled in all of their photos, but my girls were just not having it. It was like pulling teeth from them to get them to smile. However, with the Christmas card and their lovely Disney ears they took the cutest pictures. So here you all go, from our family to yours, we hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Crazy visit to Santa

We decided to go and visit Santa last night at Southtowne Center. The kids were excited and so was I. I love seeing the kids faces light up when they see Santa. I also have Santa pics through the last 8 years with the kids. Little did I know that we wouldn't be getting one this year. After waiting for an hour to see Santa, we got to the front only to find out from one of Santa's helpers we were NOT allowed to take our own picture with our camera unless we purchased something. I couldn't believe it. We have never had to do that before. Well the cheapest thing was $15 dollars, so we weren't having it. So we just took a picture of the kids by one of Santa's trees instead. All in all, the kids still enjoyed seeing Santa and I learned that even Santa has been merchandised. How sad, but the kids were Happy.