Let’s start with Christmas Eve.  Cade will remember this as the year UPS let him down.  We waited all day for his Christmas Eve present to be delivered and it never came.  Finally at 8:30 we gave up.  😦  Here’s the official news announcement.

Thousands of holiday gifts won’t arrive by Christmas after an unpredictably large number of packages overwhelmed UPS, the world’s largest package delivery service.

“The volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity of our network, as demand was much greater than the forecast,” UPS spokeswoman Natalie Godwin said Tuesday. “As a a result a small percentage of shipments are delayed and will not be delivered today.”””

Cade’s Transformer bed sheets are now among the “small percentage” that will arrive the day after Christmas this year.  I will say I am very grateful for all the UPS workers who were out driving around the country as late as 8:00 last night delivering presents to all the girls and boys.  Cade was not so forgiving, but he handled his misfortune rather well and did get to open a present anyway.  Mom learned an important lesson.  Don’t buy anything online two days before Christmas.  Sometimes even Amazon can’t guarantee two day delivery. 

Next we’ll talk about the Holy Nativity that wasn’t so holy.  The kids were quite a bit more wild this year on Christmas Eve, if you can imagine that.  Consequently all was not calm or bright or silent last night.  Reagan and Liberty had a knock out brawl over who was going to be the angel, until he convinced her that she could be the angel “partner”.  And isn’t that just what Jesus would want on his birthday- children fighting over parts in his nativity?  After all the fuss and screaming, Liberty changed her mind and decided to be Mary anyway.  Except for the shepherd scene where she abandoned the manger and baby Jesus to sing in the angel choir.  She got back to the stable just as the shepherds were comin round the bend.  Levi spent the entire show being either a sheep that would not listen to the shepherd’s voice or a camel with a hairball in its mouth.  Cade decided he’d had enough shepherding this year and played the dual role of Joseph and a wise man.  Reagan would not perform as the angel until his hair was ‘done’ and then he spent much of the time flapping his big white sheet in everyone’s face and jumping from the highest point in the room.  All in all it was loud, rowdy and hardly spiritual at all.  Sigh.  I’m thinking we need to rethink it next year. Maybe we could do it in mime.

Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem.  The road to Bethlehem was all uphill for this donkey.

Christmas morning went mostly well.  No crying, no “he got a bigger one!” and the kids were silent until the very late hour of 6:30!!!  Benadryl works wonders!!!! 

This was the Christmas of the bikes.

 
If you know anything about our children you will not be surprised to know that the excitement over the bikes lasted for all of one minute and then they were sniffing the presents under the tree for the Legos.  Sigh.   Santa graciously let Mom and Dad buy the legos this year, so once that coveted gift was open, the boys took a two hour break to put them together!  I got a nice nap in!

What did Liberty do during those two hours you ask?

She patiently waited for her brothers while coloring the entire Hello Kitty notepad they got her. 

Car and Driver Magazine was a BIG hit.  I wish I could have gotten their excitement on video. 

The sparkly crayons and Strawberry Shortcake coloring book were also a big hit.

This was my big hit.

I’ve wanted a Christus forever! 

This was my favorite wrapped gift.  Courtesy of Amazon.  Maybe I won’t have them wrap my gifts anymore.  LOL.

Thanks, Aunt Alli for all the cool presents!  Reagan is creating his next Stop Motion Video as I write!

Reagan and Cade pooled their money to get me a pizza stone!! 
 
I’m very excited to use it and so proud of them for making their own money to buy it for me!

And lastly, the annual Christmas pictures in front of the fireplace.  For the first six, just look at Levi.  He’s a riot.  Not helpful at ALL, but a riot.

Finally a good one…

Boy, that was a lot of work!

We hope you all have as good a Christmas as we’ve had.  We love you all and wish we could be with you!  Merry Christmas!

You thought he was older, but no.  Captain America is really six years old-as of December 18th.

Levi had his first “friend” birthday party this year and I have decided two things as a result.  First, my mother was right. I should NEVER have had a baby the week before Christmas.  Planning and carrying out a birthday party that close to Christmas is ridiculous, not only because you are trying to buy gifts for this kid for two major events at the same time but because it seems crazy to give the kid a ton of toys only a week before he’s going to get a ton more!  We usually don’t give the kids a ton on their birthday, but the friends they invite sure do!  Second, we are celebrating Levi’s birthday from now on in June, on his half birthday.  Then all the loud rambunctious little boys that come to the party can play OUTSIDE and Levi gets his gift getting spread out.  Not to mention the lack of major holidays in June.  All that being said, we survived and he had the time of his little six year old life. 

The Games

Reagan planned the games for the party and did a great job.  They played Pin the Star on Captain America’s Shield, Break Wall with Captain America’s Shield, Block bullets with Captain A’s Shield and Bullet (beanbag/tin foil ball) Toss.  Here’s Break the Wall:

We got about 3 inches of snow last week and the kids have had lots of fun playing in it.

The older boys decided to give their December allowance money to help the people in the Philippines and so they have been trying to find ways to earn money around the house so they could afford to buy each other presents.  The day it snowed, Reagan decided to go around the neighborhood charging 2.00 to shovel a driveway.  He and Cade teamed up and as we saw with the lemonade stand, people in this neighborhood are overly generous and the boys made $45.00!!!  And that was only for four driveways!  

Santa’s elves shopping at Target for the Twelve Days of Christmas

Got this funny one of Libby the other day.  That is actually a baby towel on her head.  She calls it her princess crown cape.

Liberty changes her clothes about fifty times a day right now and her room is always a mess because of it.  She is also always wearing my high heels around the house.  Now I understand why they sell those silly dress up high heels for little girls.  I’m thinking Santa should bring her a pair for Christmas so that she doesn’t kill herself trying to go down the stairs in mine.  Speaking of which, I found mine hanging precariously over the edge of the stairs yesterday.

Here are some funnies Liberty has said lately. 

The other day I came in to get her up and she said, “Mom, I woke up because the sun was on.”

Last week the kids were playing downstairs and Libby walked upstairs yelling, “Gody bard!  Gody bard!”  It took me a minute to realize she was trying  to say Bodyguard. 

The boys finally got to meet Byam’s new dog last week when Katelyn and Taylor brought him over.  After watching the three boys and the puppy for an hour I was amused, but not surprised to discover that little boys and puppies are VERY similar. 

We’ve been enjoying our Christmas tradition of unwrapping a Christmas book every night.

Even Derek got to participate this year (after we twisted his arm a bit)!
He went home raving about the tradition and can’t WAIT to do it with his family!  😉

This post is for anyone who cares what our house looks like all decorated for Christmas.  Admittedly, that is not very many.  So I won’t do this to you every year, but it’s been fun to decorate this year in our new house!

This is our first year to have a “Pretty Tree” as my mom always calls them.  The kids have their own tree downstairs that they get to decorate however they want.

Close

Closer

Really Close Up

It’s the calendar’s fault this is late.  If there had been more days AFTER Thanksgiving, before the craziness of December actually started, I would have been able to get Thanksgiving blogged.  But the calendar worked against me this year, so now you are getting it very late.

Grandma and Grandpa Hymas traveled over the river and through the woods to our house for the big day.  Here’s Grandma reading one of our favorites…

The next day Libby helped get the food ready.

She was very proud of her work on the relish tray.

Helping Grandpa wash potatoes

Dinner with the In-Laws and the In-dians (who wouldn’t smile)

We didn’t quite make it to one pie per person as Grandpa would have liked, but we came close.  We let the kids have pie the next day for breakfast and they thought they’d woken up in the wrong house!

The next day we went to the Festival of Trees and the Boise City Tree Lighting.

The statue of Liberty

And that was Thanksgiving!  We had a great visit with Rock’s parents.  It was just over too quickly.  Thanks again for driving so long to come see us!