The Nutshell of Christmas

By tradition we go to my mom's house for Christmas Eve. It's always a good time. The night's festivities included:

*A talent show: The 3 girls danced a routine thety had made up. Tate sang the 12 days of Christmas (he has it all memorized). He also sang Silent night while Dan accompanied him on the piano. Many years ago at my grandma's traditional Christmas Eve gathering, when I was say, 11, Jonathan, Sharli and I performed a Alvin and the Chipmunks number, with chipmunk ears and bowties included. Mom had the crazy idea this year to do an encore performance, and somehow she got us all to agree.

*A nativity pageant: Dan was Joseph, with Kyndi as Mary. Morrissa was an Angel. Tate was the Star, Sharli and Tyson were Wisemen and Jonathan and Jen were Shepherds. My Dad narrated as usual.

*Santa comes for a visit: He First had Tate put on rudolph nose, make antelers with his hands, and sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (Morrissa will be quick to tell you she did this last year). Then calls each person there up one by one to sit on his lap and then he gives each one a gift. This is Kamron's all time favorite part (I hear it's Dan's too!) Kyndi Oaks and Dayton were all a wee bit nervous...Dayton freaked otu on his lap - but somehow Sharli caught a smile. Oaklee got a microphone and crown from santa and Dayton got a teddy bear.

Then everybody opens presents from eachother. My mom made pillowcases with matching pajama bottoms for each of the kids. Each child's was a different fabric. So cute!! And the best part of that ewas that she made me a pillowcase too that has the fabric of each of my kids' all sewn together. I made Anna a bow for her hair and a tiny tutu. I've been excited to give it to her forever!! It was so cute on her.

This year had one teensy tiny difference: we all slept over there too!! ("we all" meaning Me, Kamron and our kids, Jonathan, his wife Jen and their baby Anna) (Sharli and Dan spent the night at the reception center apartment and of course Samantha and James are on their missions) Spending the night meant santa came to grandma's house...It also meant packing all the sleeping bags and all the presents under our tree. It was a lot of work, but we had fun!!

Somehow I never quite made it to my camera that morning. I'm lacking pictures in a major way. But I did get a picture of the fabric left from santa ripping his pants on the fireplace. Santa also dropped some of the logs and stones out of the fireplace too. Kyndi said he was in a hurry to get out of there because she kept on waking up. Dayton was quick to clean santa's mess when he found it. Dayton doesn't like things out of place.

Oaklee's favorite part by far was playing with baby Anna. She couldn't get enough of her.

Here are some other random pictures from the festivities...

Gingerbread Demolition

We set out to construct gingerbread houses on Christmas Eve morning to help pass some of the time... They apparently did not want to be constructed. Each kid had their own little kit to construct and try as they may, the frosting would just not hold anything in place. We'd get the walls all stood up and add the roof, thinking that maybe it would hold... and for some it did, for a moment or two, and then inevitably the roof would slowly slide down or one of the walls would fall in. It was madness!! We decorated with all our might whilst holding the roof together. Here are their master pieces, and sadly their ultimate rubble.


Here Tate is holding his together, and Kyndi is shrieking because hers is sliding too.

Tyson is holding his together here.



This is Tate's in progress...he spent more time on his house and less time under the table than he did last year - so that's good.

This is Tate's a few moments later, all the gumdrops fell inside...
This is Kyndi's the picture isn't so lovely, but if you look at the left side of the roof you'll see a crack down the center of it... zapparently I was putting a little too much pressure on holding the roof together... Oops!

Morrissa's looks great here, right when she got done, the right wall fell in and the roof soon gave way.

Here's Oaklee's (with daddy's help)

The roof is slowly sliding here...

Tysin seemed most frustrated by the whole experience. He spent the majority of his time holding the house together and then rushing to decorate while it stayed in place...

Here's his final masterpiece..

Who Brought These Toys Home??

Kyndi has laundry-type bins in her closet that we use to organize all her toys. I walked in the other day to find all of those toys dumped all over her room, and new toys inside the bins:

Gamer

Little Dude very oftenly comes into my room anytime the television is on and promptly grabs the ps2 controller so that he can "play" whatever show is on tv. It's pretty hilarious! He mostly prefers cartoons, and ocasionally adds in his own sound effects. Pretty funny kid.

The Long and Short of It

Kyndi was blessed with lovely hair. Hair that is frizzy and thin and hardly grows. You can't do a dang thing with it, it always just looks messy no matter what you do. Poor girl. We decided a couple days ago to get it cut. I forgot to take before and after pictures - but here are some we can improvise with...

BEFORE

AFTER

Here's the back view... But try as I may I cannot get it to turn the correct direction, so kindly tilt your head...

I love it!! Even when her hair is totally straight it's stinkin cute. It stays in place better now and is easier to manage. Kamron calls her Dora - she just rolls her eyes at him and says "Kamwon, I'm not Doe-wuh" or "I'm Kyndi"

Whoops! Those Aren't Your Pants!

I told Oaklee and Kyndi to get dressed the other day. These are the outfits they came up with:

I had mine and Kamron's clean laundry on our bedroom floor awaiting folding (who knows when that'll ever happen) and apprently they thought it would be HILARIOUS to wear our pants!! Oaklee kept giggling every time she'd trip over the pant legs and fall.

Hello?

Growing up we were taught how to politely answer the phone.
When the phone rang I would pick it up and politely say "Hello, this is Stefanie" Followed by other polite phrases such as "Hold on a minute please" or "No she can't come to the phone right now, may I take a message?"
Imagine my surprise today when Kyndi ever so politely answered the phone - "Who's this?!!"

Wow, someone really oughta teach her some phone etiquette.

Who Needs Keys When You Have a Knife??

Can you guess how we spent an hour of our day recently??

I ran a quick errand and when I got home, my bedroom door was locked, with no one inside. We don't have a key to the lock and I desparately needed to get inside to get to my homework that was due that evening... Tyson offered his assistance in trying to stick a knife in between the door and frame to rig it open. In fact we all took a turn trying. Even Oaklee (on her own door, with a fake credit card).

In the end, Kamron came home and hammered the knife in between the door and the frame and it popped open.

Nothing like a locked door to bring the family together!!

3 Stages

Dayton wanted a cookie. I told him no. Here is a demonstration of the three stages of his fits.

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

What a tragedy it can be when you can't have a cookie!!

Chrithmuth

This is the state of Tate's mouth, right in time for Christmas:

He lost the first one a few weeks ago or maybe more like 5 weeks... and the other front tooth was pretty loose when that one fell out. It stayed loose forever!! - Then about a week ago, I checked it and it was major loose!! He was just too chicken to pull it out or something. I said, "Here Tate, let me wiggle it" "NO!" "Just let me wiggle it, I promise I won't pull it" "Okay" Oops, I pulled it. I couldn't resist. He was so mad at me for breaking my promise!! He even threatened to not give me my Christmas present. (Sad that I hurt his feelings so bad - but kinda funny too)

Then I started singing "All I want for Chritmas..." and he shouts "I want nothing to do with that song!!" What a dramatic child. No worries though. He survived it and within 10 minutes he had forgiven me and was smiling for the camera.

For Future Reference...

Apparently this is what happens when the peanut butter jar is left too close to the edge of the counter...

I wish these pictures captured the full spectrum.. He also had it covering his pants, his coat, his one sock was fully peanut butter delight and his hands were quite fabulous too!! Sadly I couldn't get him to hold still long enough to take the pictures. (The floor and wall are quite artful as well)

Word updates

Mom/Mommy (Mostly when he's upset, he'll come find me and say mommy until I respond - When I get home from school or work and he hears me come in the front door he yells "Mom!"

Baw - Ball (He thinks everything that remotely resembles the shape of a ball, is a ball(such as an apple, or the beads on my bracelet, or the christmas ornaments...))

Buhbuh - Bye bye. There's been a few times lately he'll get his coat and bang on the front door saying buhbuh

Ew - he says this mostly when I'm changing his diaper

Hee-oh - Still no idea on this one.

He also gives "Bones" and will say "Boe" (This is the fist you give after a high five) (He's been good at high fives for a really long time now)

He blows kisses/mooches to each kid at bedtime. He first waves bye to them and then blows a mooch by saying uuubuu and then smacking his face. Hilarious!!


In other news:
Oaklee started doing somersaults all by herself yesterday. She does them really well. She doesn't go crooked or anything.

Go Sugars!!

Have I told you all before? Kamron is a U fan. I most certainly am not. I've been a BYU fan my whole life. A few days before the big BYU vs Utah game, I took the kids all dressed up in BYU jerseys and got their pictures taken. They were so thrilled to harass their dad with the photos! Kamron says the picture is child abuse but secretly he loves it. Who wouldn't? Those kids of ours are stinkin cute!!

Oaklee watched parts of the game with us and kept sporadically yelling out "Go Sugars!!" (and according to my mother, that's what I'd say when I was little) - A few days later Kamron was watching an NFL game - Oaklee came in and said, Go Sugars!!

(Sidenote: When Tate was little he thought any "reds" (red Football jerseys) were BYU - and just for fun, anytime someone would say, "Tate, BYU is losing" He would get so mad and practically scream "No they're not!!")

Comfortable??

Anyone see anything wrong with this picture?? The girls were off playing while I was doing homework.. I went to check on them...

(please note - she's also diaper/underwear-less)

As long as she's comfortable, right?

Picaso?

Roughly 4 weeks ago-ish, Kamron was on a weekly work-stint in Rock Springs Wyoming... Whilst he was gone, I re-painted our bedroom. Previously it was 3 white walls and one green one. Not so much our favorite... so I changed the green to a soft dusty blue. I put up chocolate drapes, (Our bedspread is also chocolate) and I made brown vinyl lettering for the wall that says "Forever & For Always No Matter What" I love it. It makes the room feel peaceful. Like a much more relaxing environment - (which is what every mother needs in her bedroom)
I was worried over Kamron's thoughts upon returning. He loved it!! He says, "It akes it feel more calm and relaxing in here" Woohoo!! One point for me!!

Kyndi and Oaklee helped me paint while the other kids were at school. They both wore one of Kamron's shirts and they had a blast!! Check out their artwork!!

Hey Santa!

Tate's school class wrote letters to santa. Tate brought his home so I could mail it. Here is word for word what his letter says. (including spelling)

Santa Santa you are the best. You are the best person Ive ever known besides Jesus. I only want 4 things those are Pokemon Exporers of sky for DS Bukugan for playstation2 Pokemon Explorers of Darkness for DS and a airsoft gun. I hope you have a wonderful trip. From:Tate To: Santa Claus

Love it!!

Apparently She Wants Everyone To Know..

Oaklee was just yelling "Twinkle Twinkle Leetoe Staw - Like a Dymon in dee Sky!!" at the top of her lungs. No idea why.

Magic Potion Please

Apprently Kyndi is having a rough-ish day... Oaklee just came and tattled to me (in her tattle-tale voice) "Dindee Gra-chy" (Grouchy) I checked, she is so right!! Sadly Kyndi is going through a phase (I hope it's a phase) of spoiledness. If she doesn't get her own way she sits and pouts forever!! Anyone have a magic potion to fix this??

Christmas Loveliness

The kids decorated the Christmas tree last night. They had a large amount of fun with it... Tona is obsessed with anything remotely shaped like a ball so the children had to hang the tree ornaments strategically... (Strategically meaning all the non-dollar-store variety has to be higher than Dayton's arm length)... I think it turned out great!

Oaks LOVES the "santa-tree" But she's even more excited over the stockings... She was telling me last night that "Candy in them, Thanta" (Santa puts candy in them) Don't know how she knows this - but it got me thinking - in the brain and thoughts of a 2 year old who cannot really understand the whole santa idea, what is she really thinking of all of this?? Is she going to awake every morning thinking perhaps today is the day that candy will be inside her stocking? And then be continually disappointed for 3+ weeks? Or what thoughts are really going through her head? Does she think Santa is just gonna ring the doorbell sometime and hand her candy to put inside? Don't know, but I think it'd be hilariously insightful to know what her brain thinks of all this Christmas jazz.

It's rough getting the stockings arranged so that you can see all eight of them - but there they are!

Most of the presents... Each kids has their own wrapping paper so that their darling mother can keep track of whose is whose... And there actually is one gift in the mix that is Sharli's be-lated (by a long shot) birthday present. Any guesses which one Shar?

Happiness is...

Watching Oaklee sing and dance to "Hot dog, hot dog hot diggity dog" (From Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) - anytime this song comes on she jumps up and sings and dances along - mostly trying to do the moves they are doing. Too stinkin cute!! I so wish I had a video camera!!

Tona the Elephant

So Dayton has crazy lung issues - when he gets sick and his windpipe gets inflamed it gets really hard for his lungs to keep up so every morning and night he gets a nebulizer treatment. (have I discussed this on here before?) He used to have this little turtle mask - but it was kinda too small for his face so I recently got a new one - it's an elephant - and he loves it (most of the time). He's such a good boy - I would HATE having some mask plastered to my face for twenty minutes at a time!! He just sits there and takes it. At night when he has it, he usually falls asleep in dad's arms. So cute. Here are a few pictures...