Christmas

We opened presents on Christmas morning. 

 

Brian and I got a card from Jon.



Sweet!

 

Matthew opened the first present. 

He had been playing with this wrapped ball for a few weeks already.  Kicking and throwing it around the house.  He probably was wondering why it had red paper on it.  

 

 

Peter got some Incredible Hulk underwear. 

 

Andrew opened some Super Heroes Legos.

 

Jon also got some Legos. 

 

Faith got a certificate for a day of shopping.

 

 

Alyssa got one too.

 

 

James got a new XBox game.

 

Matthew also got a Woody doll from Toy Story. 

 

Brian and I had taken Peter and Matthew shopping a few weeks ago.  Woody caught Matthew's eye and he sat in the cart hugging him while we finished our shopping.  We bought him and wrapped him up for Christmas.  It's easy to shop for a 1 year old. 

 

This doll has already freaked me out at least twice.  I saw Jon out of the corner of my eye - it looked like he was tossing Matthew up into the air and catching him - but it was Woody. 

 

I was up with Matthew in the middle of the night that night and I thought I saw Peter sitting on the couch in the complete dark but it was Woody on the couch.  Freaked me out again! 

Christmas afternoon was spent on construction.

 

 

Birds eye view of the work that remains.

 

Jon's on the left and Peter's on the right.

 

Peter and Finn McMissile.

 

Finally done! 

 

So the kids played and we ate lasagna something for lunch . . . I'm not going to talk about it.

 

I talked to G&G Berg on the phone and then Auntie Jessie called me to say Merry Christmas. 

 

We talked for awhile and she mentioned something about ice cream.  It reminded me that we had a present sitting in the freezer for Andrew that we had completely forgotten about. 

 

 

His very own Ben and Jerry's ice cream. 

 

It was on his list.

 

And I said to Jess, "it's a good thing I called you!" 

 

And she said, "I called YOU!"

 

And we laughed and laughed and I apologized for my fried brain!! 

 

 

A couple of days after Christmas I was passing out leftover kisses to the kids. 

 

I counted out 7 and was taken aback by how many kisses that was.

 

A kiss for each kid

 

 

Brian took the boys out shopping with their Christmas money. 

Here is what they looked like when they came home! 

 

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! 

 

 

Self Timer Fun!!

My new camera has been tons of fun so far!  One of the features it has is a self-timer. 

 

 

Here are the first pictures I took with it - just testing it out.  

 

Smile, Daddy!

 

Ok.  Got it working now - here is another one.

 

Looks good. 

 

An interesting thing is that it will take multiple photos - one after the other - if you want it to.  This is nice for us because out of the three or four (or ten) pictures that it will take the chance of having one good one is pretty decent.  Did that make sense? 

 

We tested it out on Andrew.

 

 

 

 

You can see that the first picture and the second are almost identical -  they were taken a couple of seconds apart. 

 

So we thought we'd have a little fun and get more of the kids involved. 

 

We tried to do some silly things . . .

 

 

 

 

 So, looks like you may be getting more group shots of us after all. 

 

Yee Haw!!

Hello Canon!

My fabulous husband bought me a new Canon DSLR.  I'm so excited about it and have had tons of fun taking pictures around the house. 

 

 

Here are a few examples . . .

 



 

 

Yes, Kitty is still hanging around.

 

Peter and I self portrait.

 

The Holly bush in the backyard.

 

 

Leaves on the fence.

 

 

My most available/willing model, Matthew.

 

 

Alyssa and Matthew.

 

Matthew again.

 

 

 

I've been trying to practice - there are so many things to learn about light and shutter speed etc. 

 

 

 

 

I took this in low light without a flash and I think it turned out pretty good. 

 

 

The meatballs just went into the oven and everything is looking fine for our Christmas Eve dinner. 

 

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

Christmas Cottage Construction

 

Andrew gave Alyssa a gingerbread house kit for her birthday.  He got the idea from her birthday wish list so he knew she would like it. 

 

She had some time after school a couple of days ago and so dug in on the construction. 

 

She soon needed some help from me as she had failed to read/follow the directions and it wasn't quite working out.  Hmmm.  What are they teaching kids in schools these days? 

 

Don't answer that . . .

 

Anyway, the walls and roof were finally up and stable. 

Mr. Snowman can't wait to see his new house all decorated.

 

 

Alyssa adds icing to the roof while Faith watches intently. 

 

 

Cold enough for icicles.

 

 

 

 

Peppermint sticks.

 

 

They make great shutters for the windows.

 

 

A cobblestone walk.

 

 

Here is Alyssa with the finished house.  Strangely enough Mr. Snowman has the same house number as we do. 

 

 

The side view. 

 

It was up for a matter of a few minutes and then the kids devoured it. 

 

Yum! 

Birthday

Brian and Alyssa celebrated their birthdays last weekend. 



They dressed down this year for their meal out together.  They planned to hit breakfast on their way to do the weekly grocery shopping. 

 

They wanted to go to IHOP, but the line was out the door so they settled for the new Dunkin' Donuts.  I think they're still going to attempt IHOP maybe one day this week. 

 

 

On Sunday after church we had The Lasagna for their birthday lunch.  So good! 

 

Then there were presents. 

 

Alyssa got some nail polish and Brian was going to demonstrate it.

 

 

 

Matthew got the idea quickly and thought maybe we'd do the Christmas presents too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian got some chocolate and the little boys were quick to put their hands out.

 

 

 

Yummy! 

 

Then we had triple berry pie and ice cream. 

 

Thanks to everyone for the cards and presents!! 

 

 

 

Alyssa got a gingerbread house kit from Andrew. 

 

Stay tuned for the construction . . .