Our Christmas 2008

So Christmas is over. I'm kind of glad actually. It's always so frantic and busy, plus we eat too much. :( But we did have fun, and the kids really enjoyed their presents and having Gran-Mom here.

Christmas Day was spent in two places. The morning was at our house, where the kids woke up to stockings. Then we have a big breakfast. After that....presents! This year, Josiah played Santa (to pass out the gifts), Nicole the elf, and then William the reindeer.




After we opened our presents at home, we all headed to my parents house for more gifts, and a big dinner. We had a lot of fun...It made it very memorable knowing this is our last Christmas in the states before we head to Northern Asia.

And to end this post...here is a video to get a glimpse into my family. This is my brother when I gave him my gift (a calendar from despair.com).

Merry Christmas!

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

December Update

We've been pretty busy these last few days. Keith's mom is here for Christmas. She's been here since Thursday, and we'll stay til the 28th. The kids are REALLY enjoying her visit. They've been showing her all their Christmas videos, and even got her to play the Wii with them! Too funny. My mother-in-law is 74, so she deserves some credit for playing that with them. :)

Can't believe Christmas is only 5 days away! This year has just flown by. I guess with fundraising and all that, we've stayed so busy that I feel like this year was only a day. We've made significant strides in our monthly budget and are looking at closing that last bit in. We should be in Northern Asia sometime in the beginning of next year! Yeah!

Well, I'm off to take my mother-in-law shopping, so I'll leave you with a parting picture. I took this of the kids yesterday in our front tree. It came out great! Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Great Snow of Oh-Eight

We woke up this morning to this:

It's snowed quite a bit last night. And thankfully stuck to the ground so the kids were able to play in it this morning.
But of course being South Texas...it's already melting away. But at least it stayed around long enough for the kids. William woke up at 4:30 this morning so that he could play in it. :) We promptly sent him back to bed til 7:00. The kids had a blast and made some great memories. Not sure who had more fun, though...Keith or the kids. :)

It's Snowing!!!

I can't believe it. It's actually snowing!! I can hear it now:

"Grandpa, tell us of the Snow of Oh-Eight."
"Alright, kids, just have ya a sit-down and I'll tell ya of that great year."

Here's our miraculous snow:



OK, so it's not a northern blizzard, but it sure is cool! :)

"All I Want For Christmas...

is my ONE front tooth, my ONE front tooth, oh my ONE front tooth..." I don't think that's really how the song goes, but that's how Josiah's gonna sing it this year.

Christmas Puppets

I found these adorable Martha Stewart puppet kits at Walmart the other day.
I gave them to the kids today and let them put them together.
They loved it! And they came out really cute.
I don't know how I did this, but I only got 3 puppets and Caleb was a little upset that he didn't get one. So, Keith took Caleb to Walmart to pick one up for him. When they get back I'll post a picture of Caleb with his puppet.

**Update!! Here's Caleb with his puppet.**

A Trip to the Local Fire Station

At our home school support group meeting on Wednesday, we made food baskets for the fire departments in the area. Our family volunteered to take one to the fire station in our small town. So, this afternoon Keith took the three big kids and delivered it. The men seemed to appreciate it, and a young lieutenant took the kids on a tour of the station. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Our Disney Trip

I mentioned before that we just took a trip to Disney World. So, I'm finally going to let everyone know how it went. It was great! We had scheduled some meetings in Florida, and since we were going to have to stay a few days, we decided to use those days at Disney. :) We were able to get some discounts so that helped as well.

The kids had a blast. Everything was so new to them. I wish we had had more time to ride everything and see all the cool sights, but I guess we'll just have to make another trip in the future. :) I could probably describe every day to you and every single thing we did, but that would just take too long and too much energy (which I don't have right now), so I'll just post some pictures and you can fill in the blanks. Enjoy!

"We're here!":

HUGE Mowgli and Baloo:

Our hotel:

Rarin' and ready to go:

On Thunder Mountain:

You should know who this is:

Big Band, Magic Kingdom:

Hey, Pluto!:

Magic Castle, all lit up:

Caleb with his new Mickey: