Merry Christmas!

Waiting upstairs for their turn to see what Santa brought.

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all had a great day. Ours was filled with lots of presents, lounging around, and good food. It was a wonderful day. We missed everyone and really wish we could have been home for a white Christmas with family.

Gracie, being the youngest went first. We had to wake her up to see what Santa brought her. She wasn't overly impressed and just wanted to go back to bed.

Hannah came next. We were so proud of her for patiently waiting upstairs for her turn. When she came down the first thing she did was sit in her stroller. Kenny then pointed out the doll and Hannah was immediately up and had the doll in the stroller. Hannah loves baby dolls and she loves to push things. I think she was very pleased with what Santa brought her.


Ben Ben got Blackout the transformer that he wanted. It took Kenny almost 20 minutes, with the instructions, to figure out how to transform him into a robot. Ben took him downstairs and came up 5 minutes later with him back into a helicopter. That's our boy. He's super smart. He also loved his leap frog computer and his tools.

Sarah Kate got the doll house she wanted (barbie style). At first all she was interested in was the fact that Santa drank all his egg nog. She thought that was the neatest thing. Then she saw her presents and egg nog didn't matter any more. She was a little disappointed that she didn't get the exact doll house and car she wanted, but then she started playing with the barbies and realized they're for big kids and she was sold.

The kids also enjoyed opening all the many gifts under the tree. Thanks to all those who sent presents. The kids loved all of them. Well Gracie didn't seem to care, but I know deep down inside she was thrilled and just didn't know how to show it! We spent the rest of the day in our pajamas, playing, cooking, eating, and then finally cleaning up. I can't believe another Christmas has come and gone.

Christmas Eve Jammies

"Waiting" to open their Christmas jammies.

Every Christmas Eve we let the kids open one present. It's a present we choose and it's always a new pair of jammies. I look forward to it every year and the kids seem to enjoy it too. So after we got back from making gingerbread houses at Gulick we had our annual Christmas Eve lesson and discussion on the importance of Christmas and the birth of Christ. Then we set cookies out for Santa. Sarah Kate insisted he liked Egg Nog, so we left him some egg nog. Ben insisted he liked Chocolate Milk, so we left him some of that as well. It turns out he likes BOTH egg nog and chocolate milk, in case you were dying to know. Next came jammies. I thought I'd share some pictures.

Sarah and Hannah in their jammies.

Ben loved his dinosaur jammies.

Gracie in her pink teddy bear jammies.

Our Gingerbread House Making Experience

Our Gingerbread House. (Can you tell the kids helped?)

Gulick's Gingerbread House! Theirs many look better, but that chimney doesn't look very safe.

Making gingerbread houses has been quite the challenge this year. It all started 2 Sundays ago (that would have been the 16th). We were going to have friends over to decorate them after church so late Saturday night I made a trip to multiple stores (I hate shopping in the east) to find candy for decorating. Well on Sunday while trying to put the houses together we had many cracks and breaks. So many that we only got one gingerbread house made. (Kenny insisted on making them from scratch. It's a cool idea, but it's turned out to be a lot of work.) So we canceled Sunday's gingerbread houses and went for Thursday, the next free night we had.

Sarah Kate decorating cookies!

Thursday would have been all good and wonderful, but two nights before we had decided we weren't going to Delaware over the weekend and so our weekend was suddenly freed up. So the logical thing to do was to make the gingerbread houses on a weekend night where the kids didn't have school the next morning and we could stay up later. So we shot for Saturday.

Ben "decorating" cookies!

Saturday was a crazy day at the Newbry household. I don't know if it was the excitement of Christmas coming soon, the fact that Sarah Kate was going to be out of school for a week and a half, or something else, but our children were not good. They had a VERY, VERY hard day of not listening, fighting, tattling, you know the whole nine yards. Ben even referred to Saturday as the worst day ever. Their naughtiness finally resulted in a cancellation of the gingerbread house making. So we thought that was the end of gingerbread house making for this year. Sunday we were going back to the temple to see the lights with Winns (which we didn't get to do because it was pouring rain) and Monday was Christmas Eve.

All Hannah was interesting in was eating the candy. She had a blast.

Wow, this has turned out to be a long story. On Monday morning I went to exercise class with a friend (one we were originally going to make gingerbread houses with) while her husband brought their kids over to our house to play with our kids. While the Dad's were talking they cooked up a plan to get together that night and have pizza. It just snowballed from there. We had pizza, made bracelets and necklaces out of beads, made and decorated cookies for Santa, and FINALLY decorated our gingerbread houses. It was a lot of fun.

Every gingerbread house needs gum drops.

Gulicks perfecting their gingerbread house.

Virginia's Trumpeting Speed Bumps

So, we've hit the stage in every big family where we're able to have our kids draw names. (Technically we hit that stage with Hannah, but it makes even more sense now with Grace.) In the first week of December we had Sarah Kate and Ben help us draw names. Ben went first choosing his own name, as soon as it was read Sarah Kate snatched it out of his hand because she really wanted his name. The next name drawn, by Ben, was Sarah Kate. Because Sarah and Ben are the only two who really understand the whole drawing names for gift exchange thing, we decided we'd just let them keep the names they really wanted. So Ben got Sarah, and Sarah got Ben, Hannah got Gracie, and Gracie got Hannah. It's so fun having a big family.

Sarah Kate really enjoyed wrapping Ben's present.

We've been looking around in stores for about a week and finally last Thursday we let the kids buy gifts for each other. Ben got Sarah Kate the Island Princess Barbie and Sarah got Ben an Imaginex Elephant. If you don't know anything about Imaginex toys, the most important thing is that they all make noise. This toy, being an elephant, makes a very loud trumpeting noise. Being the lazy and over worked Mom that I am, I didn't take the toys out of the back of the van on Thursday night so they were still there the next day when we ran to the grocery store.

Hannah helping wrap presents! She didn't understand why she couldn't open them and play with them.

The parking lot of the particular grocery store we went to has 3 speed bumps. The first one was smooth sailing, but when we went over the second, we heard a nice trumpeting sound from the back of the car. Ben was first to talk, “Mom, was that an elephant?” Sarah Kate of course panicked and almost gave away the surprise, but managed to stop herself. The next speed bump had the same effect on the toy and I was asked the same question. Luckily Gracie was crying so I could pretend I hadn't heard anything, as did Sarah. We quickly (well as quickly as you can shop with four kids 5 and under) did our shopping and got back in the car. With all three speed bumps the elephant spoke again each one getting longer and slower, I think it’s running out of batteries. When we hit the last speed bump I knew I couldn't ignore it any longer. To my surprise Ben had come up with his own conclusion. He said, “Mom, did you hear that speed bump. It sounded just like an elephant. I bet there are lots of little elephants living in that speed bump and they don’t like it when you drive over them.” Thank goodness for 3 year old imaginations. He’s now convinced all speed bumps are made out of elephants. To top it off, Kenny took him to get his hair cut yesterday and the same thing happened over the speed bump in that shopping center. (I know, we should really take the toy out of the car. Don’t worry we did last night and it’s safely wrapped.) When he heard the elephant he had to explain to Daddy about the elephants living in the speed bumps. I hope he’s not disappointed when they stop making noise.

When Ben concentrates he sticks out his tongue. How cute!

I also discovered I don't have any recent pictures of Gracie so I thought I'd take a few to share. She didn't get to help wrap presents, but she looked cute anyway.

2 Months old. Where has the time gone?

It's Still Just Not Right

This is Jeff Corwin (dinner was a little late.)

No matter how many times you think of it, it's still not right. That's what Kenny and I tell each other all the time. If you're curious what I am referring to, it's none other than the untimely death of the beloved Crocodile Hunter. The reason I bring this up is, Hannah has recently found a love for nature shows and for Steve Irwin. She's always loved animals and watching them on TV, but in the past month or so she has really taken to them. Out here, in the east, Crocodile Hunter comes on while I'm cooking dinner and many times Steve has been my babysitter. If Hannah won't stop pulling on me, trying to get me to hold her, you know, things that make cooking really hard, I know I can just turn on Steve and she's happy. But for me, every time I turn it on I think, "It's still just not right."

Doesn't she look entranced?

Letters to Santa

I've always loved the idea of writing letters to Santa. When I was younger Santa actually wrote me back once and it was the coolest thing. I don't really remember it being cool at the time, though I'm sure it was, but as a teenager I remember thinking it would be a cool thing for my kids some day. Well that day has come. I've put it off long enough and we finally wrote letters to Santa. They have yet to be mailed, but they're written. I thought I'd share them with everyone.

Dear Santa,

I want to come visit Santa at the North Pole. Santa can you please bring me Blackout for Christmas. (Blackout is a transformer, for those of you who don't know.) Santa can you please bring me a toy Ben. (We have yet to figure out what this is, but he insisted on putting it in his letter.) Dear Santa can you please bring me a transformer scorpion that moves it's whole body and that transforms into the whole desert. Can you please bring me a computer that only has games for kids to play. (Santa's not that wealthy.) Dear Santa please bring me some Handy Manny tools for myself to play with.

Ben

I just love three year old talk. I wrote down what he said word for word and I was please at how well his sentences were put together, even if he started almost every sentence with Santa or Dear Santa. And did you notice how polite he was. If only he'd talk to me that way. :)

Dear Santa,

I want to come visit you at the North Pole. I want a twelve dancing princess doll that I got last year. (Her old one got thrown up on and was definitely not salvageable.) I want dolls and a doll house. Can I please have Little People camping and car.

Sarah Kate

Sarah Kate's letter is much shorter, but it took about 3 times as long to write. She did it all by herself and it only took three tries. I find it kind of funny that Ben was the really polite one and Sarah Kate was not when in real life it's normally the other way around.

Now my task is to get the letters in the mail so Santa can write them back. That's another thing on my to do list, the Santa part. Oh by the way Mom, thanks for making Christmas so fun as a kid. There's a lot of work that goes creating a good Christmas'. We're having a lot of fun. Up next, gingerbread houses. :)

Naughty or Nice? You decide!

The Art of Procrastination

I'm choosing to label procrastination as an art, because, well I've always wanted to have some kind of artistic talent, but as I've gotten older I've come to realize that I really have none, so this helps me feel a little artistic. You see, I'm an abuser of the good old trait of procrastination. For instance: Gracie's birth announcements are still only half done and she's already 7 weeks old, Christmas cards . . . they're a dream that I'm still hoping will come true this year, but I'm quickly realizing it's not the most practical dream, and then there's the Christmas stockings I need to make. We bought the fabric and pattern the weekend after Thanksgiving and I still have yet to even open the bag. Aaaww, Procrastination. I may go so far as to classify myself as a habitual procrastinator which has become even more of a problem since marrying another habitual procrastinator.

My latest procrastination event actually turned out OK, but would have gone a lot smoother had we not procrastinated. Last Sunday Sarah Kate was sent home with a note that she was being asked to give a talk in primary. Of course this means we took the paper home, stuck it on the fridge, and every night commented to each other about how we needed to get her talk written. When Saturday morning came and the talk still hadn't written itself, we decided it was time to write it. Kenny, being the better writer, spent all morning writing the talk only to have it erased when word perfect crashed and he had not yet saved it. Needless to say, it was a long morning full frustration. To make a long story short (well semi short) Sarah Kate was up until 9:30 last night and spent 3 hours this morning before church working on it. To top it all off both Kenny and I had lessons to prepare. Now I had read my lesson a few times, but was no where near ready and Kenny hadn't even started his. The good news is Sarah Kate did a wonderful job and only needed help on a few parts. We were very proud of her and again (this was her fourth talk and the fourth time we've left it until Saturday) we were left wondering how well she'd do if we'd actually got it written before it was almost to late. Oh yeah! Our lessons did get done and turned out OK.

Hannah showing off her artwork.

In other news, the girls had a lot of fun coloring before dinner tonight. Hannah has discovered the love of markers. I have discovered the love of WASHABLE markers. She's becoming quite the little artist. Luckily she has yet to write on the walls or our new couch, only Cinderella's tight have fallen victim to the markers. Out of all the kids so far she's the one most likely to be found leaving her mark on something. Maybe this means she's got more artistic talent than her mom. :)

Yes, look closely, those are green teeth.

Jumping in Feet First

OK! Here it goes. I've been meaning to start a blog for a few months now, but well, with 4 kids 5 and under life is kind of hectic. I do however think blogging is a great way to keep family and friends updated on our lives. I feel I must start with a warning to all those who are brave enough to read my blog: I am definitely not a writer nor do I pretend to be one. As Kenny says, this'll be a good way to sharpen my writing skills. It's funny how those skills diminish when you don't use them for years. So anyway, if you care to read this blog I'll update you on our little, but ever growing, family. Of course I'll include cute pictures of my cute kids, I may even throw in a few of Kenny and I.