Christmas Eve

After breakfast this morning we had a relaxing day at home before it was time to go to Uncle Scott's. We go each year for dinner and presents with his aunt and cousins. Cooper and Cameron waited patiently to eat by watching Polar Express.

My mom also stopped by before heading to work. She works the night shift on weekends, Christmas is no exception. We also all wore our matching pajamas. We normally wear them Christmas morning to Steve's parents but we are going to church in the morning.

Scott keeps a Bible in his coffee table, his house is small so we always move it in the hallway and we always forget to get it out. It's a good thing we keep up with technology because cousin Randy was able to read the Christmas story from my iPhone. Each night before bed Cooper and I tell each other our favorite things. He said tonight his favorite thing was Randy reading the real story of Christmas.

It doesn't quite look like he is listening all that much.

When it came time to open some gifts Cameron was into my phone. I have an app that is called Paint Sparkles, Cameron likes to play with it.

Cooper tore into everything in about 5 minutes. There was so much wrapping paper flying around. I still don't even know what all they got.

Once he gets a hold of this phone he doesn't put it down.

Steve's cousin Ricky got Steve a Bears jacket and I got a Colts one!

Since we are going to church tomorrow morning instead of going tonight we were able to call it an early tonight and get the kids to bead pretty much on time. Of course not before we put out a little reindeer food. I'm not for sure why my flash wasn't working.

Last but not least we set out cookies for Santa.

We have had such a blessed day and there is still more to come. I can't wait to see my children's faces tomorrow morning.

The Tradition Continues

Our tradition at meeting for McDonald's for breakfast Christmas Eve morning continued this year. Sadly, we were missing a family. The Reid's were celebrating Christmas at her parents. Can you believe she passed up McDonald's for her dad's homemade breakfast? The last two years we went to the McDonald's in Jeff, this year we went to Sellersburg. It was just closer to both us and the Bushes. Steve and Paul both complained because it wasn't the same one.

Once they were done eating, Cooper and Hope played hide and seek.

If you haven't figured it out by reading Gretchen's blog, Hope is exactly like Gretchen and Pierce is exactly like Paul. While Hope had a pretty little sparkly Christmas shirt on, Pierce had a camo hat on and was reading this magazine. I asked him if he asked for a shank for Christmas.

Before leaving we had Steve and Paul take turns taking a group picture.

I miss these guys like crazy and was very happy they were able to make it.

Christmas at Mom's

We went up to my mom's house tonight to celebrate Christmas. It is very rare that we are all together, I'll try to explain. Some of you know the dynamics of my family, for those that don't, here goes.


I am the youngest of three girls, my two older sisters, Carmen and Candiace, are twins. They came from my dad's first marriage. He also had a son from that same marriage. His son, my half brother, always lived with his mom in Florida, so I never really knew him. He passed away at 15 from cancer, I was in the 4th grade. Him and my sisters have the same mom, but she never had nor really wanted a relationship with my sisters, only him. Non of us have a true relationship with my dad, I haven't spoken to him in over 6 months, it's not for lack of trying, I have. The last time I spoke to him he was supposed to come see our new house and never called again. The silver lining in all this, is that my sisters and their kids have good relationships with my mom. She treats them all like their own children and grandchildren.

My sister Candiace is married to Jeff and they have an 11 year old boy, Courtland. My sister Carmen has a 12 yr old girl, Hailey, from her first marriage to Travis. Travis is now re-married to Stacey and she has a daughter, Lexi, who is Hailey's age. Travis and Stacey actually met through Hailey and Lexi. Carmen's second husband is Jason. They had two kids, Emma who is 8 and Layne who is 3. They divorced about a year and a half ago. Carmen is my sister who passed away last January. e
Like I said, it's not often we are all together, but we made it tonight. All but Travis, who was working. Stacy, Lexi, and Jason too. We try to keep it as good for the kids as possible and everyone really does still have a good relationship.

After a some yummy ham it was time to dig into presents. We got Hailey (in the back) and Lexi (long blond hair), also Emma but I didn't get a picture of her, personalized thermal totes from 31. I got Stacey's input on color so I hope they liked them.

I didn't get any of Courtland, we got him a gift card to Best Buy and my mom some Jennifer Anniston perfume.

Cooper was excited and ready to dig into some presents.Candiace and Jeff got him a Leapfrog text messenger. It's supposed to help learn letters and the sounds and it has a couple built in games. They also got Cameron a Leapfrog game.

This was Cameron's gift from Hailey and Lexi, it's wrapped in Justin Bieber wrapping paper, awesome! He got a pull toy with farm animals.

They got Cooper a nerf gun.

Cameron kept whining at the tree and was distraught over something. By the way, check out that cool faux wood paneling in the back. Yup, this is where I grew up.

All the whining was over some Elvis ornament that played music. He was all smiles once we figured it out. We had went up there earlier in the day to drop off Emma and I had showed it to him them, kids don't forget anything.

My mom got Cooper a Cars Geo Tracks race track and a Toy Story Mr Potato Head.

She got Cameron a play camera and radio. That is Layne in the back, he got the same things Cooper did from my mom. Layne is 3, he's 10 months younger than Cooper. Janelle- I don't know if you will read this, Layne and Emma go to the same sitter as your kids.

This is our loot to take home. Steve got some clothes and I got some clothes, a new jacket, house shoes that are actually super cute and I would totally wear out, and make up.

I had to get one of Steve being Steve. I just love this man!

We got home and I was trying to get a head start on cleaning out the bedrooms and bagging up future yard sale items when I hear uncontrollable laughter. They broke out the nerf gun. I'm sure it's going to be a major hit for a few days. So is something we bought Cooper, I'll blog about it after Christmas. What fun is the surprise if I ruin it for you guys too.

I Baked!

One time a year, and one time a year only, I try to put what culinary skills I have to use and make some homemade cookies. I try to do it for Christmas since Santa deserves only the best. I was able to whip some up this morning, all before 9:00 am.

5 dozen cookies later, yummy goodness!

It's almost time!

It's almost Christmas and Cooper has been reminding me every day. He changes out Santa's sleigh every morning. We also add to Santa's beard every morning. Just two more spots.

On an unrelated note, did you know there was a snowman at the stable?

He's only 4

Since Steve had the day off yesterday we decided to take Cooper to the mall to see Santa. I had a few reservations since Santa already came to school, but thought he's only 4. We drove separate since Steve was getting his tires rotated. He just told me today that on the way home Cooper said, "Is that the real Santa, his voice sounded different than the one at my school".
He's only 4, he can't be saying this already.

Scary Situation

Steve took the past two days off work so we have been enjoying ourselves and having extra family and play time. Today, Steve and Cameron were in his room playing while Cooper and I were having an intense game of hide and seek. I heard Steve close the door, I guess we were being too loud. A few minutes later Cooper and I went downstairs to play and color his playhouse. We hadn't been down there long when I walked into the bathroom to throw something away. The bathroom is right at the bottom of the stairs. I heard a loud thump, turn around, and see Cameron rolling and tumbling all the way down. My stomach dropped. I never shut the gate when I go downstairs with the boys. Usually because I walk behind them when coming back up and I don't want them pulling on it and pulling too hard and falling backwards. I guess it was out of habit but I never shut it when I took Cooper down. Steve and Cameron had come out of his room, Steve didn't realize I never shut it and Cameron must have walked right over to it and tried to walk down. I didn't see the first half of the fall so I don't know exactly what he did. I felt so terrible. Surprisingly it didn't take him long to calm down. I don't know if he was more scared than hurt. I other on the hand couldn't stop shaking. I stripped his clothes off to check out his arms and legs to make sure nothing was broken. I called my mom, she is a nurse, and she said just keep an eye on him and as long as he is walking and playing and acting normal then he should be okay. He seemed okay, a little wobbly, but then again he is most of the time anyway. We kept him up for about another hour and a half before nap. He slept fine, woke up on his own, and was okay the rest of the night. Thank you God! I know kids are much more reliant than adults, but man alive it was scary. Even now I just picture my sweet little 15 month old tumbling down those stairs. I will never, ever again keep that gate open. He had someone looking over him today for sure.