Have I Said I Love Christmas?

{Thursday} December 22. 2011

This morning after hours of cleaning my bathrooms and doing laundry I got a knock at the door . . . always seems to happen when I look the prettiest! It was one of my primary kids, Trennon, with a cute little gift. I love surprises like that! It made my whole day. And such a cute idea!

Tonight we had Ross and Maria Bramwell's family and Kelly and Holly Wallin's family over for dessert and to sign our Christmas tablecloth {I posted about it HERE}. I ordered some white chocolate/raspberry, red velvet, and pumpkin spice bundtinis from Nothing Bundt Cake . . . deLISH . . . and Maria brought over some pumpkin bread. The kids all ran wild while we chatted and ate dessert. I LOVE company! And I have such great friends.

Privacy . . .

Okay, on our family newsletter I added our blog address so for the next month it will be open to all readers but once the month is up I'll make it private again. If you want to continue to read it please leave me a comment on this post! If you haven't been able to access this blog before because of privacy settings leave me your email address so I can add you! Thanks!!

Poulson Cookie Decorating Contest

{Sunday} December 18, 2011

After church today we came home and whipped up some munchies, headed over to Rick and Kathie's house and had our annual cookie decorating contest. It's always so much fun. I love living close enough to family to get together often. In past years it has just been "cookie decorating" but a few years ago we decided to make it a contest . . . trophy and all. The first year Becky won, then me {Lyric}, then Nathan . . . and this year . . .

 . . . no, Charly didn't win this time. This is her decorating her cookies.

 Here's half of the cookies. The cute little surfer snowman {#7} is Hannah's creation. She planned it for the past couple of days and has been so excited to execute her design. 

 We each get two votes to begin with {we can't vote for the same cookie for both votes}. The first group of votes was like a broken record . . . 7, 7, 7, 7 . . . there were some 9's and some 4's and 1's, but mostly 7!

 Her reaction while Uncle Rick read the votes . . .

 . . . looking at the tally paper feeling pretty confident.

 Her daddy's vote ;)

 First round of votes.

 After the first round we take the cookies with the highest number of votes and take another vote. This time we each get one vote. #7 WON!! 

 She was so. excited!

 The winning cookie. SO cute!

 Our trophy. It started out looking a little different. When someone wins we have to proudly display it in a prominent place in our house all. year. long. until the next contest. And before we bring it back we have to have added something to the trophy. You can't see it but Nathan added his football number to the back.

 Nathan losing his title. haha Goof!

 Like the glasses and scarf? That's what we added last time we had it.

 After cookie decorating we got the chimes out and played for a while. Aubrey helping Charly.

 He had a little problem with people taking too long, going too fast, or going when the weren't supposed to. If we messed up we were "out" and we had to pass it to someone else. boo! ;)

 Porter getting his first taste of the chime experience . . . 

 . . . literally!

 Justin playing with Porter.

So fun! Now we need to find a spot for the trophy all year and figure out how we're going to change him. Right now it's part of our Christmas decorations but I'm not sure where he will land after the holidays?? The rule is that our home teacher has to be able to see it so it won't be ending up in the closet or any bedrooms. ha

Reha's Christmas Party

 {Thursday} December 15, 2010

I'm loving the fact that Mrs. Sciotto {Reha's teacher} likes to have her holiday parties the day before the last day before break starts. It split up all of the parties. Hannah has her party tomorrow . . . and while I don't know if taking Charly and Porter will be annoying to some of the parents, it's nice to know that I don't have to "pick" which party to go to.

She had a really cute little party. They split up in groups and went to four different stations. The first was hot chocolate with Rhiannon's dad . . . 

 . . . then making gingerbread house magnets with Amanda's mom . . . 

 . . . and I didn't take pictures of the last two. She decorated a gingerbread man cookie, then went over and wrote a little story about her idea of what would make the Grinch happy.

Here's Charly with my friend, Cory {Izzy's mom}. She was sweet enough to be in charge of her and let her be the "helper" . . . why do kids always obey other people so much better than they do you?! Maddening, but it was nice to see her so well behaved. ;) Cute party! 

. . . 

Tonight was a little rough. We've had a lot of stress lately . . . something that happened a few weeks ago, and it's just starting to surface for Hannah. She's finally showing some emotion which is good for her. I hope she continues to open up and "get it out" so it doesn't weigh her down anymore. I have noticed a difference in her. She seems pretty shut off and not very happy . . . praying that opening up will lift the weight a little and she can slowly get through this. I have missed the bubbly, happy Hannah. Reha has been doing pretty well. She has been more open to talking about things so she hasn't kept much "in" and I think that may be the reason she's doing a little better emotionally. It has been suffocating watching them struggle. I'm looking forward to some closure so we can turn the page of this ugly chapter already. Unfortunately it looks like it will take a little longer than hoped. Crossing my fingers things will settle soon! 

Charly's Christmas Party

{Tuesday} December 13, 2010

Charlise has really been acting up a lot lately and I'm sure, for the most part, it's my fault. I haven't been patient with her, I haven't planned any play dates for her, and I really haven't done much at all with or for her. This past month has been . . . a challenge to say the least, and she really has suffered from the drama that has encircled our family recently. I realized that her acting up is really just her loud way of trying to get some of my attention so I decided to invite a few of her little friends over and have a fun little Christmas party.

Yesterday we went to Michaels and found a fun little candy cane craft {something I remember my Grandma Vee doing with me as a little girl} and some little presents for her friends to take home. She has been SO excited . . . and I actually have been too. It's been fun to see her so excited to see me making a big deal out of her. Sad . . . I know.

 Charly making her candy cane.

It was such a fun little party. Everyone played nice together for the most part and the 2 hours went by surprisingly fast! We will for sure be doing more of these holiday parties. The older girls get parties at school . . . I'm surprised it's taken me this long to plan one for Charly! Lame mom here! I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. Feels good.

Birthday Dinner withOUT the Birthday Girl :(

{Tuesday} December 13, 2011

For the past few weeks we've been planning on celebrating one of my dearest friends {Holly's} birthday. For some sad reason {like a dr. husband who can't plan his schedule and gets called in often} she couldn't make it. We almost bagged it but decided that since we all had child care of some kind we'd still get together. We went to P.F. Changs in La Jolla and had a great time chatting and enjoying time with each other, while missing our birthday girl all at the same time. We made sure to text her lots of pictures. She asked who was able to go, so I sent her these pictures . . .

 Tiffanie, Maria, Jen, Megan and Rachel . . . 

. . . and I couldn't leave me out of course. {gag}

Such a fun night!! Hopefully next time more girls, like Holly {and another friend, Andrea who decided not to come} will be able to make it!! LOVE these girls! 

Christmas Advent 2011

{Sunday} December 11, 2011

I've been really wanting to have some kind of advent calendar or activity to count down the days until Christmas and found a cute idea on Pinterest. I found 24 Christmas books {we had about 15 already that we've accumulated over the years . . . the rest I found at the used bookstore next to the library}, wrapped them all up and put them in a basket in our living room. Every night one of the girls gets to pick one to open and we read it before bed. Really simple but something they really look forward to. It's always fun to open a present I guess! ;) Tonight Wade read How the Grinch Stole Christmas . . . one of my favorite children's Christmas books.

Hannah looks "too cool" in this picture, but she wasn't acting that way . . . just happened to snap the picture when she was giving a face. Stinker! I REALLY love my family. Such a MAJOR. blessing in my life! I truly couldn't have gotten any luckier. <3

Christmas at Sea World

{Saturday} December 10, 2011

 During the holidays Sea World has a Christmas celebration every weekend with Christmas shows, real snow {more like ice, but you get what you can get in the middle of San Diego}, hot chocolate, lights, a big tree, etc. With Christmas sneaking up on me I thought that this would be the only weekend that we'd be able to go while they're doing all of the fun Christmas stuff. When Wade got home from disc golfing we took off. It was really cute! We ended up only going to the pet show, "Christmas Tails", had some HOT chocolate {we all have burned tongues now! oops!}, played in some ice . . . er . . . snow, and walked around having fun spending time together.

 Hannah burning the heck out of her tongue! She didn't have the patience to wait until it cooled down a bit . . . she learned her lesson I think. Poor girl.

Cute sisters!

After the show we went over to the arcade and played for a while. Wade and I played a stacking game where if you won {there are maybe 20 rows to stack correctly} they had big prizes, like iPod touches, Nintendo DS's, stuff like that. Both of us got the the very last one and lost. Booo! haha. This is Charly watching her daddy almost win a fun prize. 

 When we came out of the arcade it had gotten dark enough for all of the lights to come on. It was really pretty! We just let the girls run around and play in the grass.

 Porter was mesmerized by all of the pretty lights.

 Porter had HAD it by the end of the day . . . on the way home we realized that he hadn't eaten anything the whole time we were there!! BAD parents!! And SO sad! I felt awful. 

Charly doing another one of her "shows" . . . that's her thing lately. So funny! She loves when there are people around who will watch her. Silly!

It was a really fun afternoon! I love Christmas time! Can't believe it's almost over already. :(

Hannah's First Concert

{Thursday} December 8, 2011

This year in school Hannah has been playing the violin in her school orchestra and has been doing an amazing job! She has picked it up SO quickly and she really loves it. Her first concert was today at school and she has been really excited! 

This is her this morning before we left for school, making sure she had everything. Doesn't she look pretty!?

 I told her to pretend to play since where I was sitting I wouldn't be able to get any pictures of her . . . she's such a goof!

 With her teacher before it started.

 Hannah and her best friend Brianna.

 Her Grandma Carey was here for a few days and leaving today so she stuck around long enough to be able to make it to the concert. She was really impressed!

 Charly with her typical "cheese" face. 

I really am SO proud of Hannah for doing such a great job. She has really applied herself and spent a lot of time practicing. She has such a good ear for music. I know that if she continues to play she will be great at whatever instrument she tries.