I Wanna Meet Santa Claus, The Real Real Santa

This year's Santa visit was accompanied by a slew of questions from our sweet girl McKenzie. 'How come Santa was going to be here and not in the North Pole?', 'Was he bringing her present right now?', 'What was he doing here?!?'....   I love when little minds get going.

We headed out to our usual Santa picture location and were able to walk right up to visit Santa without any wait. That was a lot for McKenzie to take in all at once, so next year a strategic waiting period when we observe Santa and prepare ourselves for the visit is on the to do list. She did pretty good once she was able to sit on a box near Santa but she didn't want to sit on his lap at all. Ben took his cues from his sister and decided if she wasn't sitting on this guys lap then neither was he. The good picture people knew all the tricks and they had me sit on a seat next to Santa and have Ben up on my lap next to Santa. It did the trick but it also caused Ben to look quite like a tiny elf compared to Kenzie who is normal sized in the front of the picture. Still it's a keeper. I love looking back at the pictures and seeing them grow and change from year to year.

Here's our 2010 Santa picture - McKenzie 3 1/2, Ben 22 months

Pictures from Christmas past.

2009 - McKenzie 2 1/2, Ben's First Christmas 10 months old.


2008 - McKenzie, 1 1/2 years old, not talking to this guy.


2007 - McKenzie's First Christmas, six months old. Santa and Kenzie both have rosy cheeks!



We also paid a visit to the giant holiday bear located near Santa. Ben's face when he first saw the bear was priceless. Absolutely no fear just a need to get closer and check this guy out.

Ben wanting to jump off of the three foot box the bear was sitting up on.


Sweet Kenzie smiling with the bear. I'm surprise she wasn't giving him a big hug.


Cousin Claire Bear, 2 1/2, looking so cute with the bear.

It's A Fine Line

There has been a big buzz this holiday season about The Elf On The Shelf which is a kids Christmas book that comes with a cute little elf. The story explains how the elf watches you all day and then returns to the North Pole at night to report back to Santa if you've been naughty or nice. He moves around each morning so you really know he's watching.

The kids are just opening up our book and elf here, not having read the book we didn't know we weren't support to touch the elf or else his magic would wear off. We apologized and told him to tell Santa we were sorry.  You're suppose to name your elf and McKenzie decided we would call him Mr. Owl.



I love the idea of adding this little guy to our families holiday traditions but I do have to admit it's a fine line between cute and creepy with this kind of thing. Ben doesn't really get this type of thing yet and he's a fairly good boy so no need for him to be deeply involved in this for now. McKenzie on the other hand has really gotten into this and I actually feel that she could use a little more fear that our dear sweet elf will be reporting her actions back to Santa.

Imaging being three and popping out of your room when you're suppose to be in bed sleeping only to find that this little guy is perched on the stair rail right outside your door ready to report back to the big guy. This would have scared me but McKenzie's got more of a wild side and is willing to risk it some nights. I will miss the little guy once Christmas comes and he has to go back to the North Pole. Wonder if there is anything like this for Easter?

It's The Reason For The Season

This time of year brings rushed days and late nights preparing for Christmas and all the fun events leading up to it. Each year that passes I find that we seem to be creating new traditions with the kids to make their holidays even more special. I wonder how we will fit it all in as the years go by.

We are only partway into the season and have already shared many great memories with our friends and family. Last weekend we hosted our annual Christmas party and it was great to see everyone and catch up. As usual the white elephant gift exchange was a high light of the evening and we had some interesting gifts again this year.

I need to get better about pulling the camera out more often when we have the group together. Here's two lovely ladies who will be adding two more little ones to our circle of friends next year.
McKenzie can't wait to meet her new friends and thinks Rachel should name her baby Bob.



The boys opening a video game filled package from Kristy.  I know all the guys will be watching which gift Kristy brings in next year.


Kate and Will celebrating their victory in getting the bottle of wine I labeled just for Kate.


This past weekend we headed down to meet Gina and Atticus at Carrie's house to let the kids have their own friends Christmas party. With six kids on the loose it was a wild affair but a good time was had by all and the moms actually got a few minutes of visiting in. It was a tiny vision of times to come when we can get together and just let the kids run off and play. Ben is our littlest guy and he did a great job keeping up with the big kids and not getting into too much trouble.

Here's what six kids look like at the end of a very fun evening. Next time we will take the picture right when we walk in the door before everyone gets wild.


Atti and Ben playing a little song for the ladies. It's so funny when we get Atti and Ben together, half the time Gina and I can't figure out who's kid is who and so we both just watch out for the little blond boys.


Lovely ladies having some dinner together. McKenzie, Halle and Mikelle all had a great time playing together.


After dinner we made Gingerbread houses and my serious girl Kenzie put the decorations on so carefully.


Here's her finished product.  I love the lady floating over the door.


A huge thank you to Carrie for opening up her house to all of us and letting the kids burn off some of their extra energy.  Love getting these kiddos together!

Nuttier Than A Fruitcake...

That's our Ben. He's such a funny guy and loves to make us laugh. Since Ben is also our child who only eats five things, I assumed he would not be eager to gobble down fruitcake. I was wrong, he ate a whole muffin sized cake yesterday. Here's the very short list of things Ben will eat on a regular basis: cheese, crackers, pancakes, peanut butter, sometimes hot dogs and any fruit. Thus, the love of the fruitcake I'm assuming.

Here's Ben after a nice big bite of fruitcake.  You can just hear him saying 'Oh boy, that's good!'


I couldn't believe it when he got into the fruitcakes in the dining room and then proceeded to eat the whole cake up. He's not one for trying new things but he sure does love to get into things!




McKenzie and I had our annual fruitcake making festivities with Aunt Renee back in November and this year we were able to make the fruitcake in Aunt Renee's beautiful new kitchen. Last year at this time she was in the midst of a remodel so we made the fruitcake at our house. The new kitchen worked perfectly and our little helper McKenzie really got into the action this year.  Kenzie's one request was for a new picture of her making fruit cake when she wasn't a baby since she had recently seen a picture from two years ago when we made fruitcake.

Not like that you silly!

When you only do something once a year you tend to forget things, like how many fruitcakes a single recipe makes and how long to bake each size of cake. That adds to the excitement of seeing how the cakes will turn out and what changed in the recipe along the way. The cakes have passed inspection by our strictest customer already.  Grandpa C has checked it off as another good year for fruitcake. And I guess if Benny will eat it, it must be good.

Mamma's Little Helper

Getting our tree.

I love to get the house ready for Christmas, my favorite part is decorating the tree. Since we've had kids, the tree has been getting decorated after they were safely in bed.  This year we had a very special helper. McKenzie helped me to decorate the tree and put up all the holiday decorations inside the house.  Then she ventured outside to help Matt put up the lights.


She loved being able to help and was so excited to show Benny the morning after we decorated. He took one look at the lights on the tree and started screaming 'hot, hot, hot' and trying to blow on the tree. I wasn't too worried about this misunderstanding.  I figured this might keep our tree intact if he thought it was 'hot'. He figure out pretty quickly that it was not hot and in his mind it became fair game to touch.

After the first glass ornament broke into a million pieces I sorted the ornaments into two piles - Kenzie's and mine. That system worked to keep us from breaking all the fragile ones. It did not keep Kenzie's on the tree though. She wanted to hang everything on the very end of the branches and if possible several on one branch. So it was a careful dance to decorate the tree, her concentrating on exact placement, me concentrating on not letting her catch me moving the ornaments further into the tree.


It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Here's a view of the tree and fireplace.  This year we have the tree back in the family room even though we really enjoyed the tree in the dining room last year.  I love the tree and fireplace combo.


Ben and Kenzie working at their new daily activity of moving ornaments around on the tree. So sweet!

Full House

Again this year I'm reminded of how much I have to be thankful for. One of the main things that comes to mind this year is how important it is to share our lives with others.  I am very fortunate to have wonderful friends and family to share my life with. Thanksgiving is usually my yearly reminder of the large extended family that we have who all still make the effort to come together to share a meal and play some games. This year that reminder came early with Aunt Bonnie's hospital stay. Our family came together to make the most of a bad situation and everyone gave in their own unique way to help out a very special person in all of our lives.

This years for Thanksgiving we had our largest crowd yet at Kacey and Eric's house - 37 people around the table. We had a great meal and then spent time playing games and catching up. While the house was full, Aunt Bonnie was certainly missed with her lively game play. It was good to know she was in a nice safe place with hot meals and nice people.

As I head into the holiday season I am thankful for the life I have that is filled with friends and family.

McKenzie and cousin Kayla, the sweetest Thanksgiving helpers around!


Ben getting a snuggle from Daddy.


After the meal the kids discovered a whole new place to play and took off under the table.

Baby It's Cold Outside!

We had our first snowfall of the year last week and actually had snow on the ground through Thanksgiving. Lucky for us the snow was accompanied by our good friend the sun so we were able to enjoy a little fun outside without getting too cold.

McKenzie knows all about snow and what to do with it. Her favorite thing to say was 'I'm going to throw a (Silent S) 'no-man at you'. Ben wasn't too sure about all the white stuff but he was game for checking it out. He was mainly excited to wear his snow boots and be free to wander around outside.

Ben trying to navigate the snow while McKenzie chases him with a snowball.


Our little snow angel doing her thing - she loves the snow and does not mind the cold.


On the move, McKenzie is ready to put on some snow shoes and go off road.


After about a half hour Ben looked at me with this sad little face and said 'All done.' and headed for the house. He's a man of few words but when he does speak it carries weight.


A good shot of the house in the snow with little man heading for home.


McKenzie's (silent S) 'no-man' made the first day of snow. He's tiny but to her he checked off the box for making a snowman.


Looking forward to more fun in the snow this Winter.  I am glad it only lasted a few days since I ordered a whole bunch of Christmas stuff online and the delivery men need to show up before Christmas this year.