Christmas has come and gone...

.... and I've already put up all of our Christmas stuff in the house. I was just already tired of it, and my tree was dieing (Daisy kept drinking all of the water!) so we put it all up yesterday.

The boys had a WONDERFUL Christmas of course, and got way too much stuff. My mom bought them a trampoline (their other one was falling apart- they use it a LOT), and a Razor PowerWing, which is really cool, and then all of them some new pj's.

Matt's mom bought Daylon a real guitar and a lego set. Jace got a microphone thing (he loves to sing), and a Kid's Tough digital camera. She bought Kelton got a lego set and a Nintendo DS game. And then Blayden got some wooden puzzles and a car from her.

Then Matt and I bought them all a Nerf gun each- which whas been a huge hit... they've been going around the house shooting each other constantly! We got Daylon a K'Nex set, an iPod speaker dock (it has radio too and he's been listening to it CONSTANTLY!!), a new game for his video game player.... and a few other things... I don't even remember. Jace got a Playmobil pirate ship set, a Pirates of the Caribean pirate ship, and a radio control car that goes up the wall (yes, it really works! LOL) Kelton got a new game for his Nintendo DS, a remote control car that goes on the wall, and something else but again, I don't remember.... :-) Blayden got a big coloring book and crayons, a book, and a small piano.

Santa brought Blayden a Black and Decker workbench, and a tricycle. Kelton got the big Kota ride-on dinosaur (which, BTW, does NOT move, it just "bounces" and growles at you.... Blayden still isn't sure about it yet!), and a few other small toys. Jace's "big" present from Santa was a Nintendo DS and 3 games. And Daylon got a new bike and an Erector build-a-car thing. He's been working on it almost constantly! They all got more than I've listed (I think they had 7 presents total each from us and Santa) but I just can't remember what all they got.

So they really did all walk away with way too many toys and stuff!!

Matt and the boys went shopping for me the other day and apparently each kid (except BB) got to pick out something for me. Kelton bought me some camoflage stuff- a shirt, pants, and a jacket, and then a pink "fishing shirt." I didn't even know that they HAD fishing shirts, but apparently they do! And now I have one!! :-) Jace got me this REALLY soft blue robe that I absolutely love- it's wonderful and soft and comfortable! Daylon picked out a bunch of stuff from Bath & Body Works- bath soaps and lotions.... yummy!! And then Matt got me a new iPhone. I've been saying I wanted one but I'm surprised that he actually got it for me! :-) I LOVE it too!!! And then I got a gift card for Barnes and Nobles from my MIL, and my mom just gave me $100 cash which is ALWAYS nice!!

I just got Matt a cover for his grill (which apparently is the wrong size- go figure!), and a camo backpack. Before you feel too bad though, remember that he just bought himself (with my go-ahead) a new Rolex watch last month when we were in The Virgin Islands!! :-) So his Christmas was taken care of early....

I think that's about it though. I do have pictures.... that would just require me going out to my car and getting my camera and then downloading them. Which is something I don't feel like doing right this second! :-) But I'll get to them soon, I promise.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas as well!!!!

Track Santa

You can already track Santa at Noradsanta.com I just checked and he's in Indonesia at this second. :-)

It's Christmas Eve!!

Despite the fact that it's 60 degrees outside right now, I'm really in the Christmas mood and I can't WAIT until tomorrow morning!!! I finished all of my shopping a few weeks ago (except for a few minor little things) and had everything wrapped.

Matt took the boys (yes, ALL FOUR!) with him yesterday to get gifts for me. (I ran errands with my mom, got my eyebrows waxed and my hair trimmed, had lunch with my mom, etc. It was nice to be able to do those things without worrying about the boys or having to mess with them. Lovely!) But, anyway, Matt came home with stuff for me, and the boys "wrapped" them with Matt last night. I say it like that because instead of actually wrapping, which Matt HATES to do, he got regular boxes, and got the boys to decorate them (he decorated one himself, with a picture of 2 people- one with obvious boobs!- holding hands, and then a heart with our initials in it. How sweet is that?!?!? I'm in love!!) :-) They also put bows on the boxes, and then put them all under the tree. All EIGHT of them. Yeah... I know. I think he put one item per box so the boys would have more to do. LOL

Anyway, I'm having my mom, maybe my stepdad (he had total hip replacement last Thursday on his left hip, so it depends on how he's feeling), my sister and her family, and us for dinner tonight. Everyone is supposed to show up at 4:30, we'll eat an early dinner, then head to church for the 6 o'clock Christmas Eve service (Central Baptist if you're wondering!) :-) Then we'll head BACK to my house to open gifts, have dessert, etc. My mom bought the boys a trampoline so I'm SUPER excited to see what they think of that. And of course, that's what Matt and I will probably be doing tomorrow afternoon- putting that thing together! LOL

So... I'm off to fix stuff for dessert for tonight (Chocolate chip cream cheese ball), and cookies for Santa (Peanut Butter- Santa LOVES Peanut Butter, don't you know?!?!) and clean up the house some more (Gunner got feet prints ALL over my floor last night. And I just got it cleaned on Monday!! Great!)

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!! Take LOTS of pictures and videos, etc. and share them!!

Love you all!!!

Boys, boys, and more boys... and one poor little girl!!

Well, I thought I would be creative tonight so I decided to invite my sister, her kids, and then our friends the Stuarts and their kids all over to our house tonight to decorate Christmas ornaments. Yumm.. yeah.

So Julie Stuart and I went to Hobby Lobby this morning to get all the stuff and we kind of went wild- and didn't really get all that we should have. And then they all came over around 5:30, Aaron (Julie's husband) cooked chicken fajitas (remember, Matt is still out of town!), we ate, and then we (the women) helped the kids decorate the ornaments.

Now, think of this. It's me, my sister Becca, and Julie. And we have....

Clay- Julie's oldest who is 9

Daylon- who is 8

Tyler- who is Julie's 2nd son who is 7

Jace- who is 6

Caden- my nephew who is 6

Kelton- who is 5

Aubry- who is 4 (I think??) and Julie's daughter. The ONLY girl!!

Kyle- my other nephew who is 3

and Blayden- who is almost 23 months

So we had 9 kids, 9 years old and younger. And all but one of those were boys. My kitchen table was a disaster!! (It really wasn't too bad and didn't take too long to clean up.)

Oh... and just in case you ever need to know..... rubbing alcohol takes permenant marker out of wood tables REALLY easily. You can't even tell that Blayden decorated our fairly new kitchen table with a black permanant marker anymore!!! :-)

I'm exhausted and am going to bed.

(Oh, and just in case you are wondering- I know you are.... here's exactly what Matt's been doing... Yes. It's gross. I know.)

It's going to be another LONG weekend....

Well, first off, my step-dad is having his left hip replaced tomorrow morning, so he'll be in the hospital at least until Sunday with that. Please pray for both him and my mom and her sanity.

Matt is leaving EARLY tomorrow morning (like 5:30ish) to head to S. Houston to meet up with a friend to then leave for Del Rio to go deer hunting for the weekend. He'll be back at some point on Sunday. So I'll have the boys with me for the weekend (thank goodness Daylon will be going to spend the night with a friend on Friday night, so that will be one less kid to take care of for the evening.) It's not like I don't enjoy spending time with the boys, it's just that by the end of the day when Matt comes home, I'm ready to relax and let him take care of them a little bit and help me out, ya know??

And then on Sunday we're having Christmas with my mother-in-law (Matt's going to have to meet us there at her house when he comes back to town). So that should be a lot of fun. I just need to get her a few things and then wrap the gifts for Sarah, Matt's little sister- who is 17 now!!!- and for Travis, Matt's step-brother who lives with Matt's mom and step-dad. Maybe Matt can watch the kids tonight so I can go and do that before he goes out of town. Sounds nice to me!! :-)

Now for a few updates:

Blayden and Kelton both had their Christmas parties at their MDO yesterday. Fun stuff! (And I'm room mom for both of them so it was a lot of running back and forth for me. Thank goodness for all of the moms that were there and did most of the work!!) So they've been at home with me and Kelton is already asking when he's going back to school. It's going to be a long break. (They go back January 8 and I can't wait! LOL) Blayden has been super fussy yesterday afternoon and today, so I'm not sure what's up with him. No fever or anything, just gripey.

Jace and Daylon are both having a super busy but fun week at school. Tuesday was Kindergarten movie day so Jace got to take a pillow to school and they watched "Polar Express" in the cafeteria. Can't beat that! And today was pajama day for both of them. Apparently, Jace got made fun of because he wore his Ratattoili (sp?) pj's. Poor kid (I did warn him though.) Still, it's always fun and different to go to school in your pajama's, right?? And then tomorrow is their sing-a-long. I'm going to try to make it to that with Kelton and Blayden. We'll see.... and then Friday they get out early after a morning of Christmas parties. And THEN they'll have a few weeks off (they go back to school Jan 5.)

As for me.... I finally got all of my grades in and I finished the semester off with a 3.75 GPA. (That's 3 A's and 1 B). I'm happy with it but tried really hard for the 4.0. Maybe next semester!! I'll be taking 15 hours instead of the 12 that I took this semester though, so we'll see. And one of those classes in an online math (calculus) class and I'm just not very good at math. So I'm a little concerned. Oh well, I'll do what I can and try my hardest!! :-)

I think that's about it. Still finishing getting ready for Christmas. I have all of the boys presents and everything is wrapped... just waiting until the 25th! I need to get Matt a few things too, (again, hoping he'll watch the boys tonight for me!) but other than that, I think I'm good. I'm ready for Christmas though!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week and weekend!!!

Snow?? In College Station?!?!?!

Yep, you heard it straight from the sorce. It actually snowed quite a bit yesterday!!! We woke up yesterday morning to about 1/4" on the ground (hey, it counts, right?!?!) and then all day long it sleeted and then started snowing again right around 3:00 (RIGHT when I went to pick up the boys from school- doesn't that figure?!)

By 5:00 or so, it was a regular blizzard, (at least for us!) and it didn't slow down for quite a while. It was SOO beautiful and the boys had a blast (so did Matt and I for that matter!!!) We were able to build SEVERAL snowmen and had a few snowball fights. It was already starting to melt when we woke up this morning, and was completely gone (except for the snowmen- but those had fallen over and were looking pretty sad) by 10:00 this morning. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!!!

Here are a few pictures of our snow experience. I have determined that I would LOVE to live somewhere where it snowed in the winter. Well, as long as I didn't have to drive in it- just the idea of that scares me!!! :-)

Enjoy!

Blayden playing out in it when it first started to snow (he kept saying "bubbles!" as the snow was coming down. Poor, confused kid!!)


Even Gunner enjoyed it- see his grin?!?


The house when it was really starting to come down good:


Jace's snowman (yes, he did a lot of it himself!)


Kelton (stupid thing wouldn't stay out of his face and he wouldn't be still long enough for me to fix it):


Daylon's big snow ball. Yep, he threw it. At Matt!


Jace's HUGE snowball. Matt had to take it across the street so he could get more snow. And then had to carry it BACK to our house. He said it must have weighed at least 80 pounds!!


Matt's truck:

Why is it...???

Why is it that my kids will get up at the butt-crack of dawn on the weekends, but then want to sleep in on Monday morning (and sometimes other days of the week as well)??? What is it that makes them do that? I KNOW that Daylon and Jace are old enough to figure out that since they don't have school on the weekends, they can sleep in. But they can't sleep in on Monday mornings!!

This morning for instance; I was exhausted, and slept until 7:05 and had to get the boys up for school. Well, neither one of them wanted to get up and get going. At ALL. But this weekend?? They were all up at 7:00, ready to play!! Ugg!!!!

Anyway! I'd better get off here. I have 2 finals to study for today. One's at 10:30 and the other one is at 3:30. So at least I'll have a break in between the two to study for the second one. Fun stuff!

Hope everyone has a wonderful day today!!!

I'm such in the Christmas mood!!

Well, today was awesome for me!! I got up, got Daylon and Jace off to school, took Kelton and Blayden to their MDO at 9, and then met my mom at Academy to start a day of shopping. After finding the trampoline we wanted for her to buy the boys for Christmas (they have one, but it's old and falling apart and they LOVE it so she's getting them another one), we went to Target, where I did really well on stocking stuffers and a few Nintendo DS games for Kelton and Jace, and spent about 2 hours or so there (at least it felt like it!)

Then we went BACK to Academy, met Matt there so he could pick up the trampoline in his truck, and got Daylon a new bike (from Santa) while we were there. So that worked out.

Then over to Toys R Us to find a Razor dirt bike for my nephew (who's birthday is today- Happy Birthday, Caden!!) My mom got that for him for a birthday and Christmas combined gift. Then we went over to the other Target to find pj's for my boys (my mom bought them for them for Christmas, always nice!), ate a REALLY fast lunch of Pizza Hut there at Target, then had to get back to my car so I could go pick up Blayden and Kelton.

I LOVE shopping for the boys!! We decided to not go to New Mexico this year like we had originally planned, so now I get to spend a little more money on gifts. I love shopping for them, finding things I know they will like, and anticipating them opening up the gifts on Christmas morning. Fun stuff!! Matt and I still need to go and get the "big" stuff for all of them, but I got some of the little stuff done, (and already a present for each of them actually WRAPPED!!) I just can't wait until Christmas!! (BTW, Matt has sold TWO pools in the last 4 days, so that's a big help to us right now!!! Go Matt!! LOL) :-)

I love Christmas time!! And this cold weather (it's supposed to get around 35 degrees here tonight) is SOOOO awesome!!! I need to live somewhere where it's always cold!! LOL

Getting a little break...

Man, it's SOO nice to be out of school for a little while!! I have a few finals left, and then I'm out for the winter break. I needed it too!!! But, my finals should be pretty easy- one of them is on Friday and is online, open book. The next one is Monday morning, and that's really the only one I'll have to actually STUDY for- the other one is from questions that we (the students) came up with ourselves. And we've made a nice Facebook group to share those questions and answers, so we just need to study that. Gotta love it!! :-)

Kelton and Blayden have MDO every Tuesday and Thursday until Dec. 16, so I'll get a few days in there where I won't have to worry about them- maybe get some much-needed Christmas shopping done! LOL

Jace and Daylon are doing good in school- Jace just loves going and loves playing with other friends. He's learning to read pretty well, and I'm just hoping that he's not dyslexic as well- so far he seems to not be. Daylon's going well, just struggling with spelling words. He's really improving on his reading though, so that's a nice change.

Matt's been really slow at work- no one ever wants to think about a swimming pool in the middle of winter. He sold a pool the day before yesterday though, so that's good! And he's got 3 more people that are very interested, he just has to convince them it's a good idea! :-)

I think that's about it for us. Oh! Blayden is becoming a little toot and talking SO much. Matt asked him to "come to Daddy" last night (he was clinging to me, and I was trying to leave to see the Rockapella holiday concert at MSC with my mom), and Blayden looked at him and say "No way!!!" We just had to laugh (which caused him to say it over and over again!) He's just such a fun age!!