Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here!

Christmas, Christmas time is here...time for joy and time for cheer! (I'm channeling Jason dressed as Alvin singing in the Promenade Mall, ha!).  Oh what a fun time of year this is, we love Christmas!  We are having fun, but trying to convey the true meaning of the celebration.  Gwyn wanted to make Jesus a birthday cake for his birthday, but was a little concerned that we couldn't give it to Him.  Our house is decorated and we somehow survived a week without Brian who traveled to Norway this past week.

I did snap these pictures of the kids before Rick and Sue left when we took pictures with them...love these precious kiddos!

 The best picture I could get of Annie, who was steal healing from her face plant on the driveway:

 We managed to decorate for Christmas before Brian left, Jacob was pretty excited how tall his tree still was.  He said he couldn't remember how tall it was.  He was this year very particular about which ornaments went on his tree.  He didn't want the Lightning McQueen one he had picked out a couple of years ago.  I told him the point was that he got to pick out one ornament / year, and that way we can see all the things he was "into" throughout the years.  He decided to let Annie hang several ornaments on his tree.  There were several with pictures of Jacob when he was a baby, and he thought those were of Annie.  He was pretty surprised and said, "I guess when I was a baby, I looked like Annie!"

 Gwyn filled her tree, but was a little sad that hers was smaller and the same size as Annie's.  She wanted a medium tree because she was medium...maybe next year!

 Annie loved decorating her own tree and could care less what ornament it was, just as long as it went on her tree.  Her poor little tree toppled over several times because she hung the all on one side.  I had to help her out by balancing out the load.

 Loved this ornament that Jacob drew and cut out for Gwyn for her tree.  It is of her, so sweet!

 Jacob is into this whole Santa thing.  He has come up with a frog bowl with water frogs in it like he has in his class in school, gum, and money.  Gwyn, however, has only asked Santa for a snowflake.  Awesome, who knows what we are going to do there.  Oh, and she did ask Jacob to write a letter to Santa to put Conner on the bad list since he was mean to her at school.  You do not want to get on this girls bad side, she'll take it straight to Santa!!

 While Brian was gone, I did my best to keep the kids entertained.  I picked Jacob up for school one day (which is super cool to be a car  rider), and took the kids the mall to see Santa (surprising no one cried!!), ride the train, and get a cookie.  An amazing $52 spent in all of 30 minutes!  The kids loved the train:

 Gwyn on the train ride:

 Jacob and Annie on the train ride:

 We made paper chains to countdown to Christmas.  Gwyn's was all red:

 I helped Annie with hers, who's was red and green:

 Jacob was pretty proud of his being blue and green manly colors:

 Kong Kong made it back this year and is getting into mischief again...Brian is the creative one, and poor Kong Kong didn't even move the first night Brian was gone, so I had to step it up.  Gwyn is still the best at spotting him, and many of mornings is up at 5:30 walking around downstairs trying to find him.  He got into some ribbon one day:

 He got out some powdered sugar and made a big mess (this I realized was not the best idea since I'm the one who had to clean it up too!):

 We went to the park a couple of days and met some friends, and played outside every day.  The kids are big into making up games.  Their favorite this week is playing puppy dog where one of them throws gold fish on the floor and the other two act like puppy dogs and eat them up off the floor.  This would have freaked me out when I just had Jacob.  I'd be over there making him spit it out, sanitizing his hands, and cleaning it up.  Now, I just tell them to make sure they eat it all up!  Here they are carrying Annie in the ball basket outside...she was laughing until the second I took this picture, I don't normally let them torture her!

 Jacob was super excited to get his OSU jersey in the mail from G and Grandpa.  He looks good in orange, and how awesome is OSU!!!

 When Brian got back in town, we took him up to the new "hot dog store" which is basically a coney island, but not near as good as "The Coney" in Sand Springs.  We then took him to Ooh, La, La, a new little dessert place by our house.  This is pretty much 3 days after Jacob received his jersey, but he wore it for 4 days straight!

 Annie likes playing with the fountain:

 Annie sure missed her Daddy:

 I love my DADDY!

Annie is talking up a storm, full sentences, and now she's even singing songs:



 I loved Jacob's little ginger man from computer class:

 Another art piece from this week:

 Had to throw a few of these pictures that Jacob took on my phone...you never know what you'll get!  I guess he has his own little subject that will pose exactly as he tells her:

Funny things the kids said this week:
Jacob:  Grown up shows are so boring, you just like to watch people talk to each other??
Gwyn:  Annie likes tipper toppers (tator tots).
Gwyn:  Nana is a slow poke, you are a fast poke Mommy.
Gwyn:  Burrr bunny (instead of burr rabbit like I say).
Annie:  Look at my tree, es so beautiful!
Gwyn:  Let's play Simon Says, I'll be the Simoner.
Gwyn:  Let's play Duck Duck Goose, I'll be the Ducker.