Oh, Christmas!

Christmas Eve with the kids in their new PJs that grandma sent. They put out Brownies and Eggnog for Santa. Al & Cam wrote letters to Santa and Char colored a picture.

Aleah's favorite things were the desk from Aaron & I (I repainted it - cute, huh? :)) and the sewing machine Santa brought.

Of course, Cam's favorite things were his transformers - he figured them out very quickly. You can see Charlieman in the background on his new rocking horse.

Charlie loved everything he got, but the trains were his favorite. He got a Little People train set too.

Aaron and Clay both got new Skull Candy headphones, so did I (teal and silver :)). We spent all day updating our iPods with the new DefLeppard & AC/DC CDs I got and $75 worth of iTunes music Clay got (from gift cards). We were all very excited to hit the gym this week with our new gear.

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

Snow fall

When we went to Sundance a few weeks ago they were making snow and it was melting because it was in the 50s.

A week later it was a winter wonderland - except that we had a lot of projects to do that day and trying to move trucks and load things when it is a blizzard is not fun.

Of course the kids didn't mind at all. Cameron spent over 3 hours just playing outside. He didn't want to come back inside, but I was sure his little nose and fingers were about to fall off.

Aleah loved the snow until she got hit in the head by her brother's snowball. It was time for hot chocolate and marshmallows and some alone time then.

An now we have even more snow - at least if finally feels like Christmas is here.

Christmas time :)

The kids could not wait to put up the tree and the ornaments. They did most of it all by themselves - and we only broke one :).

Charlie is obsessed with Batman. He already had Batman sunglasses, but when our neighbor gave him a cape; that clinched it. He wears them nonstop and says things like ,"I Batman!...fear me!" and then flies around because he doesn't understand that it's superman that flies not Batman. I guess if it has a cape it should fly :).

Aculis had it's annual Christmas party at Sundance. It was so fun. Clay kept the kids overnight.

We let Charlie put the Angel on top of the tree this year. He was so proud of himself.

Aleah tested for her Orange Belt last week. We find out on Wednesday if she passed, but I'm almost positive that she did - she's great at Karate.

I totally have bloggers guilt. I can't believe I haven't posted in over a month. I've been so crazy busy - as I know most of you are this holiday season. But I've put some pictures on and I have some more to put on later. I hope everyone is doing well and no one and gone completely insane with all the shopping and family - try to slow down and enjoy the season. Aleah Giving her first Oral Report at School - It was on Parrots and she did a great job!

Jadey was here for Thanksgiving! Aleah spent every moment Uncle Clay allowed with her.

Charlie man had his first set of stitches - 8 to be exact. Cam was chasing him around the house and he tripped and bashed his head into the coffee table - I am not one of those 'pull-it-together-in-a-time-of-crisis' moms and I nearly had a nervous breakdown. Good thing Aaron was there. Charlie only cried for a few seconds; then he saw me freaking out and stopped immediately, put both hands on my face and said, "Okay, Mommy? Okay?" He didn't cry the whole rest of the time - with the needles or anything - amazing.

Uncle Clay took Jadey and Ali ice-skating - he is a brave man. They had so much fun.

Cam - this boy has me swinging on both ends of the emotion line within minutes. He was being a complete naughty boy, flying his superman into his brother's head, so we took it away and put him in time out. Within minutes he had come out and said, "Look, Mom!" He had built a new superman out of legos - it had a cape and everything. I was so amazed. He has such a talent when it comes to seeing things in his head and being able to build them out of legos.

Random Stuff

Aaron helping Charlie do a 'slam dunk' at Aleah's soccer game.

Once Cam saw Charlie doing it, of course he wanted a turn.

Ali is the one in blue sleeves at the far left. This was her last game of the Fall - she will miss soccer, but we are excited to have our Saturdays back.

Well, our lives have been very scrambled the last few months. Me working every night has been hard on everyone. Thank goodness I only have a week left and then I will only help out 'when needed' at the gym. Aaron's life has been chaos as well. He lost his job over a month ago, but started a new/old one yesterday. He is back at Aculis and very excited to be there. As soon as they found out he was looking for work, they called and wanted him back; but it took a while for all the details to go through. Aaron was so tired of being Mr. Mom and was ready to be at an office again - and just when he was getting good at dishes and laundry too :(. At least his football is done for the season and school will be done in 4 weeks - wow, we might actually have a normal schedule again.

Halloween

Pic 1: Gothic Girl - I tried to get Ali to smile and she explained that "Gothic Girls don't smile; they have attitude." - I know 9 year-old girls that have attitude also.

Pic 2: Werewolf Boy - Cam loved the fake teeth and painting his toenails/fingernails black the best - I thought he was more cute than scary, but he didn't appreciate me telling him that.

Pic 3: Monkey Man - Char has wanted to wear his costume for weeks, so when I told him the night before Halloween that as soon as he woke up tomorrow, he could wear it; we had no problem putting him to bed.

Pic 4: Witchy Women - my kid's said, "But you're a witch every year mom!" Well, that is mostly true; I change it up every once in a while, but it is the costume I love most; and, at least I'm not lame and don't dress up at all...Aaron.

Pic 5: Trick-o-treat - Aleah was great about helping Charlie get to the door; I have hardly any pics of Cam trick-o-treating because he was usually 2 doors ahead of us. I ended up taking his candy bucket so that he would have to run back to me after each house to deposit his loot.

Pumpkins

This pictures downloaded backwards for some reason, so the first ones are the finished pumpkins and the last are of them cleaning them out - weird. Anyway, the kids (this includes Aaron) were very excited about pumpkin carving this year. Aaron's SpongeBob SquarePants turned out amazing. Aleah got a little frustrated with her skull at first, but it was very spooky when she had finished. Cam really wanted a Spider-man, but since that was $5.00 to download, he had to go with a free spider instead - but he worked hard on it still the same - mom had to come to the rescue at the end when he got frustrated with carving and just started poking random holes all over the pumpkin, but he was very proud of it in the end. Charlie was dying to help at the beginning, so we let him stick his hands in the guts a few times and that cured his desire to touch the pumpkins. And when we lit them up and stuck them outside - they scared the pants off him. Now, Char will be quietly playing somewhere in the house when, suddenly, I will hear screaming and his little feet running as quickly as he can toward where I am. Then he will start yelling in a panicked voice, "Scareee Punkin, Mom, Scareee Punkin!"