A Very Merry Christmas

This is my first Christmas post. Not quite sure how I want to handle this one. I like Christmas, but it's not my favorite holiday. (4th of July) We celebrate and enjoy ourselves, the kids love going to the get-together's at Gran's for Christmas Eve and Grandma's for Christmas Day. It's all pretty traditional. I think I would like to take this time to talk about what we did differently this year.
The biggest difference comes in the form of our celebration of Jesus' Birthday. The tradition would be to go to church 45 minutes early and fight for a spot with the "Christers" (Pronounced Kree-sters, Christmas and Easter church go-ers, I guess nowadays that describes me.) This year I suggested we go to a live nativity scene. After speaking with the Pastor and actually driving to the location to confirm it's existence, my Mom agreed to try it. I thought it was so perfect. A heated barn, hay bale seats, live animals and the story of Jesus's birth, complete with a real live baby. Callie made sure she got up close and personal. Prior to church we sang Christmas Carole's to the residents at Great Grandma's Nursery Rhyme(Nursing Home). I thought it would be cheesy, but it was actually really nice.
Usually Chrstmas Morning we go to my Mom's for breakfast. I decided it would be less rushing for my family if we had the breakfast here. I hope to continue this as a tradition. It worked out perfectly. And my sticky-buns turned out fabulous! It's a big responsibility to make those sticky-buns, high expectations from the crowd! Carol would be proud!
As far as Christmas' go, I would say I enjoyed this one the most out of recent Christmas's.
The rest of this week has been particularly relaxing. Not much of anything on the calendar, very little driving. Staying up late, sleeping in. Trent and Marshall have been busy building lego Star Wars ships. Trent got about 2000+ pieces for Christmas. I told him I had built my last lego ship. If he wanted all those lego toys, he was on his own. No problem. He and daddy have it under control. Two more ships to go and the floor will be free of pieces....for now! Callie has been enjoying her Dora Pegasus. The gift she totally wanted and I totally did not want to get for her. (They don't make toys like they used to.) She got a baby that responds to her holding it, or feeding it. That thing hasen't been far from her arms since the moment she opened it.
Thank you to everyone for all the gifts, meals and wonderful celebrations. My favorite thing about Christmas is enjoying time spent together. Whether we are honoring old traditions or starting new ones.

The BIG Game!

The highlight of my year happened this past weekend! Trent got to play hockey at the Admiral's Game. When Marshall and I used to go to games I would watch those kids out there and smile. I couldn't wait to have our kids doing that. When we got the invite I couldn't have been more excited. I spread the word. Trent had 15 cheering fans! Owen even brought his cow bell! He played for an hour before the game and then during the first break of the Admirals Game. We dressed in the lower level. The professional players were here and there. Trent is more excited about a high five from Uncle Luke than a professional hockey player, so that was no thing for him. For me it was fun to get the "backstage" experience. He also got his picture with the mascot Roscoe. The kids game before was the first time Trent played on a full sheet of ice and against a goalie. He had good stamina and even with the goalie scored a goal. When they played during the Admiral's game they sent all the kids on the ice, it was pretty much a free for all. It was only six minutes, so he didn't get to score in front of the whole stadium, but he still enjoyed his time in the spotlight. He took a victory lap around the rink waving to the people in the crowd and high-fiving all the coaches on the bench. I was so proud of him for his confidence. (Click the triangle to play the video.)

Thanks to everyone for sharing this memory with us. I know I will never forget it. Marshall's Grandma commented, the only other time she'd been at the Bradley Center was to watch Marshall play in college. Now she watched Trent. It came full circle. I feel the same way.

Like Mother....

Marshall was reminding the kids about behaving. He said, "You know what Santa brings the naughty kids." Callie answered, "Coal." Trent replies, "Yeah, but you can just smash it up and make a diamond!"
That's my little optimist!

Callie's Debut

The kids had their Christmas Concerts yesterday. I was really excited for Callie's first. I cried all through Trent's first. It was good, but mainly I cried because I somehow forgot my camera. Wednesday morning I overheard the concert coordinator talking about rescheduling because of the weather forcast for the concert day (Friday, 11 inches of snow!). I told them I hoped that they would definitely do it on another day. I wouldn't want to miss Callie's debut! Her teacher told me Callie sang the loudest out of the whole class. I believe that. She loves to sing. Everyday I could hear her in her room or in the car practicing the songs. They ended up cancelling school for that day and pushing it to yesterday. It was a good decision. Today (Friday) we got 8 inches! (Got all those days straight???) I was all set, camera in hand. Here are a couple of clips. (Click the triangle to play, turn on your speakers.)

This year Trent was concertrating more on throwing snowballs than singing, but that was more fun to watch anyway!

Santa's Here!

Marshall is focusing on getting some holiday traditions going for our family. We have a lot of things going on with the extended family's but nothing that feels like ours
Last year we took Trent to see "A Christmas Carol". This year Callie came too. It's a start for us. We warned Callie ahead of time about the Ghost of Christmas Future. It turned out to be both their favorite ghost. Go figure!
After the show the cast are in the lobby to collect donations for charity. Last year Trent gave his money to the Ghost of Christmas Future. It really is a great, intense costume. He remembered that and asked for money ahead of time. This year we met with one of the regular cast, but it was much more interesting to Trent to play with the mans wig! Marshall had to work a conference the rest of the weekend, but the kids and I renewed one of my old holiday tradtions. We went to welcome Santa to town. Since the reindeer need to rest for their big night Santa comes in on the Trolley. When I was a girl we would catch him on the tracks right down the way from my parents. My Aunt would always dress-up as one of the elves and they would stop especially for us. I am glad the tradition continues.
We were late to hit the stop by my parents house so we drove up the tracks a bit. We parked on a side street, I turned on my hazards and we said "Hi" to Santa. When I went back to start the car it was dead. The kids leave the lights on all the time and it has been a problem. I wasen't surprised. I asked the car behind me if he had jumper cables, since I had reminded myself to no avail that I need to put them in my car for just this occasion. He did, got the car started and we headed off to see the tree lighting on the Square. I love our ex-little town. We bumped into some friends and they invited us over for some hot chocolate and Grog. It turned into a really nice evening.

A tale of two B's

I took Callie to Kohl's to get some tights. I went in the door opposite the children's section which meant I had to cross the whole store and go to the back. I ended up cutting through the middle which happens to be the lingerie section which borders the middle on two whole sides. I realized this was a mistake too late!
When we started walking through she was identifying the sections. "Jewelry Section, socks' section, gloves section, boob section, boob section, boob section, (WALK FASTER JENNY!) boob section, robe section, picture frame section."

It reminded me of this woman in Target. Her daughter pointed out the bra's and asked who would buy them. The Mom said, "Any one who wants to." The daughter continued to ask questions. The Mom suddenly started pretending she was a telephone. "Brr-ring, Brr-ring!" The daughter kept questioning. "Brr-ring! Some one is calling!" The daughter kept questioning. "Brr-ring, answer the phone!"

Callie told my Mom that she needed a bra and insisted she find one in her size. My Mom couldn't convince her otherwise and Callie went and found herself a girls size bra. I'm glad my Mom said no for once!

Ah the joys of womanhood! Boobs and bras'!