Well I finally figured out how to upload my Christmas pics from my new camera so I figured now would be a great time to write about it.

Christmas is my favorite time of year. I don't know what it is about the music or the cold feeling in the air or the decorations and lights but I just LOVE it. In fact I made DH take me to Disneyland when we went to LA for Thanksgiving because that place is just MAGIC at Christmas. I took my two older girls there a couple of years ago the week of Thanksgiving and it was just amazing to me. So even though he could have cared less about the place and we wasted a whole day there fighting crowds and a cranky baby - we went and had the BEST time - later after we dropped off the baby with my mom :-D So basically I am one of the people who CHEERS when I see the Christmas decorations go up in July. I start thinking of all my preparations at least in October and refer to the "holiday season" the day after Labor Day :-)







Each year I take the kids to the store and let them all pick out an ornament for the year and pick one for the family to sort of symbolize something we did or went through that year. This is the kids decorating the tree and munching on some Christmas cookies. We put up the tree I think the Monday after Thanksgiving since we didn't have the kids until then. They had so much fun and I loved telling stories about each ornament. I used to have to fill it up with bows or balls but the tree is almost full now with just our special ones! Each year we get at least 6 new ones so I guess it's going to be full fast! This year R picked a jeweled snowflake, M picked a Nascar thing, B picked a snowflake (HAS to be like R), and Mad got a Mickey ball to symbolize her first trip to Disneyland. dh and I picked a frame and put in a picture taken of us on our first anniversary and I chose a glass angel ornament for the family that says "The love of a family is life's greatest blessing" - I chose this more so to remind myself ;-) I might need to find a place for it somewhere in the house.


This picture is the kids making these gift jars that we gave out as gifts this year. They each got to choose a recipe for their teachers, mom or dad, grandparents etc and measure out all the ingredients themselves. Then they got to decorate the jars. They had so much fun with it and the jars were quite a hit!


Then there was dh's work's Christmas party. It was a nice excuse to get dressed up, get out of the house alone, and as it turned out get a night away! His work bought rooms at the Sheraton for a major discount so people didn't have to worry about driving home that night. There was a shuttle to and from the party too. We took this picture in front of the tree in the lobby at the hotel before we left. Poor Honey had the flu SO BAD we almost couldn't go. But we had already paid for the hotel and were so damn excited about getting a night to ourselves we went anyway - he's such a trooper ;-) The party sucked since the only entertainment they offered was Kareoke and they didn't offer enough alcohol to make it entertaining. So we left on the first shuttle back. We had a great time though. Our hotel room was gorgeous and we hadn't had a night alone since our wedding night over a year ago so we could have been in a cardboard box and been excited about it ;-) So we made the most of our time. We even got up early and sat on the little porch overlooking these beautiful ponds and fountains with our coffee and just talked for about 2 hours! It was so good for us.


On December 23rd we had a holiday party for my 'sisters' that I've known since I was 6 and their families. I LOVED decorating and being hostess :-D DH cooked a turkey and all the trimmings and it turned out great, I think everyone had fun. I made little mini scrapbooks called paperbag albums for each of them full of pictures of the three of us and they came out soooooooo damn cute I wish I'd taken a picture of em! And yes, I took a picture of my table - I need it for my scrapbook! ;-)



And I think that will be all for now...it has taken me TWO HOURS to get these few pictures to upload to this damn thing. I HATE DIAL-UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I guess I will just have to work on getting Christmas Day stuff up tomorrow or something. Whatever. What else is there to do when the baby gets you up at 5?