Christmas Day

Unlike last year, we stayed at home this Christmas and enjoyed being just our little family. 

Santa came and the kids struggled with staying in bed until 7:30 am.  Even with stockings full to keep them occupied, the kids were running up the stairs at 7:25 dying to get to their presents.  I found out later that Colby had been up at 2 am to "get a drink of water" and had soaked in all the Christmas glory.  

The Loot.

The tortured children who had to get a picture taken before opening any presents!

Christmas Eve night a crazy snow and wind storm rolled through our area.  Every window on every side of our home looked like this Christmas morning.  It was nuts!  I hope Santa and his reindeer didn't freeze their hides off.  

Because Santa likes to torture our children, he left a master list with the names associated with the numbered presents under the tree.  That Santa is a tricky one.

The kids had to wait patiently while the kids unwrapped presents one by one.

Carter's ski trip certificate was one of the few unwrapped presents under (in) the tree.

Grady's stocking was full of socks and new "gi-gi's"

Santa's brought Saylor a unicorn after all.

Because he is 11 and is now going to attend overnight camping trips. 

Andrew was a great sport and modeled his new footie pjs…but only while holding his manly new water polo ball.

Legos!  

What else is there in life?

As seen here, the presents were SO good that a little (fake) fainting was experienced Christmas morning.

Fainting spell #1.

Oh Elsa how we love thee...

Water proof camera????

You must have been really good this year Andrew.

Fainting spell #2.

Over more Legos of course.

Carter makes the BEST faces!

Elsa needed a few buddies.

More Lego stuff mixed in with Carter's awesome faces.

I love Christmas messes!

I love this guy too.

New crazy t-shirts!

Fainting spell #3.

Yeah…it was worth it.

Fredrickson's caramels and lemon cremes packed in with thank you notes from the kids.

New ring.

It's a genuine cubic.  Perfect!

Silver coins with love from Grandma Dixon.

My favorite gifts!

The only better gifts are these!

My kids' favorite gift was this track.  Santa finds crazy good stuff online!

The track kept the kids occupied for hours and hours.

Our day included way too much sugar cereal, bacon, candy and hot chocolate.

It finished off with waffles and more bacon with Spencer and Eden and then we headed to Grandma Dixon's house for a few hours.

We were wiped out when we finally got into bed late Christmas night.

Best Christmas ever.

(Yeah…I think Elsa is the favorite.)

Dixon Christmas Eve

Before the Christmas Eve post, I have to add that I made Steve buy a real tree on December 12th.  Our fake one wasn't cutting it for me.  I think I've been converted to the real tree.  We slid our already decorated tree into the office and placed it in front of the window and then decorated our real alpine tree.    One memory that must be mentioned is that the tree started slipping off the top of the car on the way home.  Steve opened the sun roof and I grabbed the trunk and kept it in place as we laughed out loud driving slowly home.  Nothing like a Christmas adventure.

This memory must also be mentioned.  Our ward Christmas party earlier this month was Hawaii themed including a beach backdrop and Hawaiian shirts for pictures.  Grady DID NOT want to remove his blue shirt.  He loved it.  We had to pry it off his crying body in order not to steal.  Crazy little kid. 

Now onto Christmas Eve...

 The day started with huge boxes of sugar cereal or pop tarts for everyone.

(side note:  Carter can't eat sugar cereal.  No matter how we dose him, his blood sugar spikes like crazy.  Crazy enough, Pop Tarts are totally fine.  I'm grateful he's a good sport about it all.)

Huge new cereal bowls were delivered by yours truly too.

 This morning, Andrew had to admit defeat and couldn't finish his second bowl.  Mission accomplished!

Reece's Puffs are delicious!

In the afternoon, I caved and let the kids decorate sugar cookies.

I kind of despise the mess, but I was trying to be fun.  Kids were happy and mess was contained.  There was minimal knife licking so that always cheers me up.

Christmas Eve night we went to Steve's parents house for dinner and program.

Steve smoked a turkey, we brought potatoes and sugar cookies.

The kids table is the place to be I think.

Grady had a place set at the adult table next to me, but refused to sit there.  He marched over the kids table and climbed right up.

 After dinner.

I must say that I felt so grateful sitting with my Dixon Family on Christmas Eve.  I am fortunate to have a loving family who are all such wonderful examples to me of selflessness Christ like service.   I hope my children one day realize how lucky they are to have grown up with both the Walker and Dixon families!

Little Andrew and Grady.

Opening gift exchange presents.

Our Andrew had Carter.  (our kids made up more than half of the grand kid gift exchange)

Andrew got him a middle school started kit including a new sling bag.  My heart hurts a little thinking about Carter in middle school.

Gift cards make the best gifts for teenagers.

We didn't leave the Dixon house until almost 9 pm.  Grady was completely worn out.  He fell asleep still pushing the buttons on his new truck from little Andrew.

Cookies and carrots!

I must dictate the letter to Santa.  

"Dear Santa, Saylor was worried about your milk being too warm when you get here.  Help yourself to the milk in the fridge or a diet coke so you can stay awake for the rest of your trip.  Love, Saylor, Colby, Andrew and Carter"

What the tree looked like before we went to bed.

Oh…and this showed up on our door Christmas Eve in a refrigerated box.

More shots for Carter.

And…hopefully bigger clothes.

Love, Us

Merry Christmas 2014

love, the Dixon Family

Steve (?)

Jill (?-5)

Andrew (14)

Carter (11)

Colby (8)

Saylor (5)

Grady (21 months)

Alive and Kicking

I'm alive and kicking even though I feel I'm behind in everything.  To be perfectly frank, I've struggled this Christmas season.  I've struggled being happy and not allowing the "stuff" to get in the way of enjoying Christmas.  

There have been more bad stressful days than good.  My chest has felt heavy with obligations and long lists of "need to do's."  I've never felt my time less my own and felt my schedule more full and burdened.

This afternoon has been one of the first times I've felt I could sit down and write…and I hate that.  But this morning, I felt a light at the end of the tunnel.  My kids are home from school, we currently do not have any sickness in our family, and I think we are super close to being ready for Christmas.  I want to stay home from now on and just enjoy my family.  I'm crossing my fingers here.

Some catch up things that have been going on in the last week...

I finally got my family book finished and ordered.  I had a coupon code that saved me $816 dollars!  Say What?   Yes…$816.  Kind of love that coupon code for unlimited free pages when your family book is 160 pages long.  I feel like I stole from Shutterfly.  Hee hee.

Saylor keeps changing her Santa list and tells our elf what she wants that's new daily.  I'm very afraid she will be disappointed for Christmas.  Santa currently does not have a pink unicorn OR a special shell shaped Ariel locket with a picture of a mermaid in it for Saylor in his sack.  How dare he!

I'm so so happy this kid is not sick anymore.

…but he did have a green nose this morning.  I'm hoping he's not catching yet another virus.

Carter missed three days of school last week.  His blood sugar had not returned to normal and I had to keep him home.  He was a fantastic help with Grady.  

…on another note, Carter's first doses of growth hormone will be on our doorstep tomorrow.  I'm anxious for this new crazy adventure we are starting with him and I CANT wait to buy him longer pants!

The plan was to give them all away. 

My family ended up eating most of the loaves.  My neighbors only got cards this year.  Oh well.

Grady's most favorite isle in Target.

I was in charge of Colby's class Christmas party this year.  

One mother who signed up to help canceled the morning of and informed me that she was ok with her sick daughter missing the party this year because she didn't feel we were doing anything great and that it wasn't a "Good Party" anyway.  I'm not even exaggerating here.  

I was pretty steamed.  I planned the party exactly how Colby's teacher wanted it.  She wanted board games and sugar cookies. I even had tiny individual containers of frosting and sprinkles for homemade sugar cookies.

I've now decided that I will never be a room mother again.  I'm getting to old for this crap.

(I'm not bitter…really I'm not.)

Saylor sat with my mom this week and named every Walker cousin in order by age.  

She almost got all the Dixon cousins too! 

Cute little girl.

Candy Cane Envy.

Our elf lying down on the job.

Sunday night we went on our annual reindeer hunt/count. 

It started off pretty well with five real deer in the field by my mom's house.

We counted 10 for each of the real deer…its only seemed fair!  We saw over 220 this year.  

Love the quiet rare moments when my kids all hang out together without fighting.

A new Christmas Lego set will do that I guess.

Steve and I had an ugly sweater party last night.

Here I am threatening Andrew when he refused to just take the blasted picture.

This morning I took the kidlets to Chick-Fil-A for a "free" breakfast that actually cost me $15 after I bought milks, my soda, and hashbrowns.

So worth it though.

The kids were super happy and grateful.

(Maybe my pre-breakfast lecture actually sunk in?)

Bad picture of everyone else, but Grady was so excited to hold up his own milk and say CHEESE!

We also adventured to the car wash.

 Why this is a thrill I might never know.

We went to the toy store too.

My kids all think they need more junk now.

Maybe taking them wasn't my best plan, but we had to kill thirty minutes before our car service appointment.

This is Saylor's "Please oh Please" face.

She really wants that pink unicorn.

Andrew now wants a dinosaur puppet...

so he can terrorise everyone around him.

Hate the toy…love the genuine teenager smile.  

No Andrew, you will not be getting that puppet because I don't want to wake up to it staring me in the face!

Our last adventure this morning was at the Honda dealership.  I put on my big girl pants and took all five kids with me to have my van serviced.  The service guy thought we were nuts I'm sure…I feel like a spectacle sometimes.  But luckily, I thought ahead and brought games for the kids to play while we waited.  We had a few rounds of  Uno and Pass the Pigs before the van was done.

I texted Steve this picture and told him Merry Christmas.   I usually let him do all the car servicing, but  took pity on his crazy schedule this morning.  

All the kids were decently behaved especially this one.