Dixon Family Christmas

Our Christmas was awesome this year.  It was quiet with not a lot of fanfare.  We stayed home and just enjoyed doing practically nothing and I now think its a tradition we should keep.

We got ready late Christmas Eve and headed to the Dixon's house.

My mom snapped a picture before we left.  We checked out our picture and thought...what happened to Steve's hair.   Funny.  Also, Saylor demanded to wear her cute green (summer) shirt.  I think she is protesting the cold as am I!

As soon as we got to Steve's parents house I snapped a picture of my kids with their Dixon grandparents.  I'm lacking in these pictures.  Life always gets crazy and the most important pictures don't get taken.  I will treasure this picture...even if Grady is not cooperating.

I will also treasure this picture of Colby and his twin.

These two look so much alike, other than eye color.  I will be one lucky mother if Colby grows up to be as loving and wonderful as his Grandpa Dixon.

Christmas Eve selfie.

 After a delicious dinner at the Dixon's, we participated in the annual tradition of watching "The Gift" which of course is followed by "The Phone Call".  My kids are getting the same Christmas Eve that Steve grew up with.  It's perfect.

Then it was present time.

 Grandma and Grandpa didn't disappoint.

Andrew got cash and a metal shuttle model.

Carter received a magic kit.

Colby got a human body model book.

Saylor got Princess tin full of books and activities.

Grady got two trucks. 

My kids were spoiled!

After our Dixon festivities we headed home.  The stockings were hung, the reindeer food was left in the front yard, and we left treats for Santa!

Yes, Santa gets a Mountain Dew.

He likes it...trust me.

He came!  He came!

At 7am the kids came bounding into our room begging us to wake up.

That's of course after the 1am text we received telling us they had opened their stockings.

The rest of the photos are just proof that my kids got more presents than they probably deserved. 

Santa must REALLY love them.

Not sure what Santa was thinking as he got me a hand gun.

Uhhh.....

Oh and a dog.  

I must have been good this year.

I got a dog and a gun.

Every girl's dream right?  (cough cough)

 

Don't let this happy face fool you.  He opened up his new undies and promptly put them on the floor.  "Don't want these!"

Not long after 8 am, the massive lego building Star Wars Christmas event started. 

 We converted my parents house into a movie theatre and watched ALL SIX star wars movies.

We finished the last one around 11pm

I've never been lazier on Christmas day.  Even our food was lazy.  We put out sandwich stuff, chips and treats and pieced  all day.

We had a lego/star wars/junk food coma on our hands.

It was a wonderful holiday!

Some of my favorite things from the week before Christmas...

I discovered photo Christmas ornaments from Shutterfly.  Yeah...I'm in trouble.

I was able to help our bishopric put together food baskets for some of our ward members.  I think it was my favorite part of Christmas.

Our good friends the Seeley family brought us these perfect snowman cookies.

I loved them!

These were the only cookies I made this year.  

They turned out pretty cute.  I will have to remember this recipe for next year.

The weekend before Christmas, my parents had the missionaries over for dinner.  They were dynamic, friendly, grateful and such a blast to have in our home.  I hope my kids could feel from them how missionaries can be!  

Maybe we should say a prayer and say thank you and stuff...

Whirlwind.  Thats honestly how I feel lately.  I'm in a whirlwind of being behind and just trying to keep up.

I was hoping once the kids were out of school for Christmas vacation things would slow down, but that hasn't been the case.  I'm hoping somewhere in the middle of the chaos, I will feel like I enjoyed this December.   It's the little things that matter so I want to remember some of these little things that had brought me joy. 

Last Friday was one of those days where the little things mattered.  Steve was home for a long lunch hour and he went with me to pick up kids from early release at school.  Right as he pulled onto Wendell street red and blue lights flashed behind him.

 He was speeding and he was guilty.  (oh so guilty)   

Luckily the officer told him to slow down and have a nice day.  (This is #1 thing that mattered.)

We then drove to Chick fil A for lunch.  We had the three oldest in the car with us and as we pulled up to the drive through window, we found out the car in front of us had payed for our lunch,  (#2)

As we waited for our food to be finished, we got a phone call from our bank letting us know that the interest rate fell .15 % and that our loan would be locked at the lower rate.  (#3)

Needless to say, these little things mattered a lot to us and made our day seem pretty bright.  As we drove home Andrew said, "Maybe we should say a prayer and say thank you and stuff."  Hilarious and very well stated.  So yes, we stopped and said a prayer of thanks...for all the good stuff that had happened in the past 20 minutes.  (Steve also watched his speed.  haha)

Other small things that have mattered...

 Our elf has been watching.  Saylor keeps asking for new items to be added to her list.  Schnitzel finally had to write her a letter and tell her that her presents were already packed on the sleigh and that she couldn't add more to her list.  I really like our elf.  He's got my back.

 My presents arrived in the mail.

I make photo books for my kids every year, but this time I make books containing our family photos.  I can't display them all, but I want them printed.  Having prints in back of a frame or in a drawer somewhere do absolutely no good.  I'm hoping these books will be a better solution to preserve our family pictures.

 Carter was put in the deacons quorum presidency this month.  There are twelve deacons in our ward.

Oh how this matters to me.  These are good kids and we are lucky to have them grow up with Carter.

These little things matter to Carter A LOT.  He officially has armpit hair and whooped and hollered around the house letting us know how much it mattered to him.  (You might have to look close, but it is there!)

Boys are silly.

 Saylor had her Christmas program last Thursday.

She was the bell on the lower left.

She swore it was sweaty.

It mattered to me that my mom could come to Saylor's program with me.

Saylor is adorable and the song "Snow Pants" will always be my favorite!

Love the reindeer shirts her class made!  

It mattered to my kids that Star Wars came out last weekend.

Carter and Andrew sat in D-Box seats opening night (I can feel the motion sickness right now) and Steve took Colby to the 3-D version. (The motion sickness now includes a headache.)  It mattered to me that I got to stay home and enjoy not being in a crowd of people.  Life is good.

Big thing that mattered last week?

My trim was finished and the house was prepped for paint.  (It's being painted as I type and should be finished by the beginning of next week.  I also found out my cabinets will be delivered next week as well. )  The following pictures are from last weekend.

 Family room.

View of upstairs family room from top of the stairs.

 Master bedroom

 Kitchen

 Stairs and entry

 lockers

 Pantry

Den with view of secret room

just naked people

My computer is still sick, and I'm learning that having a hard drive replaced is not as easy as it may sound.  My computer currently will not upload pictures.  My computer knight in shining armor will hopefully be able to fix it tonight after work.  Thanks Steve.

But even without pictures, I had to write down something that Saylor said totally random in the car the other day.  It makes me wonder how her mind works and made me laugh out loud while driving.

"Mom, if it wasn't for the moon, werewolves would just be naked people running around."

True story Saylor, true story.

In other Dixon (and definitely more modest) news...

Only four more days until Christmas vacation.  Brilliant.

The fever bug is making its way around the house.  Grady is the current sicky.  I'm enjoying the time in my pjs with an excuse not to leave the house.   I'm learning that MILD sickness can be a huge blessing at Christmas time.  

The trim at my house should be finished today.  It looks great.  My trimmed windows across the back of the house are my absolute favorite.  Our painter has been following the trim guys and caulking behind their work.  He told me yesterday that he should have primer on by the end of the week.  Getting to painting stage is a huge deal (at least for me.)  All these decisions I've made in the past six months are going to come to reality really soon.  Crossing my fingers it all comes together like I had hoped. 

State Water Polo

Last Saturday we left at 5am to attend Andrew's state water polo tournament in Boise.

It was all day and included four games throughout the day.

It was long and these kids played hard.

 A good friend and member of Andrew's swim team traveled with us and was gracious enough to take pictures.  She did a great job!

Andrew was placed on the A team this year.  He played the majority of the time in two of the games and scored at least 5 goals throughout the day.  Andrew plays the outside position most of the time and is responsible for getting the ball to the inside players to score.  Their team is getting great at passing and making plays.  Andrew helped in many assists that led to goals scored.  I'm proud of my water polo player...and happy he still has all his teeth!

(Especially after his braces JUST came off.)

The Magic Valley Team came in 3rd place overall.   Great job!

Sick

Carter and I have strep.  I took him in last night around 7:30 with a fever, sore throat, stomachache and headache.  While we were there I asked the nurse if she would swab my throat too.  Yep, we have strep.  I have had a sore throat and body aches for the past three days.  Duh, why didn't I go in earlier?

Today I'm enjoying the fact that Carter and I are contagious and we cant go anywhere.  Ha Ha!  To a busy mom in December, that sounds pretty heavenly.  Bring on the hot cider, movies and pillows.  Bring on the mandatory rest.  Bring on the fact that I can say NO to everything on my list for the next two days.  Why does being sick sound so awesome?  (It's not awesome if I didn't have antibiotics and copious amounts of ibuprofen.)

Also my computer is sick.  I'm using (and contaminating I'm sure) my mom's computer right now.  My computer is at the computer doctor getting a tune up.  So right now I have no access to my pictures...so I can't post the many things I want to - the main thing being Andrew's state water polo tournament.  He played so well and his team came in third place.  Pretty awesome!  Also, my house is getting trimmed up at the moment.  Shelves, door frames and trim are going up and will be for the next few days.  It was like Christmas last night when I walked into my pantry and saw the finished shelving.  I may have honestly shouted out loud!  It's so exciting!!

So...the point of this post being...I will post pictures of life again when both my computer and myself are feeling better.

Thanksgiving weekend and maybe a few more days thrown in

After looking through my pictures from this last week (there were A LOT), I have an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the things in my life.  They are not huge things, but put them all together and my life is extremely good and fulfilling. 

So in absolutely no particular order (that would be boring and involve more work) here are just a smidgen of the things I have been blessed with in the last week.

I'm grateful for a really awesome uncle who taught my son how to solve a rubix cube.

This smile has been plastered on this boy's face since he solved the sucker the first time.

He has since solved it again and again, and it seems never to get bored.

Thank you Uncle Jeff!!!

I'm grateful we have access to awesome orthodontists who are willing to help my kids have beautiful smiles.

Here is one of them.

Thank you Dr. Ward for Andrew's sweet grin.

The braces came off today and Andrew is excited to say the least.

I told him no smooching...even if those braces were off.

(I would actually faint if he was smooching somebody.  AHHH!!)

 I'm grateful for a house that is trucking along.

The driveway was poured and blanketed just before the weather turned bitter and the snow fell.

Whew!

I'm grateful for Grandpas who are willing to play for long hours in the cold just to hear the squealing and fun.

It snowed 6 inches this weekend.

I'm grateful for a car that has absolutely no problem blasting through snow drifts...and the heater works something awesome too!

 I'm grateful for family history games and the parents who are willing to teach it.

I'm grateful for early Christmas parties and cute nativity costumes.

(that cow costume was off 5 seconds after I took this picture.)

Not sure it could get any cuter than this!

(That little angel in the background had a hard time standing still up there!)

I'm grateful for awesome grandmothers who purchase matching Christmas pjs every year!

...and I'm grateful for a crazy brother who photo bombs in his wookie pjs.

I'm grateful for sweet cousins who give thoughtful gifts!

(too many pictures to post...but my kids scored.)

 I'm grateful for three little girls who played for four straight days without one argument or fight.

The love was thick with these three!

 The picture is turned, but I'm still grateful for the opportunity to create memory books for my family.

We now have pictures preserved for years and years to come.

I'm grateful for our white elephant gift exchange every year.

This was the BEST gift...I covet it a little!

Grateful for this beautiful family of mine.

Could a girl be more blessed to grow up with these people?

I'm grateful for snow clothes, boots, gloves and hats that kept the cousins warm and cozy so they could play their guts out all weekend long!

 Grateful for my sisters and photo bombers!

 (sorry Cara, we missed you in this picture!)

I'm grateful for Cash and Carry and their enormous syrup isle that just makes my sodas taste even better!

(obviously not all my gratitude is for serious stuff!)

And lastly...I'm grateful for cheap Pottery Barn stockings with the wrong names embroidered on them that I scored for only $4 each.

...Well, Andrew and Grady got lucky, but the rest of them I am picking out.   That or Carter is going to be renamed Finn.