Christmas Eve Morning 2012...

It has been our tradition since before the kids were born to have our own little Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve morning..so, this year was no exception.

It was simple. Just the way we like it.

The kids open a few simple gifts and we eat breakfast.

Then we enjoy the rest of the day together and of course getting ready for our next Christmas Eve gathering with more family which took place later that evening..

Here a few photos of the kids opening some of their gifts...

pretty stoked about the rc car!

a home for ants!

We had a make-shift smaller tree this year the kids decorated. Rocky made an origami star for it. :-)

let them make cake!! :-)

We have always kept our gift giving quaint. Not too big, just enough. Just looking at the above photo you can see that. Rocky decided to buy an experience...a father-daughter baking experience. Now, you know I have issues with the ingredients of the box cake and the icing (I'd personally would have bought Nutella in place of the frosting if not making it from scratch,but I do believe this was a very thoughtful gift on Rocky's part. A very sweet idea. I know she will LOVE baking with her daddy, despite the ingredients. This is me letting things go...going with the flow....after all it isn't about me. It's what you do the most of the time that matters.

I love seeing the joy on the kids faces around the light of the Christmas tree. Those little folks are precious little people and our most treasured gifts from God!

Have a blessed day!

Love, Kelly

Christmas: Tree Decorating

Hello!

I will be starting a little series of posts documenting Christmas of 2012. This is installment #1 and will give glimpses of the annual Christmas tree decorating at Debi & Gary's home. This year Tina & Stephen joined in on the fun. Special memories....

classic deer-caught-in-the-headlights look

getting ornaments from grandpa for the tree

us and a fox.

grandma passing out ornaments to the short folks..

More Christmas posts coming soon...

Have a happy evening!

-Kelly

'O Come All Ye Faithful'

I hope you all had a very happy Christmas with those you love! We did! It's always a blessing to be able to spend extra time with loved ones and friends! And the food wasn't bad either.

So...

River, his class, and the other first grade class sing 'O Come All Ye Faithful' during his school's annual Christmas program. :-)

I have been coming to watch this program for years...way before I even had my own children. It seems that I have always known someone participating in the program (more than likely my sister's kids, but I am even thinking I went and saw my sister's sis-in-law, Lisa participate in the program, too?) Either way...it was pretty neat to see one of my own kids be a part of the program.  The two first grade classes did an excellent job at the song. Adorable. 

It was a very nice program. It  did end with a bit of excitement when the electricity popped off for maybe 5 or so minutes. Thankfully this was at the end when everyone was simply chatting after the program had ended. It sure did add a bit of adventure to the evening.  Not going to lie...my heart raced when I realized I could not see my kids and we were standing in a very large crowded church. It all worked out. God makes sure of that.

Now, I will say...I was a bit disappointed that cookies were not offered afterwards as that was, from what I could remember, something that happened after the program every year. Oh well...I suppose there was a cookie shortage? :-(

Here is a little video of the song River's class sang. Please ignore the excessive movement and sporadic shaking. I really am ok, but probably will not have a future at being a surgeon, that is for sure..and that is ok by me.

Oh...and yes, I actually hit the 'play' button a bit into the song (not right at the beginning)...needless to say I need to brush up on my video recording skills. :-)

Without further ado...

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Spalding Christmas Program 2012 from kelly c. on Vimeo.

hard drive tragedy

So, I am trying not to cry as I type this mini post (oh, please. who am I kidding...each one of my posts are mini). I have suffered the loss of a hard drive. A hard drive with photos that are so incredibly special to me. Poof. Gone. A lesson in proper back up was made and driven home to me, no less.

Now, I refuse to give up on this expensive to retrieve hard drive. It was a mechanical issue which could easily mean $1000 for hard drive recovery. :-( So, it will happen, just not right now.

So...needless to say I will be contacting my lovely family members to inquire about collecting contributions in the form of photos from River and Kathryn's birthday party (just to name one special event from the hard drive).  So, Debi and Tina...could you pass onto me some photos when you get a chance please? Let me just say that I was so pleased with the photos I took from River's party that I feel a tear forming in my eye. :-(

But...alas. Life goes on.

I will be posting again soon...we are about to start Christmas vacation and unlike River (who loves school so very much) I am beyond excited to have him home with us for about two weeks! Yay! He's excited, too it's just he really thinks school is a wonderful place and he will be missing his friends.

Sorry, no photo this time. I will really make a much better effort to keep this little blog up-to-date. Just watch out. It'll happen. :-)

-Kelly