fa-la-la-la-la...la-la-la-laaaaa....

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  

At least that's what I keep trying to tell myself.  I have been having lots of headaches and I just realized that it's because I'm always clenching my teeth.  I must be stressed!  I also found a gray hair.  The root was like 2 inches long, so it's been growing out of my scalp for a while now.  Yikes.  I'm getting old.  I don't feel old though, so that's a bonus.  I'm not sure why I'm just not feeling the 'Christmas Spirit' this year, but this week I am determined to find it.  I've never had this problem before, it feels foreign to me, so I'm pulling out all the stops!  

Today I finished wrapping and mailing all the gifts to be sent to family and I have the Christmas music blasting as I'm writing this.  Something about Clay Aiken's 'O Holy Night' always seems to do the trick.  I have done my share of baking this past weekend...but it wasn't Christmas baking, it is for Olivia's upcoming birthday party.  I baked 33 cakes.  Yes, thirty-three.  We're having a baking party, no worries, I'll blog about that another time.  But now, I'm not quite in the mood for the typical Christmas baking.  I did have a friend bring by some yummy oranges, cinnamon sticks, cranberries, and cloves for me to boil on the stove.  That is one of the best smells ever, how did she know that's just what I needed?  I think I'll do that tonight as we are assembling our Nativity, one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  I do see snow in our forecast too....I hope it comes!  I love snow in December.  After December, I hate it unless I'm up on the mountain skiing!  Which I hope to do this year if Bogus can just get some dang snow!  Jack is even up for trying it this year.  We'll see how it goes!  

As for the big news of the month....DAN MOVED BACK HOME!  It has been BUSY BUSY BUSY since he's been home.  He just opened his new dental office and I'm just assuming that's where some of my stress is coming from.  New office openings can be stressful.  Hiring, setting up, and trying to get patients in the chair.  Especially around the holidays.  But it is good to have him home.  The kids especially missed their dad, it's been nice seeing them cuddled up next to him on the couch or running away from the tickle monster, KJ secretly likes it, even if he does act 'too cool'.  He's home just in time for the holidays.  I just realized I don't have any pictures of his office, I'll be sure to post some next time!

Speaking of Dan....He's actually the old one.  He turned the big 4-0!  Yowsers.  I wanted to throw him a big surprise party but he made it very clear to me that he did NOT want a party.  Just something low-key with some family members.  So we all went to a hockey game, one of his favorite sports to watch.  I did have them announce his birthday over the intercom.  I had to do SOMETHING to embarrass him! 

Thanks to everyone who chipped in, he was totally spoiled.  He got the smoker he's been eyeing and a new set of skis!  Maybe now he'll be able to keep up with me on the slopes...but I highly doubt that! ;)

We also had a very nice Thanksgiving.  There is really nothing I am more thankful for than my family. My side of the family as well as Dan's side of the family.  I am truly blessed to have such an amazing group of people surrounding me and my kids at all times. I always hear of these crazy 'in-law' stories and realize how lucky I am to have the family I do.  I must have done something right?  I only wished that we all lived closer.  We are kind of spread out all over the country.  The holidays always make me miss them a little more than usual.  We get together and we are crazy, loud, funny, and we all love each other so much.  It's like a kids wonderland when all the little cousins get together.  They have the best time.  There was a gigantic group of us here this year,  (I think there were 52 of us) so my Nana set up the Thanksgiving spread in the garage!  It was so much fun!  Afterwards, we cleared it out and played ping-pong, played cards, the men went to the movies, the girls chit-chatted, and it was just the perfect day.  

We also had everyone go to the hot springs!  

It was a cold and rainy day so the hot water felt oh-so-good!

The ladies below did some synchronized swimming.   :)  

- Liv's Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast - 

The boys are just finishing up their basketball season.  It was so much fun.  I think I'm leaning towards keeping them in basketball.  The bonus...a nice warm gym to sit in.  Soccer, LAX, and Football had so many freezing/wet games, it was nice to be inside.  They both learned a lot this season.  Jack got the 'most improved' award, I was so proud of him.  His shot is surprisingly accurate.  Last week at his game he was dribbling down the court, tripped, the ball was stolen, he stole it back, shot the ball....NOTHING BUT NET.  It was awesome.  The whole gym cheered for him.  He was so excited.  KJ has height on his side and was great at getting the rebounds.  He is also really good at sticking with the guy he's guarding.  He is better on defense than offense, but he's slowly learning.  He did score some points this season as well.  I will say that 5 trips to different gyms every week was a bit much, but I loved it.  My brother-in-law also coaches at the high school and he has adopted KJ as their 'ball/bench boy'.  He was their lucky charm last weekend at their game.  KJ thinks it's cool that he gets to hang out with the high school kids.  

Sorry these pictures are pretty blurry, my cell phone doesn't exactly produce clear, crisp action pictures.

Also...bragging mom moment.  KJ is one smart cookie!  

Olivia is still doing her gymnastics and tumbling all over the place.  One day she wanted to do cart-wheels the whole way home from school.  THE. WHOLE. WAY.  It took forever.  By the end, I swear she had done hundreds of them and was starting to get pretty dizzy.  This is where she takes after me.  My mom said I couldn't just walk normally anywhere.  

Her favorite exercise is the vault.  She's got some speed on her sprint.

She has now progressed to one handed cart-wheels.

And of course, she was my little helper when it came to raking the fall leaves. 

Did you hear the news that Hostess went out of business?  If not, you must have been living under a rock.  Well, I went and stocked up on all that I could find when I heard the news.  To my surprise most all of the shelves had already been cleared.  I did grab a few things that were in a different department.  Jack was so surprised to see all the goodies when he got home from school because I don't typically buy these kind of 'junk' treats.  Anyway, I told him the company wasn't going to be making them anymore and this was his reaction.  Poor kid was devastated...he especially loves the powdered doughnuts.  I thought this picture was just priceless, so I had to share.

 

I just realized I wrote much more than I was planning on and the kids will be getting out of school very soon, so I better scoot.  I apologize for being so long-winded, I guess that's what happens when you take over a month off of blogging.  Yes, I'm slacking. 

I am officially done with Christmas cards and shopping and post office trips and decorating the house, so now I think I can just relax and take in all that this time of year brings!  Here's to hoping this season brings lots of Christmas Cheer and a few less gray hairs!!  Hope you all can also enjoy this time of year.  It's nice to just sit down and really think of the REASON for the Season.  Time to put my Christmas Play list on shuffle AND repeat and bust out the Christmas movies and hot chocolate.  

Or Cho-loc-o-late as our family calls it.  KJ started saying that 9 years ago and it just 'stuck'.    

PS - One more piece of good news....my brother Jesse hits his one year mark on his mission this week!  That means next Christmas we will have him home!!!!  HO HO HO!