Christmas Re-cap

Well the kids got spoiled again this year (as always) and loved every minute of it. I just wish it all didn't pass by so fast!

Christmas Eve the kids got their traditional jammies and of course loved them. Because I'm a good mom and totally know my kids! ;) Gwynie loves penguins (we called her 'Pen-gwyn' when she was little haha) so her jammies were penguins with a little seal friend! Brady got some skull and cross bones fleece jammie pants so he was diggin them! And of course a blue thermal shirt to go with em!

The kids also got a movie and the new Super Mario Brothers game for the Wii. All four of us played their new game before bed and it was a blast! Holy crap we laughed soooooo hard and had so much fun just playing and hanging out together! ;) Man I just LOVE these kids to pieces!!

Cookies and chocolate milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. Brady made it a point that Santa HAD TO HAVE chocolate milk this year. Thanks B! ;)

Christmas morning was a blur we just had a blast and I loved seeing the kids faces light up as they got everything they asked for and more. *sigh* I love these guys!

Gwynie with her vanity from Santa! She got little make-ups (from Claires), more jewelery and perfumes in her stocking. I found a hot pink blow dryer and straightner so she was in heaven with all her girly stuff Christmas morning!

Brady with his new tv and dvd player from Santa!

I just love this picture! My Mom and Dad got Jake and Brady some remote control Monster Trucks. Like the REAL ones that are super heavy duty! They were high fiving! :)

Christmas morning we went to Dustin and Erica's and did Christmas with his parents there, too. After that we packed up and headed up to Idaho to visit my grandparents and my Aunts family that made the trip from Colorado Springs. Coming home Sunday afternoon...everyone was worn out and exhausted!

A Puppy Surprise!

Jake had been wanting another dog to be a "friend/brother" to our lab/retriever mix Brecken for the last few months. We'd tried it with another dog last summer (who was almost a year old), but they did not get along at all so we had to give the new dog away. We knew we'd have to get a puppy that would know Brecken was the Alpha Dog, in charge and the boss. I of course didn't want another dog, but I could see Jake's point in Brecken having a friend to run around the backyard with when we were at work and the kids were at school.

This is Brecken (this pic was actually taken in December!) - or Breck, Breckie, Brecko-Recko, or Brekker Brekker One-Nine (you know braker braker one nine), or any of the other nicknames we call him.

So Christmas Eve...Both Jake and I were working a half a day and I get a text from him saying to check my email and look at a link he sent me. It was for a puppy who was also a lab/retriever mix and was 7 weeks old. After talking me into it (and promising that I'd never have to clean up after it) I relented and agreed to get this puppy for the kids for a Christmas Eve present. So Jake left work to get the puppy and after an hour or so I left work and went home to clean up and get ready to surprise the kids. Jake brought the puppy home before he picked the kids up from daycare.

So when they came home we had the kids sit on the couch with their eyes covered and I very quitely placed the puppy between them. Needless to say the kids love him and Brecken and he are really good friends!

Meet Bridger! or Bridge, Bridgie, and Bridger-Ridger (see I have this name rhyming complex I think!)

The cat is not quite sure about him, but now that I'm writing this a month later they play like crazy!

Is this sweet or what?! Brady put his blankie on him after he just crashed after playing with us. One minute he was awake and the next he plopped on the floor and took a nap. Too cute!! ;)

Just to show that the dogs really do get along, here they are "playing"! Brecken let Bridger "play" at first, but now he tackles him and they rough house a lot!

Family Christmas Party

I wasn't feeling very well so I didn't take that many pictures, but here are two pics of all the great grandkids at the annual Phillips Family Christmas Party at Grandma Lee's.

L-R: Gwynie, Sydney, Hannah, Bailey, Brady, Trinity, Abby, Ashlynn

Syd, Han, Bay and Abs are our neices, Dustin and Erica's girls. Trin and Ashlynn are Jake's cousins girls. Yep, Brady is the ONLY boy! Also, can you believe Bailey, Brady and Trinity are the same age??!! Brady was born in January, Bailey in March and Trinity in May...and Trin is the tallest (as tall as Gwynie is actually)! Stevie is a big guy so its totally understandable, but man Brady is so small, haha!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Our tree went up really late this year! Normally it gets done the weekend of Thanksgiving or the weekend after, but with Wrestling season and everything else it was crazy busy! Luckily its done and now we can just enjoy it!

Gingerbread house!

Brady really wanted to make a gingerbread house this year so I bought a premade one that they could decorate. We had such a fun time I think it will be a tradition from now on!

A Little of This....A Little of That...

Disclaimer: Holy crap, this turned out to be the most giant post ever!!! Sorry this is so much all at once, but if I don't do it now, then who know's when I'll update it!

That Christmas song shouldn't say "The happiest season of alllllll" it should be the BUSIEST season of all! So a much delayed post with Christmas stuff and some other stuff that happened in December! Although I'm glad it's all said and done, and we are already into a new year, I was so happy during that crazy, busy time! We did so much, but at the end of the month weren't able to go to a few places we planned on because of the snow. :( Oh well, Gardner Village Elves and Zoo Lights will have to wait until next year!

First, are the Christmas Choir concerts we went to! Gwynie had been working so hard since October with her choir practices. They practiced twice a week, put on 3 different shows, and sang 12 songs, in addition to learning all the dance moves! She wasn't able to sing at the 4th one because it was the same night at her dance recital, but we got to see her perform twice! They performed at Winter Fest at Cyprus High and then twice at the elementary school. It was too dark to get pictures during their singing, so we just have some afterward pics.

Gwynie with her Choir teachers.

Winter Fest

Performance at the elementary school.

The same day of the Choir concert we went to in the morning, (the 18th) she had her dance recital that night. We went and had a lot of fun watching her perform what they'd been working on in the last 3 months. She took Tumbling 2 and a Hip Hop class. I was the biggest idiot and didn't take pics of her outside of the recital part...grr, but I do have a couple of her performing.

Look at that awesome hand stand!

Here is a small clip of the hand stands(or whatever fancy name they might have in tumbling)! You could tell at the end she was getting tired because this was near the end of all of their tumbling passes. And...ow! There's a girl that kind of fell, too!

Hip Hop routine is hip hoppy!

Here is the Hip Hop routine. The teacher was fun and cute, but kept changing the dance during the last few weeks so only a few girls knew the whole routine! She had fun though and that's all that matters. I did laugh in a few parts because her little body just doesn't move like that yet, but you know she was concentrating pretty hard. Watch her Cheer video from the summer recital and you'll see the difference, lol. Also, this was recorded with our camera because our camcorder was at the school! I tell you that was the worst feeling, but the office ladies kept it safe for me until I picked it up the next morning! I had left it in the office after recording her Choir Concert that morning and stopping to drop off lunch money. (And yes I purposely didn't tell you this story MOM!) Jake recorded this and did a pretty good job with our camera!

We had a Christmas party with friends at our house on the 20th, and then went to the Phillips Family Christmas party on the 21st. I'll just post one of the pics from our Christmas Party (Family Blog remember!) that I just love.

Mel, Steph and Me - I love you girls!
Here are two of my favorite pics from the Phillips Family party.


Gwynie got this cool kit to make bracelets from her cousin Hannah.

Brady freaked out when he got this hoodie from Grandma Lee! He loves it!

Before we knew it, it was already Christmas Eve! My cousin Ryan and his wife Sara and their kids were visiting her brother so they stopped by for a little bit. It was so much fun!

Here are the kids modeling the traditional Christmas Eve jammies.

We decorated sugar cookies for Santa and put out some oats and carrots for the reindeer.

The kids had so much fun decorating the cookies! I'm pretty sure Brady ate all the blue frosted cookies before we got them on Santa's plate...

And after the kids went to bed I finally finished wrapping the rest of the presents! I had presents shoved up under the tree, around the back, and still had some coming out the side. No, my kids aren't spoiled...not at all! ;) wink, wink


I also have the funniest story to tell about Christmas morning...Brady and Gwynie spent the night in Brady's room so they could wake up together Christmas morning. They woke up at 6:10am, but waited until exactly 8:00am to wake up me and Jake. WE COULDN'T BELIEVE IT!! Gwynie kept telling Brady that they couldn't wake us up because we would be mad at being woken up so early on our day off. The even crazier part...they never once went out into the living room to peek at what Santa brought them! I seriously have the BEST KIDS EVER!!!

It was so fun seeing their faces at what Santa brought them and opening presents! Jake was camera man and I was recorder lady this morning. I'll have to ask Jake to upload those videos from our camcorder (including her Choir stuff)...because I'm not that talented yet....

Gwynie's present from Santa was this HUGE Lego set...which took her all of about 45 minutes to put together.

Brady got his blue DS that he's been wanting for forever, and the Wall-E game

Hmmm....but no pics of the kids with those presents.... Jake! :)

This was the present Brady bought for Gwynie...a beach house lego set! She picked out a Monster Truck crash stadium for him.

And, I just love this picture...check out that dimple!

Welll....I guess that's it for December! Oh wait! Of course I have New Year's Eve pictures too! And that happens to be my birthday as well! Betcha didn't know that didja?! Ok well some of you did! Thank you for all the birthday wishes! Jake got me a Pink Zune (since my iPod died a few weeks ago), the Opposites Attract Cricut cartridge, and some pen/marker thingys for my Cricut!

Every New Years Eve for the last few years we have gone over to our friends Sharon and Jim's house to play board games and hang out with the kids. They are in the finishing stages of their game room and just got their pool table setup. So we spent the night playing pool and hanging out. By the end of the night I was so exhausted, my makeup was all gone, and all I wanted was to make it to 12:01 and then go home, hehe.

Me and my Brado-potato

Ugh...see how tired I am?! Gwynie is sure cute though.

Sharon and me...wow I look even more tired here!

Jake and Jim playing pool.

The kids, all ready for sparkling cider!

Ok, now I guess that's it!

But I will leave you with a couple more things....

That's right!!! 12 more days until our TRIP TO FLORIDA, DISNEYWORLD, & SEAWORLD!!! And my FAMILY!!! We are so excited and I can hardly wait!!

And...if you've made it this far.....go check out my Krafty Blog that I updated with some scrapbook pages I completed yesterday.