Merry Christmas!

We had the BEST Christmas break.  As a matter of fact, going back and looking at these pictures just blows me away of how blessed we are and how much fun we had!  Adam gets to take 2 weeks off of work and this year was a lot of fun because the girls are older and we can do some fun things, stay out late if we need to.  Kyle got pretty spoiled by his dad over the break.  He was devastated when Adam returned to work.  It even got to the point that when we both were in the room, he preferred his dad.  Devastating.  Warning:  There are a lot of pictures to tell you our stories.

These two come and jump in bed with me every morning.  Adam gets up early to work, or just get a cup of coffee in his system before he has to face these wild kids.  The rule in our house is that you have to stay in your room until 7 am.  And man, when the clock hits 7, you can hear the girls storming down the stairs.  

One day I was really busy, and gone a lot and when I got home, this guy climbed into my lap and gave me some love.  He just wanted to be held and loved on by his mom.  I LOVE HIS FACE!!!

Kibbler, our elf, was up to his usual antics.  One morning we found him in bed, with a cold.  Poor guy.

Kibbler reads the Christmas story to friends and shows off the nativity every Christmas Eve.  

Tia played the piano for the kids' Christmas program at the Mother's Day Out.  It was such a special treat.  She accompanied several songs and played while kids got on and off the stage.  

I just have to share this shot of Emilie doing her routine.  They danced to "Rockin around the Christmas tree".  She showed off some pretty cool dance moves.  And please notice that she's a whole head taller than most kids in her class.  Every time she heard that song come on in the car or a store, she would squeal "THIS IS MY SONG!!!!!"

We had a really special surprise!  We were walking around the cul-de-sac, passing out homemade pretzels to our neighbors and all of a sudden our neighbor said, "Hey!  I think Santa is walking down our street!"  And sure enough, he was!  He just wanted to stop by to say hello and check on us.  Good thing he did. We had a couple of questions about reindeer, Kibbler, and some extra pretzels to send home to Mrs. Claus.  Petey wasn't so sure about it all.  When Santa was walking towards the tree, Petey jumped up, bit his beard, and jerked it down.  Luckily, the girls were facing the tree, but it was definitely comical.  

In true Adam fashion, he waited until Christmas Eve to buy a couple of gifts for good ol' mom.  So he and the girls loaded up some toys for tots and dropped them off and then headed to Walgreens for some gifts.  I got some neon pink nail polish, and the movie Despicable Me, which Aubrie picked out and took out of my hands when I opened it and said, "you can share this, mom."

We grabbed this manly shot of Kyle one night right before bath time.  He looks pretty mean and his legs are so thin!

It's now time for me to come clean about something...or someone.  You see, there's someone new in my life.  He's always there for me.  He follows me around, hums to me, picks up things for me.  I can rely on him daily to be there for me.  He makes my life easier and....I love him.  His name is Roberto.  He's my new iRobot.  

It was love at first sight.  Best Christmas present ever!  Between Roberto and my Dyson vacuum, I have the cleanest floors.  And I will NEVER replace my Dyson.  The day we went to go get the Dyson, I vacuumed the whole house with our old vacuum.  When we got home with the Dyson, I vacuumed again with the Dyson and IT WAS DISGUSTING!  The Dyson is amazing.  And so is Roberto.  It's amazing the places he can squeeze under and clean.

We took the girls out to dinner one night and went to see the Rockettes.  It was a ton of fun!  It was Aubrie's second time seeing the show.  Emilie's face was priceless.  She did a lot of "Oh wow!" and "ooooh!"  We had popcorn and M&Ms and stayed out late.  Adam and I were amazed at how easy and peaceful dinner was with just 2 kids.  We couldn't believe how easy we used to have it.  Haha!

We had a lot of "Christmas Jammy days" where we would take an early bath and then watch a movie.  I ordered Adam and I some flannel jammy bottoms that we rocked the entire break. 

We hit up the Christmas Eve service at church.  We had four time slots to choose from.  We thought we would do the 4:30 slot so that we didn't have any tired, whiny kids with us.  WRONG.  It just so happens that all three kids decided to gang up against us and opted out of their nap that day.  Even Kyle, which he never does.  It was so crowded and I snuck candy canes in my pocket to feed Kyle to keep him occupied.  That worked great until he started rubbing his sticky hands all over my nylons.  Somehow, Adam reached for him and caught him off guard and he fell backwards and his head bounced off the floor.  He did one of those cries, you know the one where they don't breathe for a couple of minutes and then finally let out a shrill scream.  I scooped him up and did the "excuse me, pardon me, can I get through" down the aisle and almost got to the back door before he let out the scream.  Needless to say, we stayed in the lobby the rest of the service and his head was fine.  The girls had a good time lighting the candles and singing silent night.

Growing up in Elfrida, we had some friends, The Estelles.  They are an awesome family who moved in the area and were missionaries.  Every Christmas, Mrs. Estelle (Betsy) would bring by a loaf of this delicious bread that had nuts and raisins and cherries in it with frosting on the top.  It was amazing.  My brother and I would call it Betsy Bread.  We loved that stuff.  We would knock off a huge chunk at breakfast and sneak a piece for a snack later in the day.  It became a part of Christmas for us.  Well, I haven't had Betsy bread in 13 years because we have all moved away, so I took matters into my own hands and had Mom emailed Betsy to get her recipe and ask her if I could share it with you all.  I don't think she had a clue just how much that bread meant to us.  It's delicious!  This year I made it into one loaf and the rest I made into a small round cake for us to eat on Christmas day for desert.  

Betsy Bread (Jesus' Birthday Cake)

Betsy Bread

Recipe originally from Jan Conduff given to Betsy in 1973

1 box raisins (about 1 lb)

2 teaspoons soda

1 cup cold water

2 cup sugar

3/4 c shortening (I use margarine)

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 eggs

2 10 oz jars maraschino cherries drained and chopped

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons nutmeg

3 teaspoons allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt
(You can add nuts if you'd like)

Put the raisins in a small saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil, remove from heat, add soda and 1 cup cold water (I used the juice off the cherries) and let stand.

Drain 2 small jars of maraschino cherries.  Cut up the cherries into smaller pieces.

Cream shortening, sugar, eggs and add vanilla.  Mix dry ingredients add alternately with the raisins and liquid to creamed mixture. Add cherries.  Makes 2 loaf pans +.  Bake at 375F for 50-60 minutes or till toothpick comes out clean.

I frosted this with a simple butter cream frosting recipe I use for sugar cookies.  I colored some of it red and some of it green and made little holly berries and ivy leaves on top.

We also had a chance to go to the movie theater to see Frozen.  While we were there, we saw this huge cutout for the upcoming Rio 2 movieand they just had to get their picture taken with it.  We cannot wait for it to come out.  And after seeing Frozen, we CANNOT WAIT until it comes out on blu-ray!

Kyle used Granny's present as a stepping stool to reach higher ornaments that are breakable.  We only had one ornament broken this year.

Lots of baking and eating was done.  Here we are decorating Betsy Bread

Set up the ol' tripod for a Christmas Eve picture.  Adam's mom made the girls velvet sashes and Kyle's bow tie.  Petey didn't know what to think!

Christmas morning!!  All Aubrie wanted was a pool floaty and Emilie wanted the Princess Sophia family. 

My favorite part is the stockings!!

First peek at the tree!

Bubby got a dragon.  Rawr!

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends.  We are so blessed to be surrounded by so many friends, which makes it easy to stay in town and start our own traditions.  It was sad to see Adam return back to work, but when he did, the house stayed a little cleaner and Kyle came back around and turned back into a Mommy lover.  Until Daddy gets home...

Love to all!

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