Lowe Quality Christmas

We had a great time at my mom and dad's house. All my siblings were there at one point or another. Jamie and her family didn't get there until Friday afternoon and we left Saturday morning, so there was a little overlap. When they arrived they doubled the number of grandkids, which increased the noise level exponentially!

My niece Cate fell in love with our little dog Belle. She carried her everywhere and would sit and hold her for hours. If any other dog would wrestle with her, Cate would take great offense on her behalf and tattle to someone about it.

Another cute picture is one of my brother Matthew and Curtis reading the paper. It is just too cute not to post. Curtis loves to read the comics whenever he can get his hands on them. Luckily Grandma's newspaper had them.

All in all it was a wonderful Christmas. It was great to be with all my siblings, their spouses, and children. It doesn't happen often enough. I wish we all lived nearer to each other.

More Christmas

We returned home from Utah on Saturday and found that it had been very windy in our absence. The newspaper said that there were 60+ mile and hour winds. We found that the canopy on our travel trailer was broken as well as the top of our back fence. Fun.

We hadn't opened our Christmas presents here yet, so we did that on Saturday night. It was fun to watch the kids be so excited, even though the big stuff had already been opened. Mostly clothes, books and a couple of movies.

Now tonight it is New Year's Eve and another year is over. I hope we all have a wonderful new year full of happiness, love and kindness.

The Christmas season so far....

We have had a wonderful Christmas season so far. We have been lucky enough to spend time with people we love, eat good things, and bake.

On Saturday we got to go to Lake Elsinore to spend the day with Mike's extended Buma family. We left at 9:30ish and did some last minute Christmas shopping before heading over to my in-laws to get a map, since we lost our old one. We then left for Lake Elsinore, making a detour in the middle to eat some lunch, so we didn't arrive starving. We had a great time catching up with relatives. Curtis enjoyed Great-Uncle Mark and the Wii that was set up. Many relatives informed us that if we didn't get that boy a Wii we were going to disappoint him. At one point Uncle Mark brought him to me and told him to tell me what he wanted more than anything! A Wii says the small, pleading boy. Uncle Mark asked him if he had been good enough to deserve one and I got a yes, accompanied by pleading eyes.

Alyssa enjoyed playing the Wii a little, but mostly just being with her big girl cousins. She loves them all so much. They are always so good to her, treating her like she is just one of the girls. I love those girls so much. They are such marvelous girls. They helped her play the Wii driving game, even though she just crashed over and over again.

Mike and I just enjoyed talking to everyone. Mike's Grandma made the kids beautiful crocheted blankets. I guess she has made them for all the Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren. She has really bad rheumatoid arthritis and I know doing that wasn't easy for her. Those blankets will be very special to the kids. She is a wonderful lady, always so happy and cheerful. The kids were also spoiled by the Aunts and Uncles with fun new toys.

Sunday afternoon we went to Mike's parents' house for our family Christmas, because Garry and Margurite were here. (It was so great to see them 2 days in a row!) Walt was sick, he looked like he felt horrible. At one point he needed to go lay down, but I am sure wasn't able to sleep because of all the noisy grandchildren. Curtis and Alyssa were again spoiled by their aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

On Wednesday we leave for my parents' house, where my children will once again be spoiled by loving granparents, aunts and uncles.

Alyssa's Christmas Program

Tonight we got to go back to the school to watch Alyssa's Christmas program. She wanted to wear her red dress to the program and she instructed me that she didn't want a pony tail. She wanted me to curl her hair. So I did. I made her wear tights with her dress, because it was so cold tonight. While she was getting dressed, she told me, "I don't think Mrs. Bowers likes tights." "Oh really?" I answered. "Yes, I don't think she likes tights." I told her that when we got to school I would ask. I told her teacher what she said, and Mrs. Bowers just laughed and laughed and said she didn't know what in the world had given her that idea. Who knows what goes through the mind of a kindergartner.

Her class sang "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and recited two poems. She did such a great job. She was very animated and we could hear her voice clear and sweet. We were really proud of her. About midway through her performance tonight I remembered my camera takes video. It is a little dark, but I will post it. (O.K. I can't get it to post, maybe I can get it to post tomorrow at school, using the schools's fast internet.) You can see her on the left side of it. I will also post a picture. It was lots of fun. I also will post some pictures of her after we got home by the Christmas tree.

Awards, Baths, and Christmas trees

The month of December was been a very busy one for our family. It seems that we are always going. The kids and I are looking forward to two weeks off after this next busy week. We have Winter/Christmas programs at school on Tuesday and Thursday. Alyssa will sing Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer and recite the poem "Eight Little Reindeer" with her class. My class will be performing on Thursday night. Last year it was so crazy they decided to split it up and have the Kinders and 1st graders on one night and any other classes who perform do so on another night. I don't think Curtis' class will be performing.

Curtis recieved two awards on Friday. One was the Outstanding reader award. He is reading over 130 something words a minute with no mistakes. The other was an Outstanding Effort award. Luckily his award assembly was during my prep period and I was able to run over. We are really proud of him and all his efforts.

We bought our Christmas tree this year at Home Depot, rather than drive all the way down to the Christmas tree farm. We were short on time and decided to take a look at the trees at Home Depot, Tuesday night after going to our nephew Joel's 2nd birthday party. They had some really pretty ones and so we decided to get one there. We saved the trip down to Yucaipa and probably about $25. The kids were upset that we weren't following our family tradition, but we told them that sometimes we have to create new traditions. (Not that I really want a trip to Home Depot, being part of a new family tradition.) We decorated our Christmas tree on Thursday night and here are the results. I think it looks beautiful!

I took the dogs to the groomer today. They were both so dirty and Belle was matted. I try to brush her all the time, but she cries and makes it difficult. I realize I need to be the boss, but her cries her pitiful. Anyway, she got a really close haircut. She looks really cute, but it is so cold outside that I put her cute t-shirt that Maury got for her on. The groomer also put these cute Christmas bandanas on the dogs after they were groomed. Here is one final picture of Belle, before I post our first and hopefully not only post.