Christmas for the Christiansen's

If we could convince Mason to stay on the stairs then my desire to have just the kids in the picture would be brilliant, but alas he is one excited chap come Christmas morning! Carter had been up since about 3 a.m. There was a time during the wee morning hours that I had to tell him to come to my bed and cuddle with me, to which I found him shaking because he was so excited. Brennan was still pretty tired and Taylor was not wanting a picture taken until we told her we always get one before we find out if Santa came or not.

The first investigation of the special treasures, Carter was looking for all the stockings so that he knew which pile of presents belonged to which person.

Reading the letter from Santa that was left behind. Telling the kids that they were very good this year, and to remember to treat one another kindly always.

Taylor received a lot of new drawing paper, pens, art supplies of many kinds, and a new desk for her room.

Mason was super speed opening man! We didn't get as many pictures of the kids because we were trying to keep Mason from opening up every one's gifts. For some reason Carter came out with more pictures, probably because he was the most animated of the morning. Mason was thrilled with his Marble Race game, and his candy. Santa tries his hardest every year for something Mason will magically love. He was very excited to get a new stash of slide wheels for his eye-spy thing. He will lay with that for hours looking through slides.

Brennan was diligently going through his stocking, and wanted to inspect each and every item. He will learn that is what we do after the whirlwind of opening is over after a couple more years I think. He made us laugh every time he opened something this year, he kept shouting out as he ripped the paper, "No Fair!!" He kept hearing the other kids saying. "No way!" However, his reaction got mixed up in translation, so it was hilarious. He got a new train track/car track table, cars, books, and some puzzles.

Yup, Taylor not the most photogenic person when she is in a rush to get things opened. She was so quite on her side of the room, just opening and admiring each gift.

"Wow! This is 100 pieces, that is going to be such a challenge!" Could not stop laughing at Carter's reactions to each and every gift he got. He was very pleased with his Captain America Shield, new Star Wars books, and his Rock em' Sock em' Robots game.

Brennan thought that Dad was super lucky because he got new guns for Christmas...then the let down occurred when he realized that they were just clamps for his wood shop.

Carter decided that because this was his last gift under the tree he would make it extra exciting because he would keep his eyes closed. These photos are the best thing this Christmas to me. Carter was so surprised, and so excited and we actually captured that moment forever! I love technology and photos that can capture moments like these forever!

Brennan did not crack a smile about his car race table until he literally had every single piece of paper off of it, then he got excited.

Big fat Candy Cane stick...doesn't get much better than that!

Dad's new RC Helicopter...Carter got one too and they had a lot of fun with them...until parts started breaking. Now they are in the daddy repair shop with high hopes of being fixed. :(

Mommy got a new toy as well. Very fun!!

Then we played 'mess up the neat pile of paper game' Thanks Brennan!! You can at least see his PJ bottom's in there. He thought it was hilarious!
After all was said and done, we tried to get a family shot in front of the tree. It was as good as we were going to get it this year! It was a fun Christmas and we were glad that we got to spend it together as a family. We went to a short church service/sacrament meeting. We came home and hopped back into our PJ's, made a lovely brunch and spent most of the day Skyping with family across the world. Can't beat that!

Christmas Eve

Hollie spent the day doing something she has never done on Christmas Eve...cooking a turkey and ham with all the fixings. By the end of the day, Hollie decided that was the one and only time she was ever going to do that! It makes me laugh that a couple of our children are already in their PJ's when we did our traditional PJ present opening. This was the first year that one of the kids said, "we already know what they are, new pajama's!" Carter made my day actually with this little phrase because it means they are picking up on little traditions in our family!!

Actually all of them get really excited about their new PJ's and we end up having a little stripping party right there in the lounge! Hopefully one day they will decide that they are too big for that and going to their rooms to change might be the better plan.

Brennan was thrilled about his new Lightening McQueen PJ's, and didn't really care that they were a little big for him.

Mason got some new Star Wars Lego's PJ's and was very happy about the choice as well, I love when he enjoys something and will just sit there and yell and point at what he loves about it.

Carter liked that his PJ's had the 'old' Star Wars people on it, and was the first one dressed in his new stuff.

Taylor was a close second with her new 'love hearts' PJ's on her body! Then she was on to getting cookies ready for Santa Claus. :)

We were able to settle the children enough to read the Christmas story and talk about how special it is that Jesus Christ was born. I appreciate that they all 'get it' when it comes to why we have Christmas and that presents are awesome, but a certain bonus in the grand scheme of things. We sang a couple Christmas carols and off to bed we went, it took about 5 minutes for everyone to be sound asleep, which is a record in this house!

Christmas break fun

I felt a bit bad when Carter told me that he was having 'no fun' during his Christmas break. I did make the effort to make it that much more fun during the day, then I woke to "Carter's Game Day" hosted by, Carter! Those that know Carter, know that he is our early bird, he is up early and doing about 50 things before my eyelids even think about opening. I didn't get a picture of all eight stations he had made, but the lounge was clean, and set up for gaming playing fun. We ate breakfast and then started with board games, reading time, and other fun activities. He had also made a pin the nose on the snowman, put the manger in the stable, and put the red nose on Santa. It took over two hours to complete all the activities, but I was so pleased with Carter's great planning and organizing to pull it off. It was awesome!

Christmas Performances

Carter, Taylor, and Brennan all had performances in December and it was fun to see each of their different personalities shine forth. Carter is the one that wanted to be a main character of the play, but was only in the choir...he was pretty devastated. He did a great job, even during the times that he forgot he was suppose to be singing until about 5 measures into the song. He had high hopes that someone would get into enough trouble to lose their place, so he had almost every one's lines memorized, it was actually pretty amazing. I think he was proud of himself anyway, I know we were sure.

Taylor had been singing her song to us for weeks, so it was no surprise that she was so thrilled for the actual performance. She loved every second, and as soon as she saw the camera up and ready she was smiling at us and making sure she was noticed! She did a fantastic job!!

Brennan surprised me with his on stage performance. I thought for sure that he would be a lot more shy and reserved up there. For the first song he was, and then Jingle Bells came on and his shell completely broke! It was adorable to see him really get into the songs and then hear him sing them afterwards while walking around the house.

Mason wasn't left out for performances this year, as his special ed class had a little show. Each child did a little performance on a different thing they had studied. We were about 10 minutes late and missed Mason's performance. They had him try and do it again after we got there, but like I suspected he just brought us the first picture and sat on Dad's lap. I am awaiting the video that the teachers took so I can see his 'real' performance. I know that he did awesome, because we weren't there to distract him. He is such a silly man! That is also the reason for the lack of pictures...he won't let us take them!!

Christmas is coming

We have had such a productive year getting ready for Christmas! I can't believe our tree is up, our house is decorated, and all with weeks to spare. I will admit that I wasn't in the best mood when we actually decorated the tree and didn't get pictures of the actual process, but the kids still had a great time playing our traditional "looking high, looking low" game with the ornaments. That way the whole tree got decorated! Mason even participated more than usual and had the honor of putting the star on the top this year. We are thrilled to celebrate this time of year and remember the importance of Christ's birth and his living for us. The kids have been singing Christmas songs about 3 kings, Bethlehem, and the manger for days practicing for the school performance, and I am thrilled they get to talk and perform songs that actually reflect the true meaning of Christmas in school. When we played Chutes and Ladders the other day after school we had to find new little people to move around the board, because our little guys hadn't survived through the years. Carter brought in his three wise men from his mini nativity set, and then the game turned into us making it to Bethlehem, and which wise men could find baby Jesus first. It was very fun and cute!

Thanksgiving

We had a small and wonderful Thanksgiving this year. We had a few friends over and enjoyed the day cooking and eating. I actually enjoy making the Thanksgiving feast and take a lot of pleasure out of the tradition of spending time with my family and our dear friends who are like family to us. We buffet styled it this year and that seemed to work for the lack of space and big enough table problems. :) Carter and Taylor were excited that they got a day off of school to help us celebrate. Mason ate more stuffing than should be allowed for one 10 year old boy, and Brennan mostly enjoyed when dessert came around. Who doesn't love pie combined with little oreo turkey's? It was another great Thanksgiving to add to our memory books!

German Pancakes(that aren't really German)

Mason thought he would help out with dinner while I ran upstairs to help with one of the other kids. I was making German Pancakes--which we found out are not actually German when we made them for a German missionary that was in our area. We didn't think we were being cool by making something German, they asked for breakfast for dinner.
When I got this recipe from my dad you might note some of his advice he gave me...like the 6 eggs without shells bit on the recipe card. So when I came down and found Mason throwing eggs in the blender I asked him why he didn't read the recipe better. Gpa Mason specifically said NO shells. Mason just kept laughing and pointing to the recipe card, thinking of course that he was being incredibly helpful!! Love this kid and his go to attitude!

Guy Fawkes Day

We do love that November 5th gives us reason to celebrate here in the UK. Guy Fawkes day was made all that more special because Dad came home early!! It was great to surprise the kids and have Mike home early from his deployment. We met up with Mike earlier in the day to get lunch and the kids were so excited that Dad was home already! Carter was thrilled that dad was not going to miss the birth of the baby anymore. Taylor was all teary eyed because she was so excited. Mason was shy as always at first and then wanted to be next to dad all day long. Brennan just told Mike that he was at work a really long time! We had lunch, saw "The Smurfs" at the cinema, and then came home, shoveled dinner down us and went out for the fireworks. It was a busy day and by the time the kids went to bed they were beyond ready to be asleep!

Halloween recap

I know, Halloween has not even come yet and here we are doing a full recap of the holiday. This is because after two parties we have more candy than is ever needed for four lovely children and their pregnant mama. So we are going to be done for the holiday rather than doing Trick or Treating on Monday as well.

We started carving pumpkins as soon as Mason got home from school and had a great time scooping guts, drawing faces, and carving the face's out.

Mason was very eager to dive in there and although he was using a spoon I did convince him to use him hand one time to get some guts out of the pumpkin. Then he decided he was done with the project and wanted a movie instead. However, you can see just how excited he is about being able to help out with this messy fun.

Carter felt like the insides were quite nice feeling and enjoyed cleaning out the pumpkin so he could get to his carving! Carter actually carved his own pumpkin this year and did a great job and was very careful with the knife as well. I'm sure as the years go on this is going to become quite the experience in our household. I can see the contests for best carving being held already.

Brennan took a couple minutes to convince himself it would be okay to stick his hand in the pumpkin and get the gooey mess out. So finally he did it and didn't think it was half bad, he kept doing all the work while Taylor continued to be completely disgusted!

After I told Taylor that her dad would want a to see that she helped with her hands and want a picture to prove it she finally stuck her hand in and pulled out just as much as you see here. Of course she was telling us how gross it was while she did it. Then I put the camera away and she continued to pull it out and not think anything of it, stinker!

We were headed out to our ward's Trunk or Treat and made come candy corn cupcakes to take with us. We were sad that we couldn't find any actual candy corns to put on top of them. :(

I still needed to make Carter's Grim Reeper staff/hook thing and had to pull out some power tools to make it happen. Carter got the camera and told me, "Dad will be so proud of you for being able to do that!" It was pretty hilarious! Also, yes, I do realize that wearing a scarf in a shop isn't the best of ideas.

Grim Reeper, Witch, Iron Man and Jedi..all ready for the night of fun and games!

I did hop in to prove that I tried to at least be festive this year even if I didn't exactly dress up for this Halloween. The kids thought it was fun that even the baby dressed up.

The kids got more than their fair share of sweets for the night, it was unreal what those kids came home with. I'm glad I got a picture of the pumpkins actually carved because I had forgot to take one at the house. Mason was much better about actually going around to the different cars and not eating the candy as he received it this year.

Cake walkin' time! Brennan and Taylor were very excited to go the cake walk and finally be able to have one of the cakes that Mom had been telling them not to touch for hours before the party!

Carter thought dunking for apples was amazing! He ended up being the last person and got all seven apples that were left. It was a great end of the night so that he didn't have wash his face when he got home.

It's a beautiful baby.....?

Like always, this little bambino will be a surprise when it comes into the world hopefully on its' due date of February 29th, 2012! Our household is very excited for their newest little baby to join the family, and the kids especially have taken a special relationship to the process and joy in waiting. I had my scan a week ago now and it looks like this little person will fit right into the family by being super crazy and energetic. Everytime the technician would go to take a still shot the baby would kick, punch, or just roll over to avoid detection. It was slightly amusing for me to watch, although had to be a little frustrating for the tech. Good thing we didn't want to know what it was! Count your blessings lovely technician! :)

Taylor is very determined that this baby is a girl because, "we have enough boys in this family." Carter wants it to be another boy, Brennan doesn't care, and according to Mike's unofficial testing with asking Mason, it is a boy. So we will see who is right, and hopefully Taylor won't lose her mind too much if it happens to have a penius. I did ask her what she would do if it were a boy baby and she responded, "I will put it back and wait for it to grow again to be a girl." Although if you talk to her you would hear 'gel' not 'girl' very cute accent and all.

We were at the store yesterday picking up a few things we needed and were in the kids clothing section. Mason started babbling about the same time as Brennan was saying to look at all the baby stuff. Mason started grabbing little baby items and handing them to me with a huge smile on his face! I asked if he was shopping for the baby already and he clapped and laughed at me as he hit the baby bump.

After the store we had a doctors appt for Taylor. We were all gathered in the doctors office waiting for the doctor to come in. Mason stood up and went to lay his head on Taylor's stomach and give her a hug. Carter started to laugh and asked Mason if he thought Taylor had a baby in her tummy as well. Mason quickly turned around came back to me and proceeded to try and lift my shirt up while babbling and smiling at Carter. I think he was proving to him that he did in fact know where the baby was growing.

Tonight we took the time to use our baby heart doppler(e hired a fancy one to have at the house) to listen to bambino's heart and move around a bit. Carter and Taylor love that the baby can now hear them and have been talking to the baby since I told them it could hear all the noise they make. Bambino was being stubborn about being heard and had tucked itself way in the back and wasn't coming out. Well, Carter never deterred by a challenge went and got his tenor horn that he has been learning to play at school. He proceeded to play some notes for the baby in hopes it would be excited and move around. Boy was he ever pleased when we could hear the kicking sounds through the doppler, the heart beat was much closer to the surface and all of a sudden the baby was a big lump on the side of my stomach trying to come out and play. The kids thought this was hilarious and enjoyed singing their two favorites to the baby, "Twinkle Twinkle" and "Humpty Dumpty." I then put the doppler away and the kids started playing another game while I was looking through a book with Mason, and I hear Carter whispering to Brennan. He was telling him that we could sing and talk to the baby now because it could hear us, he told him he should go tell the baby that he is Brennan, the big brother. Brennan comes running over, leans over my stomach and says, "Baby, I am Brennan, I big, and I love you!" It was so very sweet tonight to have the kids so excited about the future boy or girl that will join our brood.

Those were just a few of the baby things that have been going on here and not much else happens besides the regular day to day, school, cleaning, playing, etc.

For the sake of memories I should mention that Carter was wondering why it hurt to have a baby. So I explained a bit about the uterus, contractions, the pushing the baby out and he was very intrigued about the whole process. I think if they would let him in Labor and Delivery he would be right there! I also thought another trip to the Natural History Museum in the human section might be helpful for the curious Carter.

20 weeks and counting...

Finally had Carter take a snapshot of the growing baby bump. I am 20 weeks and a few days in this picture. Feeling pretty good and working hard to get my list of projects done before I am too big to care about my list of projects that need to be done.

Autumn

We have had such wonderful weather this October, it has been fantastic for us to play outside and enjoy all the sunshine while we can. Brennan loves our lovely swing and wanted to be on there all day yesterday! He was pretty ticked when I had to share myself and jump on the trampoline with Mason as well.

Money Chores

Carter is growing up! He did his first 'big' money chore this weekend, and after such hard work earned himself $10.00. We had been at the store that day and he kept seeing kids with toys and was saying how lucky they were to have such great things. I told him that he could earn some money and buy his own great things if he would do the work. As soon as we got home he set to work and did a great job mowing the lawn. He felt great about his new stash of hard earned cash!

Happy Columbus Day

I am very aware that Columbus Day is an important day, good to remember good ol' Christopher Columbus and all he did back in 1492. HOWEVER---Mason is not happy about not going to school today because of this day. He stood, cried, and banged at the door for 45 minutes this morning while I got the other kids ready for school. He was ticked off that his taxi was not coming, regardless of how many times I told him there was no school today. He has since been okay with not going because we had BK for breakfast, got him new shoes, and went shopping at the commisary. Yup, I resorted to bribery to make the poor boy happy that he had to stay home with mom. Now he is watching his favorite show of the week, The Wizard of Oz, while I am folding socks/blogging. :)

There is a small story behind his new shoes. He had perfectly wonderful shoes last week until he took them off himself and somehow lost one shoe. He was alone for 5-10 minutes so I'm not sure how this happened. We found one outside by the trampoline, but the other has since disappeared into thin air. I figured the only way to find the other shoe was to cave and buy new ones. So far, no luck.