The BEST Christmas Ever

Despite the frightful weather outdoors we had a delightful Christmas.  We ended up packing up the car with all of our gifts and heading to Winfield a day earlier than we planned.  Luckily we got there before all of the snow began falling and were able to stay indoors by the fire and stay warm while enjoying time with my family.

If you were to ask Grant he would definitely tell you that this was the very BEST Christmas ever.  I think it will be one that he always remembers.  On Christmas Eve he got to open one special gift from grandma and papa at 2:30.  He waited quite impatiently all day long and then made everyone gather around to watch him open his gift.

  

I’m sure most kids would be totally disappointed by this gift but he loved it . . . it was a box filled with craft supplies (crayons, construction paper, scissors, glue, protractor, compass, etc . . .)  Here’s a little peek at one of his creations.

As always he got to open one last gift from mommy and daddy before bed  . . . of course it was a new pair of pj’s.

Thank goodness {Santa} was able to find us in Winfield.  He brought Grant a very exciting gift this year!!!  His very own cell phone.  Now all of his friends can text him instead of me!!!

Grant was so excited about each and every gift he got.  I love how he has a smile on his face in every picture.  Here’s a little peek at some of the wonderful gifts he received.

Since Jeff will be traveling to Michigan for 11 weeks this year my mom got him all of the things he will need to stay warm.  Here he is modeling a few!!!

I also surprised him with a gift I don’t think he expected at all.

This may look like an odd gift but he was wanted a spice rack for several years.  He hates digging through the cabinets for the things he needs when he is cooking but I’m a little crazy about having a lot of appliances and utensils sitting around on my countertops.  Since he does quite a bit of the cooking I thought it was time to do something to make his time in the kitchen more enjoyable.  He also got a Brita Water Filtration Pitcher which he was equally excited about.  He’s convinced the water that comes from the dispenser in our fridge is not clean.

I too received so many wonderful gifts this year.  I’m so lucky to have so many generous people in my life.  Because I ended up taking so many of the Christmas pictures there’s aren’t very many of me on my camera.  Which isn’t a bad things since I was still in my pj’s and had absolutely no make-up on!!! 

Here’s a little peek at our Christmas morning fun.  We were all out of bed ready to go a little after 6:00 am.  Grant was actually up at 1:30 am ready to open his gifts but I told him it was a tad too early.  Luckily he was able to go back to sleep.

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The remainder of our day was spent lounging around the house after eating the wonderful meal my mom prepared.  Grant of course spent the majority of his day texting all of his friends and playing on his new Xbox 360.   I have to admit DJ Hero is a pretty fun game.  We all had fun learning how to play it.   Grant seems to be a natural at it!!!

I spent some time getting my mom set up with a Facebook account.  I’m sure you are all noticing my dad’s leg in the foreground.  Unfortunately he spent all of his time over the holiday with his leg propped up.  On Wednesday he was injured when a piece of farm equipment fell on him.  After a visit to the ER he is now left with some soreness and terrible bruising.  We are all hoping he will be able to go back to work on Monday.

It wouldn’t have been Christmas without all of the dogs either.  Here’s our dog Spiro . . my parent’s dog Kasey. . . Jeff’s grandmas dog Maizy . . .and my grandma and Larry’s dog Tiger.

Saturday morning we headed back to Wichita to celebrate Christmas with Jeff’s family.  I’m counting on {Debbie} to send me some of the photos she took because I forgot to get my own camera out.

Thanks again to all of our family for making Christmas so special for us this year.  We are so blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives.  We love each and every one of you.  As we were all putting away our gifts last night we took some time to think about just how fortunate we are.

It’s Christmas

Last week Grant’s 3rd grade class presented a Christmas poetry program based on the book It’s Christmas by Jack Prelutsky.  They’ve been working hard for weeks to memorize every poem and everyone’s hard word definitely paid off because their program was very cute!!!  They had props and actions to go with every poem.  Here are a few photos of Grant from the performance.     

Here’s Grant and his best friend Nick being goofy after the program.

Grant and Nick with their fabulous teacher Mrs. Ewert.

Surprise 60th Birthday Party

On Friday evening my sister and I hosted a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom at her house.  We’ve  been busy planning it for the past 6 weeks and managed to pull it off without her ever finding out.  She was quite surprised when she arrived home to house full of nearly 60 of her close friends and family. 

My dad spent the day keeping her busy doing all of their Christmas shopping in Wichita while we put the finishing touches on everything.  After we got all of the food prepared we put together a display of photos of my mom from throughout the years.  It was so much fun to go through all of them with my Nana and hear all the stories.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As usual I had every intention of taking tons of photos throughout the evening but as soon as all the guests began arriving it got kind of crazy and then without any warning she and my dad showed up and I was so busy playing hostess that I didn’t even think to grab the camera.  Here were some pictures we took before all of the festivities began.

         Once the party got underway Jeff assumed the role of bartender and Grant became the waiter.  He had so much fun taking orders and getting drinks for everyone from the bar.  He carried around a little notepad and paper and even managed to make $5 in tips. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it.   Then Grant took over as the photographer.  Here are some of the pictures he took.  Not bad for a 9 year old.

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Gingerbread Men

In preparation for making gingerbread man cookies with my class at school I mixed up a batch of dough on Wednesday evening that I received last year as a gift from one of my students.  It came complete with a cookie cutter and decorations but it was rather strong tasting and I wasn’t sure if there was enough for all of my kids so I kept it for Grant to do this weekend and bought some cheap mixes at Wal-Mart like I’ve used in the past for school.

Saturday morning we got up early, turned on some Christmas music and began making cookies.  Grant had so much fun rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies.  We even managed to get Daddy to help out.  After 4 trays of cookies were baked Grant wanted to use the leftover dough to make a giant gingerbread sheriff complete with a badge and gun.  He’s such a creative kid!!!

            

After we finally got the cookies decorated and the kitchen cleaned up we bundled up and headed outside to put up the outdoor Christmas lights.  We obviously should have done it last weekend when it was in the 70’s.  Grant tried to help but kept disappearing inside.  I did get a few pictures of him being silly though before he left to go to the WSU basketball game with his friend Alex.