Christmas Morning

The first day of Christmas had our children waking up to the sight of this. It was like they were in heaven, except they weren't allowed to touch or open any of these gifts. I know, I've been told that I'm the meanest mom ever.

There was, however, a lot of "oohing and ahhing." There's a gentleman in our congregation that likes to hit up garage sales during the summer months. One Sunday he brought me a huge box of old vintage wrapping paper. He told me that when he saw all the wrapping paper he thought of me and all of the presents I would be wrapping since we have 6 children. He quickly snatched up the box, gave it to me, and told me to enjoy the black Santa wrapping paper. Not wanting to waste a thoughtful gift I used the paper, of course.

I thoroghly enjoyed this paper. They just don't make paper like this anymore.

Oh! The reason my children were unable to open any gifts when they awoke was because we went to church to celebrate the birth of Christ Jesus. What a beautiful morning it was too! After church we even got to enjoy some cake and coffee. My children were so well behaved and patient that morning.

When we got home this started.

And this happened.

My little girls love their Little People.

Clothes is always needed around here.

And soon, my house looked like it had been hit by a tornado.

Forget cleaning up it's time to play with my new Little People. We hope you all enjoyed your Christmases as much as we have this week. Don't forget it's still Christmas!

Preparing for Christmas

We finally got our Christmas tree up just days before Christmas. Was your advent season as crazy as ours? 

We enjoyed a fabulous candlelight service on Christmas Eve. The anticipation of Christ's birth is just beautiful.

Elizabeth doesn't like sitting with us anymore. Maybe we embarrass her too much.

I placed the last piece of tape on the final gift just as my Lutheran Stud was walking in the door from his second service of the night, at 12:30am. Time for bed!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! Enjoy a little Christmas entertainment from our children below.

Finally!

We finally got a enough snow for this little one to go outside and play. Now, I can finally say, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas." The weather has been so warm and mild lately that I just didn't have winter on my brain yet. Rachel was kind enough to dress Elizabeth warmly, in clothes that are too small, but she didn't notice, nor did she care. She stayed outside until I made her come back in.

School did not get canceled because of the snow. 

New chores did get added to our chore chart for the day.

I'm finally seeing the benefits of having many children. There is less work for me and more for them. I think it's a win-win, right?

My Little Photo Bomber

Christmas cards have been arriving daily and we love them, so keep them coming! The other day we recieved this card from our dear friends who now live in Illinois. They came out to visit us this summer and I snapped some photos of them for their Christmas card. We had a good laugh when we received this card. They requested that Anna be included in their photo. She fits right in, don't you think? Rebecca asked if this was a special card sent just to us. When she realized that many people will be receiving their card, and many of them probably don't even know Anna, she couldn't stop laughing. Merry Christmas, Fiene family. We miss you and our children are always available to make an appearance in your Christmas cards. :)

Christmas Traditions

Earlier this month the WIM (Women In Mission) ladies in our church hosted a ladies brunch at our church. The theme was Lutheran Christmas Traditions. I don't believe that all of the traditions, that were shared, were actually "Lutheran" but they were fun to learn about none the less.

Tables were wonderfully decorated with a Christmas tradition in mind.

Being the good Lutheran that I am I chose to sit at the Advent wreath table.

The traditions were shared and hymns were sung to go along with each tradition.

There was also a matching ornament for each tradtion. I was given many of the ornaments and would love to share them with you on my own tree, however, we don't even have our tree up yet. My lovely daughter, Rebecca was left to decorate the little tree at church instead.

The company was was wonderful and as always we had fantastic array of food to eat. Unfortuantely, we had a small emergency complete with paramedics and firemen visiting our church. Everything turned okay, but I ended up, leaving early, to meet my Lutheran Stud at the hospital. He was out running errands with our younger children and ended up needing to make an emergency hospital call. Thus, I am left with very few photos from our lovely event and I missed out on a few of the fun activities.

This year, December seems to have crept up on us and now Christmas is just around the corner. We eagerly await the birth of Jesus even if we aren't ready for it. How about you? Are you ready for Christmas? Is your shopping done? Are your cards and gifts in the mail? I've decided not to stress over everything and just enjoy things as they come. There are 12 days of Christmas beginning on December 25, and lasting until Epiphany. That means we still have plenty of time to get all of our fun Christmas activities in right? Good. Maybe we'll have a tree up before Christmas Eve and maybe not. Yikes!

P&G eStore

Proctor and Gamble, or better known as P&G, has an online storefront. Did you all know that? Many of their products are used by many of us on a daily basis. Now, you can do a one-stop-shop for items you use regularly and have them shipped to your door. P&G, currently, has many deals going on that you should check out. 

While we are, pretty much, out of the diaper phase we do still use them occasionally at night. There is a fabulous deal going on right now for all of you diaper users and battery hoarders. If you buy a box of Pampers diapers you will also get an assortment of Duracell batteries. Who doesn’t use batteries? This deal is awesome, at least in our house. It’s a win-win, since we use diapers and go through batteries like they’re water. 

If you’re not into the whole diaper thing, but you still use batteries like crazy you can buy big Duracell battery bundles from P&G too. There’s also a battery sweepstakes you can enter to win. If you win you’ll get $100 worth of batteries.  You can't go wrong there, right?

If diapers and batteries aren’t your thing there are some other awesome deals for Covergirl, Braun, Tide, Oral B, Crest White Strips, Olay, Gillette, and Downy. That’s huge range of products don’t you think? They even have bundles you can purchase, so you don't have to put much thought into what you need. They would also make for some great Christmas gifts.

I think there’s still some time do some Christmas shopping online with them. You do know that there are 12 days of Christmas, right? So, if your package arrives after December 25 there’s no worries because it is still Christmas. You can even use coupons with your orders. A lot of products include coupons or rebates. Every order also comes with samples of other products. How fun is that? Shipping is also free when you spend $25 or more. And, if you're a first time shopper you can get 15% off your entire purchase using promo code: A9Z-MN5-KY3-ISA. See? Good deals. 

Crafty Afternoon

Shortly after returning from Washington I felt the need to get moving on Christmas things. That was at the beginning of November. It was a good plan, to get together with my favorite crafting ladies for a little lunch and a crafting afternoon. Kel always had some interesting food concoctions. 

They always turn out to be fantastic too!

We enjoyed a little baked potato soup with a side of lovely fruit.

This is what happens when Kel comes over. She brings just half of her craft room, which fills up my entire table, leaving no room to work. Thankfully, my kitchen includes plenty of counter space.

Since Heather is the queen of glitter we put her to work on these awesome ornaments.

With just a little modge podge, glitter, and vintage cookie cutters this is what you get.

These cookie cutters would make great decorations on your gift wrapped presents as well as being hung on your tree. Hint, hint! Aren't they cute? These would be a great project for children too. They would love to make a mess with all of this. It took me days to wash glitter out of my little girls' hair. 

Heading Home

While it was hard to leave Washington, we were also eager to return home. The roads were clear and the weather was beautiful. Can you guess what mountain this is?

Did I mention that on our way out to Washington we were an hour from my parents' house when the interstate got shut down? We sat in our car for almost 2 hours while the DOT decided to do some rock blasting. On our way back to Colorado they shut the interstate down in Oregon due to a semi-truck accident. While it was no fun having to wait for the interstate to open back up we were fortunate enough to make it to a truck stop for food and a restroom. We rolled into our hotel late into the night  only to run into another road closure the next day. AHHHH!!! We were just hours from home when then interstate in Wyoming got shut down. This time we were close enough to detour our way into Colorado through some back roads.

Wide open spaces in Wyoming were quite nice and made for a pleasant drive.

The mountain trees were brushed with snow.

Wyoming turned out to be more beautiful than I had thought. We finally made it home 2 hours later than we had planned, but we made it safe and sound and could not have been happier to be home. I didn't leave my house for several days after returning home. I just couldn't get into a vehicle again. What an adventure we had. Until next time. . .

The Fam

The weather in Yakima was a little more pleasant than it was in Seattle. There were more opportunities to play outside, and our children took full advantage of the outdoors whenever they could.

 Elizabeth always seemed to attract the animal crowd whenever she was outside.When the weather cooperated we tried to get some family photos taken too. We also had to work around many schedules which made it difficult at times, but we got it done. We even had a few photo bombers.

We couldn't leave without a photo of Mimi and Papa with some of their grandkids.We also attempted a family photo with all the grandkids and siblings. Can you imagine pulling all of these chidlren away from their favorite activity to pose for a photo?

They were a little reluctant.

It was always difficult to capture a decent shot of these boys because they were always on the run, literally.

But, this little girl was all smiles.

I think the sibling photo turned out pretty well, no? Until next time. . .