Preston turns 4!!

What were we thinking having babies so close to Christmas??!!!??  Preston had been talking about having a "Christmas birthday party" for months.  I just couldn't do it.  Next year buddy, I promise!  Poor Preston.  Good thing he's still little! ;)

His birthday was pretty low-key.  When I asked Preston about going and getting his birthday balloons, he said he didn't want any.  The poor guy, he doesn't like the noise of balloons being blown up with helium and he is terrified that they will pop or fly up in the sky!  I convinced him that we had to get balloons, per our tradition.

He asked for pizza for dinner - easy, peasy!  I can deal with that!  We decided on rainbow cupcakes for the evening celebration.  They ended up being a lot of work, but turned out AWESOME!!

Preston has this obsession with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that came out of nowhere and he kept saying that he wanted Ninja Turtles.  Starting a few weeks before Christmas, I started looking for these Ninja Turtles at Fry's, WalMart, Target and Toys R Us.  I found ONE out of the four.  Every place was out of stock and of course, these $8.99 toys were going for ridiculous amounts on Ebay.  Hmmm, slightly reminiscent of LAST YEAR when I was trying to find the Toy Story characters for the Buzz Lightyear space ship!!!  I continued to make my rounds and miraculously, I picked the other three up, one by one.  Preston was thrilled with with his Ninja Turtle crew and their Shellraiser (what the???!), which he calls a "Subway."  He also got an Avengers set and Lego Ninjago spinners.

Preston's 4 year interview

What's your favorite color?  red
What's your favorite toy?  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Legos
What's your favorite breakfast?  Flat egg on toast
What's your favorite dinner?  Orange chicken and rice
What's your favorite tv show?  Gaspard & Lisa
What's your favorite movie?  Backyardigans
What's your favorite book?  Ten Little Fish
What's your favorite animal?  Zebra
What's your favorite song?  I Am a Child of God
What's your favorite game?  Skylanders (Wii)
What's your favorite snack?  Clif Kids Zbars
What's your favorite drink?  Water
What's your favorite holiday?  Valentine's Day (?!)
Who's your best friend?  Adam [Hilton]
What do you want to be when you grow up?  a police and put people in jail
What's your favorite candy?  Skittles

Merry Christmas!!

We started out Christmas Eve morning by cleaning the church building with the other bishopric families.  Matt had the day off and it was not exactly how I wanted to spend the morning, but I tried to have a good attitude about it.  A breakfast burrito from Fili-B's and Dunkin Donuts munchkins made it better. ;)

That night, the kids opened their one gift, new pjs.  They left cookies & carrots out for Santa and his reindeer, got showered, then we took turns reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  I love having kids that can read!  Matt read the story of Christ's birth from Luke 2, we said prayers and tucked the kids into bed.

Tracking Santa on NORAD

I got busy baking and prepping food for the next day while Matt set the trap for the kids, put things together and we got everything set out under the tree.  We ended up staying up way too late which made it super hard to get up and going the next morning.

*side note:  About 3:30am, I heard crying and someone yelling, "Moooooooommmy!"  I patted Matt and told him Brooklyn was crying, which I thought was really odd.  He went in to check on her and she said she was scared because of the trap Matt had set, which had cardboard with a hole cut out blocking her bedroom doorway!  She thought it was an eye looking at her or something.  Haha!!  I guess Matt told her to climb in bed with Blake and she stayed there for the rest of the night.

The kids woke up around 7am and were ready to see what Santa brought for them!  They had to get through the trap and then we went downstairs to open gifts.

Santa brought Lego Friends sets for Brooklyn, a tournament chess set for Blake, plasma cars for Gavin and Preston and a Radio Flyer tiny trike for Hayden.  Stockings for the kids were full of Pokemon cards, a Lego minifigure, toothbrushes, yo-yos, gloves, a small lego set for the boys, a scarf, sunglasses, nail polish and earrings for Brooklyn, Origami paper for Blake, Nerf darts for the older boys, Hot Wheels for Preston and a little bit of candy, with an orange in the toe of the stocking.


The kids got lots of good stuff~ and I think they liked everything!

Matt blew our $100 limit for each other and bought me a Bosch.  

I stuck to our budget (thankyouverymuch) and got Matt an Apple TV.

We got a couple of dance games for the Xbox Kinect and a couple family board games- Apples to Apples Jr. and Hedbanz.

Our family gift was a basketball hoop. And of course there HAS to be a story.  We got the approval from our HOA to put the pole in the ground so Matt cemented the bottom portion in last week.  He started putting the rest of the pole and backboard together in the garage a couple days before Christmas.  He was ready to attach the backboard to the pole, he discovered that one of the pole parts was wrong!!  Obviously having is set up and ready to go Christmas morning was not gonna happen.  He called the company and said the new pole parts would be here Friday, so the backboard ended up in the house on display with instruction for Daddy to put it together later. ;)

The AFTERMATH

We spent the rest of the day with family; Palmers first, a quick trip over to see Grandma & Grandpa LeBaron, then over to Hamiltons.

I have to admit, I wasn't too happy with the way this Christmas season went down.  We were way too busy with something every single night and we hardly had time to do the little things as a family, the things that are important to me.  We never even put all our ornaments on the tree.  Neither Hayden, Matt or I had stockings until I bought three randoms from the picked over selection at WalMart Christmas Eve.  I never got to make treats to take to our friends and neighbors.  No Christmas cards sent out.  I barely took our kids' pictures (for cards?) three days before Christmas.  I know that having a big birthday party for Hayden took up a lot of the time that I would've otherwise spent on carrying out Christmas traditions.  And the fact that the kids got out of school only four days before Christmas made it seem like we had no time beforehand.  Next year, I'm hoping to simplify and be more picky about what we choose to spend our time doing together as a family.

Merry Christmas from our family!!

More Celebrating the Season

Brooklyn's holiday dance performance was on the same day as Hayden's birthday party.  She got dressed while guests were still here and then her & I were off.  Matt and the boys stayed home while Hayden napped and it was a good thing because it was PACKED with standing room only left by the time we got there.  It was originally supposed to be outside the library but it was cold and rainy so they moved it into a rec room at the last minute.  I love watching Brooklyn dance.  I love my ballerina!  Her tutu was lovingly made by me.

As if the day wasn't crammed enough, the ward Christmas party was ALSO on the same day, in the evening.  Some of the bishopric kids participated in the nativity scene.  Brooklyn was the angel, the boys were the three wise men.

 Then, of course, the kids got to see Santa and tell him their Christmas wishes.

Surprisingly, Hayden didn't mind sitting on Santa's lap! 

We didn't do the Palmer Santa this year, which I was actually bummed about since Hayden is the only one in our family who hasn't gotten to see him.

Grandma & Grandpa LeBaron's Christmas dinner and gifts was Sunday, the 16th.  All the kids were absolutely thrilled with the gifts they got!!  Except that Gavin drove his cool remote control car off the kitchen table and busted the thing the next day- bummer! :\  For the grandkids (Matt's generation), we were given $50 and had to buy ourselves something, wrap it up and then it would be a surprise to G&G and everyone else as to what we got.  We got ourselves a manual grain grinder to go with our food storage.

Such sweet brothers, haha!

This year we got together with Matt's parents and siblings for the first annual Palmer nativity family night.  This event is usually done with the LeBaron family but it has gotten SO huge and SO chaotic.   All the little cousins were here together and they were so cute acting out the scenes.  And it was only semi-chaotic. ;)

Hayden's first nativity~ a cute baby sheep!

 We made it through!

Brooklyn had a pom & cheer performance for her class that she's taking just up the street from us. She's the tall one in the front middle.

We squeaked in a visit to see the Mesa Temple lights last night.

Sitting in our "spot."  Thank you Blake, the photographer.

Our family and some random person's behind.  Awesome.

And last thing, the kids all dressed up in their Christmas finest for church this afternoon.  What a good looking bunch!