::Christmas Eve::

I just love Christmas Eve. It's such a great magical sort of day. We had a pretty good one this year. We started it out by visiting the gym, and then we went home and cleaned the house in preparation for the big day. After that Kris had to do some studying and Max and I hung out for a while. We were planning to go for a late lunch to one of our favorite Italian restaurants in town. We drove out there only to find out that they were closed! I guess that's what we get trying to go to a small family owned place. We were disappointed, and went back home to regroup. Luckily we got home just in time to meet some friends from the ward who dropped by with delicious Christmas treats. After we visited with them for a while we headed down to the Plaza to get burgers.
This is us waiting in the car while Kris ran into the grocery store to grab rolls for Christmas dinner.

Burgers were good, but Max had a tough time concentrating. The fact that his meal came in a little red wagon didn't help with the concentration, but did for sure add to the festive atmosphere of the evening.

You can see from this picture that monkey (oh whoops, I mean SOCK monkey, I get in trouble for that all the time) also came with us to dinner. He comes with us most places lately.
After dinner we headed home where Max opened up his Christmas Eve PJs and his last advents present. I have to say I'm really really pleased with how the advents presents turned out. They were really exciting for him and I think even helped him get a better idea of the passage of days in general. Also, the Playmobil nativity was great, I think it really helped him relate to the story. So I'm happy with how it turned out. (Oh yeah, except that the day after Christmas at bedtime he was very upset that he didn't have a "number present" to open. That was a little tough to explain.)
We read the Christmas story in the scriptures and then acted it out with the Playmobil.



After that we read the nativity pop up book that's a classic from when I was growing up (I was so excited when I found the book at a used book store a few years ago).
Then Max put out Santa's milk and cookies (yum) and hit the sack. Nice and early. Then we had the rest of the evening all to ourselves, just the way we like it!

We somehow convinced Sultan not to eat Santa's goods.
More Christmas to come!! I'm sure I'll finish with the reporting sometime before Easter rolls around.

...M.A.X...

We were driving in the car today and suddenly Max said from the back seat, "HEY!! M,A,X, on that bus!!"
See below:
And there it was. I'm impressed!! I call that reading. What a smarty pants! And how weird would it be to suddenly read your name on the side of a bus? Where's the Ginna bus? How is that fair?

+) A Christmas First (+

Max had his first Santa experience this year. We'd never had occasion to have him sit on Santa's lap before, and honestly he probably wouldn't have been able to handle it until this year.
We have some good friends at church that were very anxious to have pictures of their kids with Santa. They invited us to come out to their YMCA for a santa/Christmas fest. We had a good time. Max told Santa he wanted "Big Cars". Santa looked up at me questioningly. I was like, "What's confusing about that? The man wants big cars!"

Secretly I was thinking how glad I was that I had bought him a toy camper for christmas, because otherwise there would be no big cars to be found.

After Santa the kids frosted a cookie and ate it:

Max and Michael and Katie all hard at work, all with messy mouths:

Then the kids decorated little popsicle-stick frames for a polaroid of them with Santa. It turned out cute!
It's nice to have friends with kids who Max enjoys.
See you next year Santa!

__Christmas at Max's School__

They sure knows how to keep Christmas at Max's school. I guess that's one of the benefits of a private school--the teachers can celebrate Christmas if they want to!
When I came to pick Max up on the last day of November his teacher was madly sewing. I didn't know what she was up to, but when we went back to school on the first day of December there they were: an advents calendar for each child, with their name on it. There was a small toy or trinket sewn to it for each day. How cool!
Here's a picture. I took this picture pretty late in December, so there's not much left on the calendar, but you get the idea I hope.

The names are kind of covered, but Max's is the one with the pink kooshy ball near the bottom. He dreamed about that ball all month.
I thought this was such a cute idea, and so much individual work for his teacher. I also found out later that the kids got to pick out all their goodies. The teachers passed trays of toys around and the kids got to pick out what they liked. What could be better? One of the days Max came home with a rubber cockroach. This cockroach was very realistic, and startled me several times. The worst was when I was doing the wash--switching clothes from the washer to the drier. I got to the bottom of the washer, and there waiting for me was the cockroach. I hadn't seen it for a while (I'm sure that was because it was hiding out in some pocket somewhere) so I had kind of forgotten about it and it really scared me! Max thought that was pretty funny.

At school they learned a whole bunch of Christmas songs which Max really enjoyed. He knows songs now that I don't even know, like "Up on the Housetop". Here's a little singing video we did that you're welcome to check out if you want. Max is definitely an enthusiastic caroler.


One day last week he came home with the lovely snowflake ornament that I highlighted in my post about the tree. I love it of course, and Max was very proud, and very excited to hang it on the tree.


Sometime last week they had a big Christmas party too. Santa Claus came and brought everybody a present to take home, and they danced and ate a yummy Christmas meal and treats. It looked like lots of fun to me. They gave me a couple of pictures of it, but Max was so enamored of the pictures that he walked off with them and I haven't seen them since. I'm sure we'll find them when we move in a few months....
Here's a picture of him all dressed up and ready to go to the party. So stinking cute!

Hmmm, I'm trying to think what else they did...they cut out lovely paper snowflakes and hung them from the ceiling, they made cute snowman frames for small prints of their school pictures and they got a very exciting fiber-optic tree with moving glowing lights that made the kids very excited.
I'm always impressed at the work Max's teacher puts into her school, and this Christmas stuff was no exception. He had a lot of fun.

-- Slurpy --

I have an awful lot of christmassy stuff to write up, and I'm almost ready to do that, but in the meantime we had spaghetti for dinner last night. Check it out.




He actually didn't get much spaghetti on the table, but his face was VERY dirty when we got done.
Later!

-> Christmas Decor 3rd and final part <-

The tree! This is kind of long, are you ready??
Take a look:
It was tough to get a good picture of the whole thing, so this is about as good as it's going to get.
We're happy with the tree this year. There are less ornaments on it than I usually have, because I was afraid the combo of the little Max, the big Sultan and the hardwood floor would result in some broken ornaments. I think I made the right call, at least none of my favorite ornaments have been broken this year so far.
A little bit of a closer look. If you've ever seen my parent's tree it makes this one look a little sparse, we're cool with how it looks for sure.
A few old classic and favorite ornaments for your viewing pleasure.
I got this little fish when I was probably 10 or so. It's one of my all time favorites. I love how sparkly it is.
Another, much more special fish. My mom made this fish last year for Max. It's a spitting image of his "Mama Fish" who has been his best friend ever since I gave it to him on his first christmas. :)
This is the adorable new ornament my mom made for me this year. I love it. The beads are so beautiful and I love the starts and the sheep. Thanks mom!
This beautiful snowflake my friend Amy made for me last year. I love it. Amy's a really skilled knitter. It's fun to have a piece of her on our tree.
A total classic! This is Kris's cosmic santa ornament he made for the Randle Christmas party the first year. I love it.
Kris's mom gave us this sock monkey ornament last year. He isn't on the tree right now. If you guessed that he's maybe sleeping in Max's bed with him you'd be right! Yeah, Max has adopted him. We'll see if I'll be able to put him away with the rest of the ornaments after Christmas. I'll tell the full sock monkey story on the blog one of these days.
One of my new favorites, Max made this beautiful snowflake at school this week. I love it!
So there's the tree. We've really been enjoying it and I'll be sad when it's time to put it away.
Thanks for all the wonderful ornaments that we've been given over the years, it's so fun to get them out and remember them every Christmas time. Oh, and I got a couple of new ornaments in the last couple of days that I haven't had a chance to get a picture of yet. I'll post them soon hopefully.
To all a good night....

~ K ~

A quick glimpse into Kuh week at Max's wondrous school.
For snacks among other things they ate:
Kiwis
Kale
Polish Kielbasa Sausages
and Kohlrabi

Wow. I just can't imagine how they got the kids to eat kohlrabi. I'm lucky I even know what it is, I don't think I've ever eaten it? Anybody out there ever snacked on kohlrabi? I have eaten kale, but only once. It was pretty good.

My favorite thing they talked about that week was Komodo Dragons. You know, those crazy huge endangered species that live in Asia somewhere?
I was quizzing him about the dragons and I asked him what they eat. He told me very matter-of-factly, "They eat other komodo dragons!" So I figured that was just him being a little silly weirdo. I just laughed and told Kris about it later.
Today however, I looked up komodo dragons online and learned that in fact they are carnivores, and in fact they do sometimes eat smaller komodo dragons!!!
So now I've learned my lesson... next time he tells me something like a snake is a mammal, or a bear lays eggs or that Land Grovers live mainly in South America and they're mammals I'm going to go and double check it before I tell him he's wrong! He's a smart little goofball. It's fun that he gets to teach me stuff sometimes. BUT he did tell me that Komodo dragons are warm-blooded though, and I know that's not true. I checked into it!

+) The Festive Preparations Continue (+

I think the following photos speak for themselves:
I love the sparkley ribbons below. They make me really happy.
I actually really like to wrap presents. Well, I like to as long as the house is quiet and the rug isn't covered with dog hair and if I can watch TV or listen to some music while I do it.
I actually tried to get Max to help me wrap some stuff the other day and it was a fiasco. It was like he all of a sudden grew about 10 extra hands and was grabbing and squashing everything in sight. There was nothing I could do to make him stop. Then he started jumping around and that was the end of it.
So I'm not going to try that again for a while.
If there's anybody out there that wants to trade cooking dinner for wrapping presents I'll do it. Just let me know!

I also like to make cookies. Ok, well let me be a little more specific. I love the IDEA of making cookies, and think about doing it all the time. I also like eating the cookies (I mean seriously, who doesn't?) but I don't so much like the stuff in between, I mean like the cooking and stuff.
But I do end up doing it sometimes anyway. Christmastime especially.
Do these pictures make you drool? I hope so!
Yum Yum.

|| Super-Cool Sledding ||

What could be a better christmastime activity than sledding?! Max has never yet gotten much of a chance to play in the show. It doesn't really snow as much out here in Missouri as it does in Utah or Colorado, and the snow usually ends up pretty icy. So anyway, we had a bit of an ice storm last week, and then this last weekend there was a fun snowstorm. The ice with the snow on top of it made our local park into a sledding mecca. It was great.
I was a little worried though because Max doesn't have any snowpants. He was just wearing his jeans with PJ pants underneath. By the end he was looking like a walking snowman, I figured he was soaked. So I decided we should leave and it broke his heart. We told him he could sled two more times and he said "I need to go LOTS more times!!" We got him home and he was cold and freezing but dry, thank goodness.
It was a blast! Hopefully we'll get to do it a couple more times before the winter's up.
Here's a fun video I made, it's kinda like being there except not as cold. Enjoy!

* Just a Bit of Christmas Fun *

It's been a while since I've put up any fun old pictures, so I thought it was high time to put some up. Here are a couple of christmassy ones.

Here I am with my favorite old car. I'm not sure what year this is, but I think it could easily be either 1990 or 1991. I found this picture on an old roll of film that was rattling around in my stuff in college. I got it developed and found a few great classics.
I totally remember those pants. Very cool at the time, high waisted, pleated and acid washed. That VW we had was the best car ever. Big enough for all of us and all our stuff on trips, and lots of headroom. It was also great the way we had to turn the heater on to get up really big hills in the summer time. I can't remember Dad, did we have to push start this particular van a lot, or was that the older ones?
You can see on my face how excited I am about the christmas tree. I love christmas trees, especially live ones and I always loved picking them out and bringing them home. They just smell so great and look so fun. I miss having a real tree. Sometime soon when we're done with school and all that we'll get to have real trees again!
Next:

Christmas dance at Provo High in 1996. Girl's choice. Oh look at all my friends that I never see anymore. How fun! And isn't that a lovely collection of sweaters? Quite a festive snowflake backgroud too. Amy and I had planned going to the christmas dance together in a group ever since we realized that we had semi-matching sweaters.
Merry christmas to all my old friends! I had such a great time in high school because I had such great friends. I definitely feel lucky.
Later....

-) Holiday Home Tour (-

Hi everyone!! Welcome to the holiday decorations tour of my home that I've put together for the BooMama Christmas Tour of Homes. I think that the tour is the best idea ever, by the way.
Earlier this year we moved into a small 900 square foot house, which was a big adjustment (we lost about 1200 square feet in the move). So I had to rethink a lot of my decorating this year.
Let's start in the breakfast room off the kitchen.
This isn't the greatest picture, but I hung these ornaments from the ceiling over our small table. It's the table we always use to eat at, so it's fun to have it a little more festive in there, and I love that the ornaments are out of the range of grabby 3 year old fingers.
Next is my dining room table.
I put together an advents calender type thing for my three year old where he opened one present per day starting Dec 1st. I put those little gifts in a red and green bowl and mixed them with pinecones and ornaments. They're on either side of my nativity that I love so much from Willie Rae studios. Click for a closer look. I don't think they make this nativity set any more, unfortunately.

I love how the bowls turned out, and the advents presents have helped my little one to keep track of the days really well. It's been fun.

The bowls are starting to look pretty empty now though, with so few days left....


Next to the living room. I have a great old fireplace in this house with a nice mantle, so I enjoyed decorating it.

I got those beautiful stocking hangers from Pier 1 two years ago after christmas for 75% off. Whoo hoo!
I love how the bowls of ornaments turned out, and the only thing I wish I could've done differently is had real pine up there on the mantle instead of fake. But oh well.
Here are some various friends I've collected the last few years on the windowsills next to the fireplace.
My mom made one of the reindeer. She's amazing!

The tree is directly to the left of the mantle. It has less ornaments on it this year than it usually does. We have a hardwood floor, and I was a little worried that between the 3 yr old and our large hairy german shepherd, some of my favorites might end up shattered on the floor. So those stayed in the box for next year.
I like my tree to have a lot of fun different ornaments on it, and I love the multi colored lights.
The only consistent thing on the tree is a whole bunch of red jingle bells. I got those when my 3 year old was 1. That was all I decorated the tree with that year. It was a good idea.
I love live trees the most, but this little artificial tree has been really good for us to have the last few years, it's accommodated our student lifestyle quite well. Maybe next year I can get a live tree.
Close ups on a couple of favorite ornaments:
I think this fish also came from Pier One. I've had it for probably about 15 yrs or more.
This is my mom's creation for this year. She makes at least one new ornament every christmas and I'm the lucky recipient. My tree wouldn't be nearly the same without my wonderful mom!

A lovely snowflake made by my dear friend Amy.

The finishing touch? A $15 dollar wreath from Costco that makes my house smell divinely like christmas every time the heater comes on. Thank you costco!!
So that wraps up the quick tour of our house. Thanks for looking! I wish I could give you some hot chocolate, but we'll just have to do that another time.

Merry christmas from our house to yours!!!