Christmas Breakfast

Well, my loss (of sleep) is your gain. The winds are ROARING (howling is much too wussy), keeping me completely awake and the girls only half-asleep. So much for getting sleep before New Year's Eve...

Every year, for as long as I have been alive (I think), my Grandma Lawless has made breakfast for the Lawless/Gilbert/Kaufman/Gall clan on Christmas morning. {I take that back, one year it was here. But otherwise...} This year was no exception, except that the eggs turned out yellow. Long story, unless you're usually there :)

The girls got dressed up in their second set of Christmas dresses, and we headed over for yummy food and wonderful company!



































They already like Nana's (non-breakable) snowmen!


































After the various families had left, my mom, Cassi, the girls and I said hello to Kim, Bootie, Terrie, Rob and Abdullah via Skype. Side note: If anyone knows of software/websites where you can video conference (more than 2 at a time, as is permitted with Skype), please leave me a comment or shoot me an email! It was SO nice to see everyone, but a little bittersweet because we miss them all so! The girls weren't completely cooperative (read: mostly sleeping and/or crying), but hopefully it was still as enjoyable for everyone else as it was for us! :)

Christmas Morning

I woke up bright and early (actually dark and early.... stupid winter). I knew Kyle and I would need to be ready, because we'd only have an hour and a half or so once the girls got up to do our "family Christmas", before heading over to my parents house. We had really assumed the girls would want little to do with the gift exchange, but we didn't want to rush if they ended up interested. I'm glad we got them up at 7, because they were SO much more excited than I ever would have imagined! Let me back up, though...

After waking them up (and stripping down Elise and her crib post-blowout... Merry Christmas, Mommy!), we headed downstairs to put the last ornament on the "Countdown Tree"!


















Now you know that nothing - not even Christmas presents - can get between 2 six month old girls and their bottles, after having not eaten for 13 or so hours. So first things first... breakfast. We then read the (more abbreviated than we had anticipated) Christmas story from Her First Bible, before heading to the tree.














The girls really did love all of the paper and boxes as we had anticipated, but they were actually acutely aware of what they were opening... looking at pictures in books, pressing buttons on toys, fighting us when we tried to move on :).... it was so much more fun than I had predicted! I'll let the pictures do most of the story-telling, though. Don't forget, the majority of them can't be seen here. Click on over (in the sidebar) to Picasa to see the rest!

Did you miss us?

I promise, I'm working on getting caught up. If you recall, I have 2 babies. Sometimes they're rotten. Sometimes they're just too cute to ignore. And while said babies take up 100% of my time most days, I somehow requested/necessitated that Christmas Dinner, the Kaufman Christmas (weekend), and New Years Eve all be at my house.

This isn't really a big deal I suppose, but then something in my brain snapped yesterday and I started tearing into random (huge) projects around the house. Going through clothes boxes and closets for goodwill, taking down Christmas decor (already?!), deep cleaning and spring cleaning scheduling (you know I'm a nerd), reorganizing the basement (again), going through the girls clothes (again) and rearranging the totes.

If I were pregnant and on the verge of delivery, this could be nesting. In my case, however, when that is so far from the truth, I think they just call it insanity.

So there you go.. I have hardly been on the computer at all the past week, let alone had time to sit down and actually do something on it.

I'm working diligently tonight (as fast as my crappy computer will take me), but I also still have to clean up after myself and my "projects" before people come over tomorrow - and maybe eat something, since I keep forgetting to do that these days while I'm on a rampage. So for tonight, I've set a time limit...... I'll get through what I can, and then in January I assure you I'll be consistent again!


And at the risk of this post being useless, I'll tell you this: There are LOTS of Christmas pictures (as you can imagine), and I'm not even uploading all of them. That being said, you're going to have to venture over to Picasa to see the majority of them. I may be biased, but there are some really cute ones! Also, you might note that there will be a "Christmas" album, separate from "December 2008 Misc". The "Christmas" album will have, well, Christmas pictures. The December Misc album will continue to be updated with random pictures from the final days of 2008, that aren't technically Christmas related. I'm sure you could have figured all of this out yourself, but I thought I'd make it a bit more simple. My belated Christmas gift to you. :)

Christmas Eve

The morning started out by waking up in Christmas PJs part 1 of 3 (I told you I had a problem...). Don't worry about the cold either, they have two different Christmas sleepsacks (each), though I've yet to get a picture of one of them. We've been alternating :)



















































Kyle was home today, so we quickly finished up a few last minute things around the house while the girls were sleeping, and then played with them the rest of the day - so much fun! We talked about Christmas several times, practiced singing "Happy Birthday, Jesus" (this version) and watched 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

We tracked Santa all day, watching videos of where Christmas already reached other parts of the globe, and counted down the time until the day would be here! (Seriously, what a fun way to learn, or brush up on, your geography! :-P) The girls babbled all day about what presents they might find under the tree, but Kyle and I knew that whatever we find there, 2008 has already brought us the best gifts. See? :D


























The girls got all dressed up for the service, in Christmas Dresses 1 of 3(sets). (It's not just me, their Aunt Terrie helped! :)). You've caught a sneak peek at these, but here are Elise and Avery all dolled up in their Christmas best --


































After church, the girls got into their "official" Christmas PJs (set 2 of 3, if you're keeping track, but a sore spot of conversation in our house as I never did find acceptable matching Christmas PJs :( ).


























They ate quickly, then settled in for a reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, before falling fast asleep.







































Kyle and I are off to enjoy a late Christmas Eve dinner of Chicken Florentine & Farfalle, then heading to bed ourselves. After all, "The sooner you go to bed, the sooner Christmas comes!" Didn't you know that?! (Kyle somehow disagrees... something about time moving the same regardless? Puh-lease!)




I obviously can't predict whether there will be down time enough (perhaps while the girls nap, if there are no visitors at a given time?) to keep the blog current, but you can rest assured I'll be taking PLENTY of pictures, and will fill you in as soon as I can about Avery's and Elise's First Christmas (and, consequently, our First Christmas with them! :))

Have a very, Merry Christmas!

Thank you, Linus (and Charles Schultz), for the reminder.

Christmas Eve Eve Service

Tonight, we went to the Christmas Eve Eve service at 4 Corners Community Church. There was a remarkable turnout, despite the roads being completely icy just as everyone would be heading to the church.

It was a great service -- a wonderful reminder of the baby that grew into a child, and grew all the way to Calvary so that God can live IN us, not just with or among us. We also saw Santa praising God in the choir. Awesome.

I hope you are having a wonderful season not only spending time with friends and family (although how great is that?!), but celebrating Jesus' birth -- the beginning of His Story.



Love,
Jennifer, Kyle & the Girls

I hate Gingerbread Houses.

Other than this one at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa,














they evoke nothing short of hatred in my soul. You may think I'm exaggerating, but my entire family can vouch for me. Every year, for several years in a row, I bought things to make and decorate gingerbread houses. I had this glorious idea in my head that it would be the pinnacle of Christmas Spirit in our house, the best family memory we could create. And then every year, the same thing happened. Sometime during the process, I turned into a (only slightly) prettier version of The Incredible Hulk. Thick, dense Gingerbread was NOT made to stand upright, stuck to other pieces of Gingerbread by only icing. It just isn't right. And then, once you finally succeed at getting it put together, nobody I know wants to eat it anyway because, in our collective opinion, Gingerbread tastes like crap.

You can imagine my joy when I came across this at Michael's:














(Let it be known that I thought it was a 3D house, which would have been cooler (and still easy to mash together), but I got over it quickly -- it still beat the Gingerbread variety!)

I used my 40% off weekly coupon and was the proud owner of a new variety of house-decorating-tradition-in-a-box!



Last night, we made our creations. (Next year, we will not believe the lies told by Kellogg's that "Everything you need is in the box"! Three tiny tubes of icing - in red, white, and PINK mind you (Red & Pink? What happened to Red & Green?), stale gumdrops, and a small thing of candy buttons is not enough to really create a masterpiece!) Still, they were fun, and turned out kind of cute -- and actually edible! ;)














The girls practiced, too, so they can help next year!













































































Merry Christmas Eve Eve! :)

Such A Great Daddy!

Kyle, watching a few minutes of How the Grinch Stole Christmas with the girls, giving them a little advice about the movie :)


















He can feed both at the same time with no trouble, and even changes poopy diapers!














Do I hear some dads don't even feed and change one baby?! I'd say I'm lucky, but really I'd just slap my husband around if he didn't......... :-P

In general, though, the girls and I are very blessed! :)

Their mama thinks they're pretty cute....

Great Wolf Lodge

So in reality, we didn't keep our plans of going to Holiday in Lights for long! About a week before Cassi's birthday, it dawned on me that she didn't even have a "party" planned for her Sweet 16, other than the usual dinner with family and a few friends coming over the following weekend. Since I was a totally different 16 year old girl and had a really big, really wonderful 16th birthday party, I wanted desperately to help make Cassi's night equally as special, however different it would turn out.

There is a wonderful lady in the WCMOT&MC that helped arrange for a beautiful suite at the Great Wolf Lodge in Mason. It was 2 stories, had 3 beds and a pullout, 3 TVs, etc and a beautiful stone fireplace! She also arranged waterpark passes for my dad, Kyle and I so we could celebrate with her, at least on Friday night.














We pulled off completely surprising Cassi, and all had a really wonderful time!

Before the girls were to arrive, I had gone to check in and make sure everything was squared away for the 'party'. We didn't really think this through, so I ended up pushing the stroller with one hand, carrying the cake one-handed in the other, all while balancing and/or carrying a diaper bag, camera bag, beach bag, duffel bag, 2 additional bottles, a cell phone and a can of diet dr. pepper. And somehow, I managed to arrive to the 4th floor room in one piece, having survived stairwells, elevators, lots of doors and buttons.... lots of fun. :)

Elise and Avery were supposed to take a good nap since they'd be up late, but instead took a very mediocre one.














After Cassi and some of her friends arrived, we ate pizza and changed for the waterpark. While the big girls were changing, Kyle, the littler girls and I went to the lobby in search of Little Swimmers and to track down Mrs. Claus to say hello.



























My girls even went swimming, for the first time! They were INCREDIBLY tired, so mostly just didn't care either way. (Several more photos in the December Picasa album) :)














After playing for a few hours (they have great tube slides!), we all eventually made it back to the room for cake and presents. The babies were beyond exhausted...



























We left, the rest of the gang stayed for the night and into the afternoon/evening on Saturday. I think it turned out pretty well!




























Kyle and I decided that we will definitely be back when the girls are toddlers. Half of the park was for little ones, and it looked amazing!