Christmas!!

Because we live so close to both side of our families, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day tend to be quite full. Please don't take this wrong, we feel so very blessed to live close to so much family, but this year we decided to just stay home and start a few Christmas Eve traditions of our own and it was...

WONDERFUL!

Dan had Christmas Eve off so we spent the day hanging out with each other.

So nice.

We also took a trip to visit with Great Grandpa Stratford and bring him our Christmas card and some goodies. We sure do love him and are lucky to have him be part of our life.

We had lunch at a little place that Dan has been wanting to go to for a while now, called

Hot Dog Heaven.

To be honest... not really my favorite...course I don't really dig hot dogs either... but the boys thought the humungus hot dogs were awesome!

We came home, wrestled a bit, and got started making

gingerbread cookies for Santa!
The boys thought Santa should have REALLY BIG gingerbread men...

They actually turned out pretty tasty.
For Christmas Eve dinner the tradition has always been either Clam Chowder or
Tamales and Pasole with Dan's side of the family.
Since we were home this year and didn't want to go to the effort of making either only to have our boys make yucky sounds and complaints of not liking it, we decided to make it simple and have something everyone loves....
BEER ROCKS!
We have decided, that if we can be home on Christmas Eve, this will be our tradition!
We had so much fun dancing to Rockin' Christmas music while chowing down those tasty lumps of cheesy goodness!
Not even the craziness and loud laughter at the dinner table could keep Tate awake, however. He tried...
...and tried...
...he even laughed a few times as his head was bobbing up and down..
Can you see his faint smile?

Sweet boy.

He did wake up when it was time for Christmas Eve presents!

Dan and I gave them new PJs and they each got their own BIG fleece blanket (made by mom) to snuggle up in while we watch the christmas movies they each got too.

Forgot to take a picture of them all cozy...maybe another day.

Of the movies they got, "Frosty the Snowman", "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer", "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", and "A Christmas Story", much to our surprise they chose to watch Dan and I's favorite the classic "A Chritsmas Story".

Unfortunately, watching this classic didn't quite have the effect we had thought. We somehow forgot about a few details. If you have NOT seen this movie or have NOT seen it in a while, you might or might NOT want to watch it again for a brief review.

We were bombarded with statements like,

"Why did he lie to his mom when he shot his eye out with the BB gun? He should have listened to his mom, she told him he would do that."

"Mom, I NEVER want to watch that movie again!!! There are way too many bad words and he lied to his mom 2 times!"

"Wow! Poor woman. (refering to the mom in the movie) Her husband is sure bossy!"

But even those comments seemed to be brushed aside when Tracen exclaimed,

"Dad, what's ELECTRIC SEX?"

as Ralphie's hand caressed the leg of the lamp.

I guess I won't be getting our family our own "special award" lamp to display in our window next Christmas.

Well, after that lovely part of the evening, we wanted to change subjects and help encourage them to have sugar plums dancing in their head instead of electric sex, so...

what we checked the Santa Tracker!

Tracen exclaimed , "Santa's in Australia? That means he'll be at our house in about 6 hours! We gotta get to bed!"

So we set out the cookies and milk for the Big Guy and

Carrots for the reindeer.

As soon as the boys were all having visions of X-box games dancing in their heads....

SANTA CAME!!!!

Mom and Dad left out a few gifts too.

Sunday totes complete with notepads, pencils, Bible word searches, and a little photo album full of gospel centered pictures.

We also gave them this life size poster of the BODY! Trace and Ty are both fancinated with how everything works and where it is that we thought this to be perfect.

To go along with this poster they got 6 amazing hard bound books all about Earth, Science, Nature, Under the Sea, The Human Body, and Animals. Not the most exciting gift on Christmas morning but already Tracen has been found reading through a few pages.

Santa brought mom and dad a few little somethings as well. How did he know we needed a bigger crockpot?!

For some reason Dan found a little "COAL" in his stocking.
Santa also gave mom and dad a great digital camcorder which we used to record this fabulous morning!

We're excited to use this little sled from Santa soon.

A few more Santa gifts...

Santa somehow found Tate's beloved Lightning McQueen that has been lost for weeks.

Tyler got his much wanted Ben 10 watch.

(I think it must have taken him a while to figure out what in the world it was- because we were clueless for a while too)

Unfortunately Santa decided that a Ninento DS was not nearly as cool as the old school XBox we currently have (and a bit on the pricey side) so Tracen didn't get his wish.

However, he did get this great Lego set that he thought was the coolest thigh ever!!!

(Thank goodness)

They all got a scooter...

and plenty more games to play on their XBox.

THANK YOU SANTA!!!

After the Christmas morning festivities, we had our traditional

Egg Nog French Toast, bacon, and clementines for breakfast.

Yummmmm.

We then headed out to my parents house for more festivites and a scrumptious family dinner!

We ate, played games, ate, exchanged and opened many gifts, ate, talked, laughed, cleaned marcino cherry juice and fudge sauce out of mom's carpet (club soda is miraculous!), ate, played more games, did I mentioned we ate some fantastic food and goodies?, and didn't leave until around 11pm. It was a long and wonderful day.

Unfortunately, we were having so much fun we completely forgot to do the traditional nativity script with the kids like we'd planned. There's always next year- right?

Thank You

to all the grandparents and family for your extreme generosity to our little family this year.

We feel very spoiled as usual.

We do hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Now on to a NEW YEAR!!

Santa at Abuela's house!

Dan's parents headed to Colorado this year to spend Christmas with one of Dan's sisters, Kathryn, and her family. So they had a little pre-Christmas party at their house. We had a traditional Mexican Christmas dinner of Tamales and Tortillas soup.

It was simply divine!

We also had Norwegian Rice Kreme where Leah found the almond and won the prize.

(a gourmet chocolate bar)

We then did a little gift exchange amongst the cousins. These cousins also happen to be the boys bestest friends too.

When asked what they wanted to give their cousins for Christmas this year, they both somehow agreed that Sammy, Riley and Zeke NEEDED to have super capes like them. So this is what I came with.

We were then happily surprised that another cousin, HAYLIE, had come into town and would be joining us at the party. So I finally got my chance to make a little girl cape!


I think it turned out pretty cute.
Especially since, I discovered Haylie's arrival the very day of the party when Kara called out of the blue and said, "Hey, I was wondering if Haylie could come over and play today!"
I knew right away that Haylie MUST have a cape too. So as I packed the boys up to make a quick trip to the fabric store before Haylie came over, I unfortunately discovered that my van keys were no where to be found. They were in the glove compartment of Dan's car which was parked at his work in Ogden. Guess we were grounded.
So... I frantically searched the boxes of fabric I had accumulated from previous sewing projects and from my mom (big thank you)! Luckily, I found enough coordinating fabrics to get it made.
I found it kind of fun trying to get this sewn right under Haylie's nose and not letting her see the BIG H front and center.
I must confess it was quite rewarding to see them all flying arounded G&G house.

Now back to the fabulous evening...

As we were all chilling from such a fabulous meal, grandpa announced that his dear friend Black Beard (that's another story) had just called and said he had a friend of his wanting to stop by. A few minutes later.... look who surprised us all!

SANTA!

Each kid took their turn telling Santa all their Christmas wishes and then recieved a little pre-Christmas gift!

Tracen said he wanted a Nintendo DS, but if that was too much, something else would be fine. (just trying to prove his good boy-ness I think)

Tyler said all he wanted was a Ben 10 watch.
Tate-
- when asked if he had been a good little boy this year, simply answered with a resounding "NO! I not!" (typical) Thank You Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs for a very fun-filled evening!

Christmas Letter 2009

Dear Santa,

Hey Kris! (I can call you by your first name right) It's me Dan, you might remember me as your perennial naughty liste-er from a couple of decades ago. Hey, we buried the hatchet over that unfortunate combat-boot-to-my-brother's dome of '86, right? And we BOTH know I was framed for that fire of '88 at the old Valley View golf course... plus no PERMANENT structures were lost. Sheesh, you would have thought I assaulted the Pope by yuour reaction to that one. Good times, good times...

Well let's get down to business. I have it on good authority, mine, that your methods for good/bad record keeping are as antiquated and unfair as the Florida polling system. As such I will be providing you with this year's first annual, Jacobs family, good/bad grade sheet, judged by yours truly. AND just to show you how impartial a judge I am, I will be duplicating this letter and mailing it to several close family and friends, who dang well better... I mean, who will gladly vouch for both its truthful content and accuracty. We will start with thte children. Eh-Hemmm...

Tracen Daniel: Goods: Passing 1st grade with flying colors- reads very well- has lerned one song ong the piano- generally polite-typically plays well with his brothers- is an ace at the X-box- smart and thoughtful - is a good sport and player in soccer. Bads: Torments brothers to tears- drives dad nuts with one memorized song on the piano- has been caught in the act of giving others wet-willies and wedgies- rarely flushes the toilet- fake laughs like Songe- Bob Square Pants- likes to play "Mr. Bossy".

Tyler Keith: Goods: breezing through pre-school- will work lie a mule when he sets his mind to it- can haul off 10 real push-ups- has infectious laugh- plays well with Tate and Tracen - good vocabulary- "Dad this toy is cumbersome, you know, big and hard to handle.", "Mom, my socks are a menace." -loving- clap-stick sense of humor. Bads: Is scared of his shadow, regularly belches at the table, never flushes, his screams will shatter glass, slams doors, leaves shoes on the stairs, rarely hears the words that come out of an adult's mouth.

Tate Leo: Goods: Hilarious sense of humor- can often be heard saying "How you doin' today?"- can be so delightful- sleeps well- likes to help- plays well with his brothers- will typically clean up toys when asked- likes to sing songs- and gives the best snuggles complete with "I love you so so much". Bads: Epic tantrums, monumental tantrums, Mind-numbing tantrums- Earth-exploding tantrums- Marathon tantrums- Award-winning tantrums- NEVER STOPS TALKING- flushes inappropriate items, thinks toys make great ground cover or missels, casual saying of naughty words (nothing too bad), can be our Grumpy Dwarf.

Deanne: Goods: Seamstress extraordinaire, (5 super hero costumes for Halloween), blogger extraordinaire, canning aficionado, full time nurse, referee, cook, maid, snaitation expert, sheriff, deputy, warden, judge, jury, attorney, bailiff, and executioner, exercise fanatic just to keep up with said duties, extremely kind, thoughtful, beautiful, generous, and loving. Bads: self proclaimed Facebook extraordinaire, has bouts of apathy towards Dan and children's whining, puts herself in time-out for occasional peace and quiet, lerned the hard way that a lawn mower is NEVER 2 quarts low on oil...

Dan: Goods: half-way through Master degree, lost 35 pounds, has kept his job, brings home bacon, does dishes, bathes children, champion Deanne seducer... Bads: (for unabridged listing please refer to Library of Congress, section 132, volumes 1-25), dubious table manners, dubious dance techniques, convenient listener, loser of keys, loser of wallet, quieck to discipline, slow to pick up sweaty work-out clothes, fail to put lid down, rough-house instigator, purveyor of wedgies, wet-willies, covered wagons, hurts-doughnuts, noogies, indian rug-burns etc...etc...etc...

So, Mr. Bowl-full of Jelly, what say you? Seems to me that we are due a regular sized haul, right? No need for bribery or duress as in years past, I hope... Well, say "hi" to the elves in your sweat-shop, I mean "work-shop" would you?

Love,

Dan (Deanne, Tracen, Tyler, and Tate)

Christmas Village Lights