My budding photographer

Cuz everyone needs a self portrait of them picking their runny nose... right?

Mason loves to take pictures. I'm sometimes surprised at how good they turn out! I thought this one looked kind of artsy-fartsy!


The annual gingerbread house. Just lovely!


Mason took this one also.

Uncle Don tried to teach him how to play pool.

Ornament Pick

We started a tradition 3 years ago to let the kids each pick out 1 new ornament for the Christmas tree. As we pulled out the ornaments we had a hard time remembering who picked out what. I originally thought I would just write there name on them, but they picked some that made that impossible. We have now added to the tradition... taking pictures of the kids with the ornament of choice!

Remember... they are allowed to pick WHATEVER they want... I am NOT responsible for any tackiness!

Aryah picked this one almost immediately and would not let go of it or be swayed!

Mason went back and forth between 2 or 3 until he saw this beauty! There was no changing his mind!

Victoria also picked this one very quickly and didn't want to let go of it, not even long enough for it to be scanned and paid for!

You may remember this cute little guy from last year! I slaved over him for 2 days, trying to get him perfect. I think he turned out very cute. But, when we cut into him, he was really dry and didn't taste very good.

So this year I decided to try something a little different, and I hoped, a little easier.

But alas, it was not so! They turned out pretty cute in the end, but they were a bugger! I think they tasted better though so that was a bonus!

Now, what to do next year???

Santa's Ranch

About 15 minutes from our house there is a place called Santa's Ranch. Sounds intriguing... right?!? We thought so! So last year we looked it up, and found out it cost $20 per car. So, we didn't go. This year however, we decided if we packed lots of us in one car then it would be worth it, and it was!

Most of these pictures are compliments of Mason!

I thought this one looked cool, like it was on fire!

Mason fell asleep on the way there. Luckily we were able to wake him up after 10 minutes of trying.

Christmas Day

I know this is backwards, but Blogger wont let me move my pictures around after they are loaded, so sorry! I will post Christmas Eve later so that will be backwards too, so just deal with it!

We were really lucky to have Jes' family come down and spend Christmas with us this year. It made Christmas so much more fun! I hope they do it again next year!

We have been going back and forth every year on how to do our own family traditions for Christmas. We finally decided that we would let Santa bring one big present for the family and fill the kids stockings. We told Santa that Mom and Dad wanted to do the rest. In the past we have let Santa bring everything and Mom and Dad didn't do anything. That is how I grew up, but Jes got a few things from Santa and a few things from parents. We decided to give the parents a little credit this year! It's hard to mesh two different people with different traditions. I think we finally got it figured out this year and we should be good to go from now on!

Ashlee, Shalynn, and Jessica playing just dance on the Wii Santa brought!

Jessica and Tori

Ashlee, Jessica, Tori and Grandma Kathy

Mason creating all our Mii's on the Wii. They turned out pretty strange!

Victoria fell in love with her Aunt Jessica! She was glued to her the whole time Jessica was here!

Tori got a cute hat!

Mason, Jessica, Shalynn and Ashlee. We were trying to play this penguin flip game Tori got, it's impossible!

Grandma and her "child" Gretta.

Aryah, Daddy looking confused (probably about something Don was saying!) and Victoria

Mason got more pieces to his marble maze!

Cutie pie Victoria loves animals (real and pretend!).

Aryah looking through the garbage. Donny, Jessica and Shalynn, aka the life of the party!

Mason wanted this batman shirt so bad, so Mommy relented even though she hates clothes with characters on them! This one wasn't too bad.

Opening.... and opening... it took all day!

Taking a break for some breakfast! Yummy eggnog pancakes!

Mommy and Aryah

I hate to admit it, but we had an electronic Christmas. Santa brought the family the Wii and Mom and Dad got all the kids video games for the V-Smile that they already have. We even got Aryah a baby V-Smile video game! At least they are all educational games, right?!?

More nerf guns... just what we needed around here... NOT!

Tori got a Tinkerbell bike. It was the hit of the day! Mason would peddle and Tori would ride in the basket behind him. They went around and around all day! I'm sure I have a picture of it somewhere, I just don't know where.

Aryah opened all her presents by herself! She was really into it!

Opening the gifts Santa left!

Victoria doesn't look to thrilled with her bike, but I promise she is! Besides it being a bike, it's Tinkerbell! That girl LOVES all things Tink! I think she was still half asleep in this picture. It was 6:30 in the morning!

Opening stockings