Christmas!

     Like every year before it comes and goes too quickly but we had a great Christmas and there's nothing more exciting than having little kids around to keep the excitement alive.  But before we even got to Christmas Day we had to take a minute to decorate and eat giant gingerbread man cookies.  Kayli was at work and missed out but the boys managed without her.

McClane just started devouring his cookie, who needs frosting, right?!

Brock used frosting and don't let his sweet face fool you he had no problem biting right into his gingerbread man's head.

Isaac put in the time and made a cute gingerbread man.

Carter did a great job too.

And Mark, a.k.a. 'future cake boss' did an awesome job.

    And I apologize for not having photos from Christmas eve but just so you know the kids received the game "Sorry" and a punching bag. This was in lieu of the traditional PJs they normally get.

The traditional line up Christmas morning.  Thank goodness we had Aunt NiNin here to help out!

Now let the madness ensue!

Brock on his new Dune Buggy!

And Isaac and Carter's dream came true, MOTORCYCLES!!

And we can't forget our baby, Princess Charlie who celebrated her first Christmas!

And our big sister, Princess Kayli couldn't even put her phone down long enough to really soak in her One Direction pillow.  LOOK UP!!!

Sorry about the crazy eyes but how cute are these three!?

And Mark got a weapon and cash, every teenage boys dream, right?

How cute are these boots that santa left in Charlie's stocking?

McClane is obsessed with anything vehicular.

Kayli shared her hard earned money on a couple gifts, this Duck Dynasty cup for Greg even had a t-shirt inside.

And Kayli bought me this cute red blouse.  (I may have given her a hint or two.)  She does have a sweet and generous side.

And Greg made sure I had a chocolate fix to see me through the day. (Did I say day, I mean couple of days.)

Carter made this cute stand, which makes a perfect home for Charlie's hats and bracelets.

Look out, McClane's on the hunt!

We love having Kristin join us Christmas morning, it wouldn't be Christmas without her! 

     And grandma and grandpa Kmetzsch came later Christmas morning and had very special gifts for all of us. And most priceless of all was their hand written testimony on each individual photo of the Savior that they gave the kids.

It's hard to fit all 7 kids in the photo but you get the idea.  These are the photos they received from their Kmetzsch grandparents and we can't wait to hang them in their rooms.

"Sorry" it's a little blurry!

Here's Charlie in her new outfit.  Santa has pretty good taste in clothes.

Baby in a bumbo chair.

All pink including her tongue that she loves to stick out.  (Carter liked to stick his tongue out too as a baby, I LOVE it!)

    With nine of us there's a lot of photos but I did try to narrow it down. It really was a great Christmas and so far it's been a pretty good Christmas break, but I do believe prayers aren't enough I probably should have just shipped all the kids off to Grandma Baker's for the two week break!

A small variety

     Well we survived our final week of school before Christmas break.  Here's just a small portion of what happened at our house this week.

Why is it always Greg who gets to nap with this little beauty!?

Um...you can come up with your own caption.

I don't know if I should be worried that my 8 year old SON spent the better part of the afternoon gluing these fake nails on his hands.

Standing baby!  (Isaac as puppet master.)

Red, white and Black, LOVE IT!!

Informal piano recital.  This is Isaac taking a bow.

I didn't catch Carter's bow so this photo was posed.

This is where these two hang out while mom is getting herself ready for the day.

And this is the fun going on in our basement as we head into our Christmas break.

    Now the real feat will be surviving Christmas break with seven kids at home all day every day. Pray for me!

Charlie & Christmas stockings

     Charlie hit her 4 month mark and I finished sewing all nine Christmas stockings and here are photos documenting both events.

Nine Stockings "hung by the chimney with care."

Dang she's CUTE!!

All smiles;-)

And just because she's so cute:-)

Chubby cheeks.

        We all survived the week and we only have one more week of school to endure before our two week Christmas break, yay!!

Home for the holidays

     Well we had a blast in Oregon and we survived the long drive home.  Now that we're home I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with what I need and want to do in the next few weeks.  The Primary stuff alone is freaking me out a little but most of it is out of my control.  This first week of December has been especially busy.  We did manage to get a Christmas tree and it only took three days to get it all decorated:). (There's just not enough hours in the day sometimes.)  We also went to Festival of Trees and afterwards drove around and looked at a few houses with the dancing lights.  And today, if the weather doesn't completely ruin my plans, we'll be going to the Live Nativity here in town that is absolutely fantastic! And if I can squeeze it in I'm hoping to have nine stockings all sewn up and ready to be hung by the end of the day.  I've finished one, my prototype so to speak and have the other 8 half way done so it's not completely out of the realm of possibilities.

    Now on to the photos from the week.

Here's the photo of Isaac that I didn't have for last weeks post.  He had such a fun time on his ride.  Thanks again Grandpa B. for the fun airplane rides.

Of course we got home just before a big snowstorm.  This was Mark's welcome home sign for our neighbor.

Here's our lovely tree all frozen and snowy, hence the beach towels on the floor.  We were too busy to go as a family to pick it out so Greg just took, Mark, Isaac, Carter and Brock.  They did a fine job I think.

This was one of several Despicable me candy houses at Festival of Trees and one of the better candy houses.

This was a COOL Mickey Mouse playhouse.  Check out the roof made out of Mickey Mouse ears.  So awesome;-)

This little monster just wanted to camp out at every tree that had anything remotely train or car like.  He would go racing back to the tree he liked and just stand and stare.  He even laid down a couple of times to get a better view of things, which was funny but not safe with all the people that were milling around.  Notice he even had his own train in hand the entire time.  He kills me!

And cute baby Charlie acquired this darling little beanie courtesy of me.  I just couldn't resist.

Brock made this candy house at school and devoured it for lunch.  (I'll take any excuse to get out of making a meal.)

And here's my first finished stocking.  I love the Chevron pattern and after seeing my Sis-in-law, Melissa's, before photos of her stocking project I was inspired.  I DIDN'T love going to the fabric store and left so frazzled that I forgot to use my 50% off coupon but I'm happy with the end result so far.

Here's the tree finally all decorated and looking more festive.

And here's a typical Saturday morning in our room.

     Now wish me luck on getting to all my 'to do' list before Christmas arrives:-)