Christmas Spark

There are about four teeth that are missing. I found this knife sitting on the counter all by itself. John and I couldn't figure out how the knife would've lost its teeth to such heat, especially without us knowing.

A few minutes later I found the cord scorched. If you look at the bottom prong you will notice that it has a nice knick right at the bottom of it. We think it's fairly safe to say that the knife caused the knick.

And this is the outlet. Any guesses who did this?

If you guessed Madison you are right!

We took the knife downstairs to quiz the kids about what had happened so that we could figure out who had done this. No one was admitting to it but Madison was looking like she might have something more to say. John asked her if it was scary and she burst into tears. Apparently it was VERY scary. When asked why she didn't tell us she said that she didn't want to get in trouble! We thought the sheer terror of the incident was probably punishment enough for her! She said it burnt a little bit but then it went away. We still have no idea what she was thinking when she did this, we're just glad that she didn't burn the house down on Christmas Day!

Christmas fun

Did I mention that Madison slept in her hat? This is her going through her stocking, still in her hat and barely awake!

Jocelyn was a little slow in getting caught up so she was eating her breakfast while the kids were starting to open their gifts.

These are the only pictures that are half way decent enough to put on the blog. The kids had a lot of fun and mom and dad enjoyed relaxing for the rest of the day! Because of a nasty cold that we all had no one was able to go to church - which didn't seem to bother the kids at all. In fact their cheers of Wa-hoo tell the story well enough.

Alexis was so excited for her "ipod". No, we didn't actually get her an ipod, actually Santa didn't. It's an MP3 player that does videos too - she doesn't know the difference but the pocketbook sure does. She went into the bedroom with the camera, barbie and the "ipod" and then recorded herself singing Taylor Swift while videoing the barbie so that people would think her barbie was singing. Lets just say that she has her mothers singing talent - not really there.

Christmas Eve Party

For Christmas Eve we went over to Aunt Ann and Uncle David's house for dinner and festivities. We had an amazing dinner and then they had stories, nativity scenes, coloring and dessert. They also had the all important presents! Yes, presents! The kids could barely tolerate everything else that had to be done because they wanted presents. We finally let them open them before we were going to so they would cooperate with other things but then they were too excited to get home so they could wait for Santa!

I think the kids had too much fun trying on different hats - they all had static hair by the time they were done!

Aunt Carma read a fun story that the kids had to do actions to - which may have been more fun if they weren't so excited to open even more presents and have dessert!

While Aunt Carma read the story of Jesus Aunt Ann helped the kids set up the nativity scene. The kids thought it was great fun, mom was having heart palpitations that they might break the nativity. 

Madison stole the camera and took of picture of her slippers she got from Grandma Tobi. If they would've stayed on her feet in bed she would've slept in them!

Temper tantrum. Jocelyn LOVES to get a hold of the camera and take pictures. Mommy and Daddy don't love it as much.

Madison slept in this hat! She absolutely refused to take it off for nearly 24 hours! 

After Santa had brought stockings and gifts but before the kids were able to get to anything! 

Santa aka Uncle David

Uncle David played Santa Claus in a play and they let us come. I know, kids + play does not equal hearing. Thankfully they weren't the only kids and they weren't too bad. Aunt Carma was kind enough to take Jocelyn out when she got grumpy and the other three loved sitting next to Aunt Ann. I don't know that the kids knew that it was Uncle David, but Alexis knew that it wasn't the real Santa Claus. In fact she didn't want to sit on any Santa's lap this year because she could tell that they were all "helper Santa's." She agreed to sit for a picture though! Drew & Alexis were both mean to poor Santa/David. When he asked what they wanted for Christmas they refused to tell him because he should've already known since they sent their list. Luckily they didn't get too caught up on the fact that he didn't know what they wanted.

Boys are for playing with

The kids decided to beat Grandpa Rod up. Grandpa Rod wanted Madison's blanket that she got from the young women in the ward when she broke her leg and Madison was NOT happy about it. Alexis and Drew decided to help her beat Grandpa up so he couldn't keep the blanket. Poor Grandpa probably left very sore.

Daddy is the best horse in the house according to the kids. All four kids can still fit on his back while he gallops around the room but I don't think that that will be the case for much longer!

The kids LOVE to take pencils and tape things to them. Currently they are loving taping ribbon or yarn and then turning on the piano music and having "dances". 

Self portraits

I walked into the kitchen and caught Jocelyn standing on the desk helping herself to whatever she wanted. 

Alexis told me the day of her "concert" that she was going to be singing Christmas songs and that I had to be there at 2:30. So I pulled Drew out of preschool early, woke Jocelyn up from nap time and loaded them all up. When we got there we were seated next to the only other mom that had come. It wasn't a concert at all, it was merely a school sing-a-long to Christmas songs before Christmas break. We didn't even get to see Alexis, but the singing was fun!

Madison's self-portrait.

Not a self-portrait. Alexis took this picture and even though John is closing his eyes it is such an adorable picture!

Drew self-portrait.

Alexis self-portrait. She apparently had to wrestle the camera away from Jocelyn in order to take a picture of herself. 

Graham Cracker Houses

The innards of Madison's house.

Jocelyn saw no reason to build a house when she had free reign to eat as much candy as she could.

Drew's finished house. 

Alexis' finished house.

Madison's finished house.

John's finished "house", he was going for the minimalist house this year.

All the kids loaded their houses with as much candy as possible because they wanted to be able to eat candy whenever they wanted. They were going to save the candy until Christmas Day but then decided that "eating that much candy on one day would make us sick."