Merry Christmas y'all

From the great snowy north!
We were lucky enough to be able to spend our Christmas vacation in Minnesnowta. We drove the 16 hours and got here on Saturday night. It was quite the drive, keeping kids {Jax} entertained! But it's always worth it when we are greeted with such happiness.

Our Christmas Day was great! Its so fun living vicariously thru your kids, feeling the excitement. We got the kids some rad presents, IMHO. (<---learned that acronym during a game, hah) James had a blast picking out boy toys for Jax. The boy is in heaven (and Jax too!).
And as for the girls, well, we got them a doll we never thought we would! Bah! We love America :X ....
Anyways....presents aside!!! It's so fun....all the things we GET! I will be the first to admit that I LOVE getting gifts....especially when your husband listens to you and gets you and iPad (that's being funny about connecting to the wifi, boo!!). But it's not all about that, of course....
I'm so thankful our Savior was born.
I'm so thankful we can celebrate his birth by spending time with family, by thinking about His life and making new promises to ourselves to be more like Him.
I'm so thankful that He loves us enough to let us have a new year to start afresh!

These few days between Christmas and New Years I always tend to start thinking about the cliche of resolutions. I feel like
I shouldn't just wait till January to find ways to better myself....but hey, here we are again...creeping up on January. Time to dust off the journal and get things back on track!

On Christmas Day Afternoon....

.....we made gingerbread houses!!!!

 Laura had a good recipe and a few days before had whipped up a batch of gingerbread and cut out the parts for each house. It took us a few days to get around to putting the houses together....but when we did, we had fun doing it!
Emily was a good sport and teamed up with Bella to decorate a house.

 My beautiful mom and gorgeous Hannah....creating their masterpiece.

 Thank you, Laura and Joseph for making the gingerbread!! {And for braving the weather so you could be there with us!!}

 Our house....is a very, very, very fine house. Not so much a masterpiece.

 And the mosh pit gummy bears were pooping in the yard!! Punks.

Say www-What?!

Which is exactly what I said when James showed me how his parents packaged our Christmas gift this year!

Ü

Every  year they out-do themselves in finding a different, never-before-seen way to give us gifts. I know they get great pleasure in coming up with this stuff! Last year....it was 50 ones in a booklet. Yes, that's right FIFTY ONES in a booklet. They found the glue you would use to bind a tear-away paper pad (thats the best way I can describe it :S). Which meant, in order to use it I had to tear. each. dollar. off the pad. lol. Hilarious.

Really, it was genius.

This year....well.

Just as genius.

They put our gift money into balloons.

Filled with confetti.

Good thing we weren't at THEIR house, huh? lol.

So, we took the balloons outside on Christmas morning and....

                                                                   POPPED THEM!!

What {cold} fun!!

It looks like James farted glitter.

Mwhahhahaha.

Pffffft......

 And then with the aftermath of glitter....we played! lol. Ran around throwing them on our snowman and each other.

 Thanks for the entertainment {and moolah} Grammy and Papa!

Good Ole Christmas Morn....

It is officially over a MONTH since all of this happened....and my memory is quite bloggy-foggy.

{oooo...I think me's just made up a news words}

Quit complainin' lady and git on wit it.

Christmas morning.

Lots of presents under the tree.

Lots of fun together.

Unwrapping in no particular order (which is SO not like us).

Bella was ecstatic to get a letter from Santa!!

The kiddos got one big-ish present from Santa, and the rest was the little stuff (the crap that mommy finds on the floor, in between the seats on the couch...ya know...). We tried to make this a "smaller Christmas" because of the whole spending-4-days-at-Disneyland dealio. Buuuut....we always end up spending too much on them....we just can't help it! Kids toys are so much fun!!

Aube finally got her Sight Words DVD....seriously....I love DVD's that teach my kids things I never knew existed! (Sight words?! Whodathunk.... but duh)

Emily was quite the center of attention with the the little men's. They loved their little stuffed animals!

Jax was a pro at shoving all the loose paper in his mouth opening presents on his first Christmas.

And big Daddy John made us all his world famous Christmas tree pancakes. Yum!  Bella sat and watched while he did....learning the tricks of the trade.

 I loved that we were able to share in the Christmas spirit and fun with my family this year. It's been 3 years too long!! It's the upside and downside to being married....having to split up holidays, wanting to be with everyone at the same time! Christmas 2011 we are staying home (as of now) which is always fun...yet kind of depressing, too, not having a big support system around to celebrate with! But we'll make it fun all the same!

Just a few pictures I ♥ from Christmas Eve.

Someone stuck this hat on him and he kept it on for quite awhile, crazy boy. He was just crawling around, giggling his little behind off.

 We were making him choose....do you want the camera lady...or the funny man. The funny man WINS!  But only by 2 points....I think he had food in his pocket.

 We had the traditional Christmas Eve dinner....well....maybe not traditional, I kinda feel that way any time I eat ham. Ü Just feels traditional.
My daddy cracks me up...he's always a....ham.

 Jax is always fascinated by facial hair....he likes to poke and prod at it....and stare.
I'm so grateful for a Grampa who adores his grandkiddos.....he'll get down and play, never minding when he gets put at the kids table, and always ready with a 'stubble kiss'.

And...like you couldn't tell...I love to brag on my family. I have a very talented family, so my bragging is not for naught....or however that saying goes....or doesn't go.

My sister Laura and I took piano lessons for years....she practiced (I didn't) and is fabulous, even taught herself how to play the organ. The next one down, Jen, is a fabulous flute player....I wish I knew how to play like her! Then there is Emily....who has taught herself how to play the piano, the bassoon, the guitar and the saxaphone. Goodness gracious. And last, but not least, Hannah....she's a youngin' and following in the musical footsteps of Em, with a side of dance. She put on a fabulous show for us on the last night we were in town!

Anyways....a little off track there....follow the yellow brick bragging road, whydontcha.

But knowing how musically inclined my family is...I love seeing pictures like this. I love being THAT family...the one who spends a lot of time around the piano...playing or singing or even banging (thanks Jax), Especially with all the beautiful songs during the Christmas season. Bella's favorite this year was Angels we have heard on High. She would sing it everywhere! Hopefully I can teach her more piano this year....or find her a better teacher!

Christmas Crafts

Please excuse the ginormous pictures....blogger wouldn't upload my pics...so I had to go with Photobucket and they are just gihugic! But I've always wanted to know how to get my pictures bigger...now I do! yikes!

So...this year for Christmas we were on a strapped budget than usual...so I made up some gifts for family. Of course, sometimes making gifts is just as expensive as buying toys or gift cards or what not...but I truly believe it's the THOUGHT that counts...and I put a lot of love into these gifts.

One of the first things I did this year was create 2009 scrapbooks for the grandparents. Each one had a section for Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall...we did a lot this year, so it was easy to separate the events into each section. I really want to do more scrapbooking this year, especially after doing these...I love looking back at how my girls have grown! For the 'older' nephew and niece....I made quiet bags for church. This was something I wanted to do LAST year, but never got around to it....I'm so glad I was able to do it this year.
I also made tie shirts for two of them, which I think are just completely adorable! Cayden has even been sporting his already this year!
I told Kari and Matt like 6 months ago I would make them a "TAKE YOUR FLIPPING SHOES OFF" sign, to help them save their brand new light-colored shoes off. Of course, in true Sarah-fashion, I procrastinated and finally made it as a Christmas gift! But, it wasn't exactly what I was planning...but I think it turned out cute, none-the-less.
I found these 8x10 plastic frames at Walmart...the kind with the magnets on the back to stick it to the fridge. I was thinking that it might work well on the front door, if you have a metal door (at least I hope so, eek!). And in the frame part, I put several sheets of different scrapbook paper, for all the different seasons.

For Rylee, I did the same as for Cayden and made her a church quiet bag. I wanted to make her an 'R' shirt but the stinkin' Heat-n-Bond wouldn't keep the R on the shirt, so...I'm gonna have to figure that out and make it for when she comes to visit next month! yay! I also included in each bag a Gospel ABC book , which are really nice to have to look at during Sacrament Mtg. And also these Lacing and Tracing deals...those will keep kids quiet for WHILE! lol. And then you can string Fruit Loops on them for even more fun!

For my mom, I made her a Button Pillow cover. I drove up to Ikea, which was the only place I knew of that had pillow covers (of course, it turns out that Hobby Lobby has them, not so long of a drive...but I'll just keep telling myself that Ikea has better quality!)...you can get them 2/$8! Then I printed off an 'S' transfer and bought a bag of buttons...and sewed, sewed, sewed!
If I ever do this again, I'm going to GLUE the buttons first, THEN sew, which I recently saw on another tutorial...which is super smart...even though I had a TON of fun sewing on each itty, bitty button!! I can't wait to do one for our couch!

And there you go...I forgot to take pictures of the name thing I did for my dad and the Priesthood Line of Authority I did for James' dad. And the Cancun peso necklaces! Whoops! Oh well...they were all pretty Ü.

Crafting just gets into my blood stream...it's so addictive! I love making stuff for people, it makes me happy to see something I've made make someone happy. I have to keep remembering that happiness when I get negative comments about the effort I put into stuff...I have to remember that it's WORTH it to me to put forth the effort and create!

Christmas Day

The girls were uber-excited for Christmas morning to come. This is such a fun age, they finally REALIZE what's going on...and the excitement...oh my!! They were just itching to run down and see what Santa had left. Grammy had to keep them at by while Papa went and checked on everything downstairs. (I love that little tradition. Growing up, my parents would cover the entrance into the family room....and dad would go down to check everything out, or in other words...set up the camera!)

I absolutely LOOOOVE this picture...I can hear her excitement just by looking at it.

A FULL princess set from Grammy and Papa. We seem to go thru princess' like candy! :) We've left our fair share at stores, restaurants, church...she was SO happy to get these!

One of the gifts we gave to Mom & Dad was a Cancun picture book...all the pictures we took in Cancun all put together into a hardback book. Another gift for Mom was a necklace made out of a peso. And then I made Dad a frame with his Priesthood Line of Authority (which I plan to do a tutorial on...such a great Father's Day gift idea!).

This was a gift from Uncle Topher....and the dog is HILARIOUS! He plays a song and scoots around in a circle. Totally looks like he's rubbing his butt on the carpet!! lolol.

James and his big ole pants...for some reason this was hilarious. I promise they are his size....err....they just LOOK big! They look good with his Laker shirt I got him...which he'll be wearing to the Laker game in February!! yay!

And of course, a day wouldn't be a day without at least one fit from Aube. Ü That-a-girl...way to not let us down! lol.

And the hit of the morning...yes...a last minute gift picked up by Santa. But the funnest one to put together. The McDonalds cash register came with Happy Meal boxes, french fry containers and Avatar toys (for some reason my girls are in love with Avatar!). So fun! This toy has been played with everyday since Christmas....guess it was a good buy Ü.Bella and Gramma Carols.
Gramma made Bella and Aube these sweet little baby blankets that are just too darling!

Those blankets wrap up precious babies!

And of course....it snowed....and snowed. But it made for a BEAUTIFUL white Christmas!

It was the best kind of snow to make a snowman, too. So James, Topher and Bella went out to build one.

Bella got a few good snowballs in, too...so proud of that girl! Ü

Frosty, the Oreo cookie snowman.

For Christmas dinner, we were lucky enough to be able to spend time with the Cathcart family. They helped us enjoy dad's famous prime rib! yum! After which, we sat and played some fun new games!

I'm learning now that some of Santa's gifts weren't well thought out. He brought the girls some roller skates...which have images of busted heads and ER's swimming in my head! lol. Whoops.

They got to play with them for a little while....with help. The boys were all playing Wii Resort and whoever lost got to be the escort, lol!

Aube getting some tips from Sharron....point those toes!

And black was the color of the evening! And this wasn't coordinated AT ALL....promise! :) Such a cute bunch of ladies...I just love them all so much!

It was a very, merry Christmas! We haven't had a Christmas at the Kirchmann home since James and my first Christmas together....it was such a joy sharing in their traditions and having so much fun with them!