Christmastime

We spent Christmas alone this year as a little tiny fam, mostly so we could say we'd done it.  It was sad.  I thoroughly enjoyed a nice quiet morning where we got to focus solely on our kids (who were both sick, mostly Devin).  But right around nap time and the rest of the day it was kind of a hmmm moment, and I got bored and sad.  So next year, we'll spend it with family!!!  Here's a little run-down of the days events:
*I'm starting the fairly popular tradition of matching jammies.  It's a little rough finding matching boy & girl jammies, so I just went with stripes.  Oh, and I love the wrapping paper.  Thank you, Hobby Lobby.

*Pulled the ole Santa Clause act with Ben, and wrapped our sad amount of gifts for the kids since we're poor (oh, but don't be too sad for these children, they were well taken care of... just not by us).  Sidenote:  I truly hate wrapping oddly shaped gifts for kids.  h.a.t.e.
*Set up the tree, took a few pictures.

*Both kids woke up around the same time, brought them down.  Dev crawled right over to his toy from Santa that was already unwrapped, and K, well, K just stood there.  For like 5 minutes.  We were all yellin' and hoopin' it up and she just stood there looking at her stuff.  Probably, knowing her, it was a "Santa really does exist?  What the?" moment.  She was truly still and it was funny.  We captured it on video, but I'm not blessing you with that because I also h.a.t.e. downloading and all that bidness it takes to put videos on here. 
*Kyndal unwrapped all the gifts.  Poor turbo-stuffed nose Devin man played with all his stuff in a daze.  Sidenote:  He has been sick for no less than a month now and I'm dingdang tired of it.  Oh, and my Aunts gave Ben & I a money tree.  Hilarious and so clever and cute!!  And of course it was full of money which is always nice :)

*During all this fun Ben and I were frantically putting wrapping paper in a garbage bag because our son is monstrously attracted to eating all forms of paper.  He enjoyed it more than the gifts, but not in the fun-to-rip way, in the sweet!-breakfast! way.  He's a weirdo.  I might be too, I cannot stand to think about him swallowing paper.  Yuck.
*Took the kids to the park in their new Radio Flyer Wagon (from my Aunts) that came complete with a sun shade and seats with buckles!  It's like a stroller but way better, the kids can look at eachother and fight over toys (yup, started already).  I love it, and I was SO happy to find it had buckles!  K was her usual little daredevil monkey self (I do it by myself!), and Dev inspected the grounds.  No, I didn't let him eat it.  I don't let him eat paper, you think I let him eat grass that has all manner of inquity on it??!!.... 

*We spent the 26th in the stinkin' urgent care for Dev, and at a wedding for Ben's loverly niece Jalayne.  I missed the sealing because of said urgent care visit, but her reception was beautiful and it was so nice to see family!  Also, before Christmas, Ben's nephew Michael was here with his family (Shannon, and sons Rafe & Skye) for vacation.  Rafe's 3rd bday party was at McCormick Park in Scottsdale which was pretty awesome.  We rode a train around and looked at Christmas lights.  I have pictures, but they're on our other comp and I'm lazy.  That was also a fun night with Ben's fam, it was so great to see Michael and Shannon who live way the heck and gone in New Hampshire! 

*My fam came over on Sunday after Christmas and showered upon us another Christmas, which I am so appreciative about and wish to all earth that we can someday repay them for what they gave us this year (more than just gifts).  Being poor is lame.  I made bracelets for each of us girls though that match, and put my whole little heart into it.  It was nice to do that, to think of ways to show people my love instead of just purchase it.  But I still would like to be able to purchase something!  The kids got mongo amounts of toys, our toy box needs to be weeded out like a vacant lot pretty bad.  K got an awesomely huge doll house which she already loves and Dev got a cute lil train set that he can play with next year, this year he enjoyed tasting the wooden tracks.  Ben and I got a WII!!  We've basically had one on and off for a year or so because of Heidi living here, but now we have one of our very own to hug and cuddle.  Plus my sis got us a WiiFit which we've already enjoyed.  Hula hooping is my personal favorite (to do myself and to watch Ben do!).  My favorite gift though was my Dads.  He has a really super nice camera which he is "loaning" me until I can come up with several hundreds of dollars to buy my own SLR, and I cried.  I still cry.  I love it.  I still have a lot to learn about it, but it's already been lots of fun (New Years Reso post). 

*Ben (and I heeelped!  Anyone remember that shake 'n' bake commercial?) worked a TON on our backyard.  He put in a brick paver pathway back to our trash can with mine and my dad's help, he got soooo close to finishing our junk sidewalk.  It was a lot of work.  I think he was ready to cry by the time he was done, but I think that's mostly because I couldn't help much.  I'm a big help, ya know?!  Dev is super Mommy needy these days which I secretly enjoy.  K is fine out there, but having her out there means I have to be ok with dirt and sand and I'm just plain not.  She needs to be in super grubby 3 sizes too small clothing and I have to take a chill pill (literally) to deal with it all.  So I only got to really help for roughly 3 hours.  Sorry babe, but you da man and you did it!  See pics that you've already looked at in the above New Years Reso post! 

*Oh, and we went and looked at Christmas lights one night in our neighborhood (our neighbo is cool and we have this Loop of Lights thing.  Except they are exclusionary to the rest of the neighborhood and I'm bitter.  We have nice lights too!!!!!).  Took the kids for a walk and they handled it ok for a while, but then we stopped and Dev realized I wasn't holding him and the night was over.  But they shore do look cute in their winter git ups!  It was probably around 40, which is cold yo!  I'm glad I bought K's coat on clearance last year and Devs at a second-hand store, that way I don't feel bad about only getting 1 use out of them.

*I thought this pic was funny, Dev went over to the tree and was yanking ornaments off of it, so K, being a nice big sister, helped him get some more.  This is the funny little triumphant thing he's doing these days when he's excited about a toy or food (usually food, like a squished Cheerio in his chubber bubber little fist :)

*Ok, now this last picture is my gift to you.  Since I am so thoroughly comfortable with making fun of myself (in word form, rarely in photographic form, *yikes*), I'll put this one up.  We put Dev on K's fur-wheeyer, and all was going well until K took it off the curb and I'm pretty sure my heart stopped whilst picturing the two of them pitched over the front of the thing and give their faces some super roadrash.  Needless to say, they didn't topple to their face-death and were totally ok.  Crisis averted, good thing I was there to spaz out.  Enjoy this picture.  Enjoy, for evidence of my supreme uncoolness will never happen again.  BTdub, Ben totally LOL's every time he looks at this picture.  I can't get no respect!