Hey Mom...Turn on the Moon!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! After spending our Christmas Eve morning decorating cookies and the afternoon napping, we headed for church at 5pm. The boys were good and especially enjoyed taking turns holding my candle during Silent Night. Some may have tenderloin and shrimp for Christmas Eve dinner, but we came home to crockpot macaroni and hot dogs. Hey, the boys liked it! And it was ready when we walked in the door! The rest of the evening was spent relaxing here at home.

The boys tried to get up at 4:30am, but I put a stop to that. Once back asleep, they slept until 6:30am when we all got up. After opening gifts and eating breakfast, a few of us (Roz, Wesley, and I) went to mass with Grandma LaVerne. While we don't get much out of it because the little chapel doesn't have a speaker, we always manage to have a good time with our family members.

After lunch and naps we headed up to my mom's for our extended family get together. The weather was cold but sunny. And in case you were wondering we did have a white Christmas! More than white...we had a record setting December snowfall...over 3 feet! We had a good time and were home just after 8pm to put the boys, who were asleep already, to bed. We had our final Christmas "party" here Saturday with my sister and parents.

Here are a few (okay, several!) pictures:

Eli's favorite gift was a pet tornado. You just give it a spin and a little tornado appears in the bottle. He loves it!

Eli
(Future Storm Chaser)

Dad demonstrates the Pet Tornado

A better gift for a little weather addict would be hard to find. His second favorite is his new watch which is put on first thing in the morning and not taken off until bedtime.

Justus was happy with everything he got! He was the most fun of all the kids to watch open gifts. Everything was "just what he wanted" and "sweet!"...even underwear! All the boys are enjoying Justus' "moon". We have it hanging on the wall in the boy's room. It works by remote control and lights up to show the phases of the moon. So, we now have added a new step to our nightly bedtime ritual: "Hey Mom, don't forget to turn on the moon!" Like I'm not busy enough... now I have to be responsible for illuminating our planet's only celestial satellite too! :)

Wesley (and all the boys) love Wesley's marble maze

JD is happy with his Pooh phone

Who you callin' JD?

Hayden's not sure if he should open his...
or watch his brothers

What'd you get Roz?

Fa La La

Here is a video from Sunday. The boys, and the rest of the children's church group, sang for the whole church. The kids range in age from 3 to 7. They only practiced for about a month on Sundays.

I had our boys practice at home. I made each boy stand on a tile to practice not touching each other and standing still while they were singing. Justus and Wesley always did great during practice. Although, as the performance drew closer they were a bit nervous about singing in front of a church full of people. Can't say I blame them. [I think I was about 6 or so when I dropped out of gymnastics because I found out we were going to have to do a demonstration in front of our parents!]

Eli on the other hand told me straight up, "I'm not going to sing up there." I told him, "Fine, I don't care if you sing or not, but you will go up there." Eli went up there alright but, he was a man true to his word, he didn't sing one note. I can't wait to pull this video out at his wedding!

Disclaimer: The video is a bit shaky because I was laughing. Sorry about that!

From all of us Showns...
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Baking Sweatshop

This morning we had the elves working hard. There was a DOUBLE batch of Christmas cut out cookies to be decorated. While the boys worked on "quality", and I use the term loosely, Roz and Jer were told to go for quantity.

Things went well. Only 2 bottles of sprinkles were spilled and only one cookie was dropped, frosting side down, ahem...by me. Oops! Not to worry, Buck had it cleaned up in no time! JD napped through the whole thing. And best of all the boss bought us Taco Bell for lunch!

Justus works on his "J" cookie
(I need some big letter cookie cutters
so if you see some let me know!)

Hayden is thinking hard about his decorating plan

"Work faster kids!"

It was nice to have such a large work surface this year!

Team Cookie 2008

Christmas Cookies

I am in the middle of a marathon baking day! I decided I needed a break for a minute. While I've been making a mess of my kitchen, I was thinking of the year I didn't do any baking. Hayden was born 4 days before Thanksgiving in 2005 (he wasn't due until the end of January). While the twins had been early, Wesley hadn't been so at that point we didn't really expect Hayden to be early. (Now we know better!)

The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas that is normally filled with shopping, decorating, and baking was instead filled with daily trips to the NICU and prayers that Hayden would be home in time for Christmas. He struggled with eating more than expected and just barely made it home in time on the evening of the 23rd. That was the best Christmas gift!

That year, of course, stands out a bit in my mind as quite different from the rest. It was more simple. The fun extras were just that...fun extras, not necessities. The tree went up late, I didn't get out every decoration, and I didn't have time for baking that year. And you know what? We survived! :) Because I'm sure you all know that Christmas isn't about cookies and gifts and decorating. It isn't even about friends and family. It's about the One who came to save the world. But here is the part I wanted to share, the part that I thought of this morning as I made my sugar cookie dough...

Knowing there wasn't going to be much baking going on a with a baby in the NICU, one sweet lady from church offered to take Roz to her house for a baking day. Sure, of course! Then she asked that Roz bring my cut out cookie recipe along with the frosting recipe and my cookie cutters. I said okay and wondered why in the world they would want my recipe when I was sure they had a perfectly good recipe and cutters of their own.

Roz was picked up. She baked, decorated, and had a great time. She was dropped back at home with a pile of cookies. Our cookies. My cookies. They tasted and looked exactly like they always do, made with the same recipe in the familiar shapes. This wasn't just a gift of cookies! It was an unexpected gift of service, of time, of tradition; a modern day foot washing. Those cookies were my second favorite gift that year and probably one of the most thoughtful, Christ-like gifts I've ever received!

Cantata

Last Sunday, Roz was in the Christmas Cantata at church. We took all the boys. They were good, not perfect (as you will see), but good.

I could have done a little editing here but you know me..."honesty" is my middle name. I'm all about truth in advertising! Eli was sitting with me when I took this short video so it is him you hear saying: "Where's Rozzy?" And his hand you see move in front of the screen. He was watching on the camera to see if he could see his hand go by.

When asked on the way home what his favorite part was, Justus replied, "The cookies!" Refreshments were served following the cantata.

Tomorrow will be the boys turn. The little ones will be singing a couple songs during the service. The boys have been practicing at church and home for their big debut. I'll be sure and take the camera so I can share the fun with you all!


I'm sure you won't have trouble finding Roz in this clip, but I just thought I would mention...next to Roz, on the right, is her friend Laura. Wesley has a crush, his first, on Laura. She is a beautiful young lady and is super sweet to our boys. I can only hope he continues to have such excellent taste about 20 years from now!

So Nice We Bought It Twice!

The house, that is! This afternoon we are going to sign the papers to refinance the house. We'll be saving about $100 a month. This combined with the low gas prices (WOW! Only $44 to fill up the big van yesterday!) will help plug a few holes in the monthly budget. Jerry told me to tell you all to check into refinancing NOW! (If you are in the GB area and need a good mortgage guy, call or email me and I'll give you our broker's name & number.)

We are also supposed to go out to dinner and do a little Christmas shopping after we sign the papers. I say "supposed to" because we in the middle of a pretty good snow storm. Oh, you guys in Arizona just don't know what you're missing! I let Buck out a bit ago and just about lost him! Thankfully, he found his way back to the door!

I'm not sure if this link will work but here is a link to a live weather camera if you want to see for yourself!