Christmas Eve...

is my favorite day of the year. I LOVE it. Way more than Christmas Day.

I remember Christmas Eves' from a long, long time ago. Going to my Great-Grandma Staheli's house to play our little pipe chimes, eat food and having a little performance or two. Then going to my Grandpa Staheli's house and doing the same thing where my cousin and I always had some awesome performance going on and now to my Grandma Staheli's for soup, stories, the right-left game, and more recently the ugly sweater contest.

I have never been able to sleep on Christmas Eve in anticipation of what Santa was going to bring me. I will admit, up until recently (and when I say recently I mean this year j/k) I honestly loved getting more than giving! I would make sure I had plenty of snacks in my room to keep myself full when I was up at 3:00 AM hanging out waiting for 7:00 to come around... waking my siblings up to see if they were still up... They never were, but they always acted like they did... I LOVE it. Love love it!

I love wrapping that day, I love baking that day, and I actually love going to the stores that day. I must take after my Grandpa on that. Either way... I love it.

THIS year, we went to the Osborn's house for the party and that is exactly what it was! My Gma made this awesome cheesy potato soup (Grandma, I still need the recipe), eggnog for Brent, Gavin splitting his chin open, the sweet story that my Grandma Deni read, the awesome right-left presents we got, and mostly my ROCKING sweater. My sister thinks she won, but who wouldn't win when their sweater actually LIGHTS up. Thats right. My sweater had lights! That I could turn on and off whenever I wanted. It was awesome if I do say so myself. And I do. I gave the gift up to my sister so she wouldn't feel bad. But we all know that my sweater was the true winner. Although, my dad's shirt was great as well. But he won in the men's category!

Oh yeah, I should also blog about my kids. They loved it. I didn't see Kenna most of the night because she was off "performing" with Camryn somewhere and Gavin just hung around Brent most of the night! Good times. Later came the usual pajamas and slippers, getting the cookies ready for Santa (he loves snickerdoodles, but received chocolate chip ones instead) and got the kids to bed! This year Brent and I decided not to do anything for each other and all I can say is I LOVED IT! It was great just focusing on the kids and everyone else and not each other and what we want. I hope that continues... OK- WOW... long post! Here are pics of the night.

Hanging in their new jammies

You can't see my lights, but yeah my sister TOTALLY won the contest.

Aren't they cute!?

Not so happy...

Such the little poser.

A mothers worst nightmare!

Makenna had her semi annual dance recital on Friday and she did a great, great job! I laughed almost the entire time from her facial expressions alone. I believe she is the youngest in her class, so she was on the very end even though she did freaking AMAZING! Her class performed after intermission, so Brent, Gavs, and my parental unit decided to come late. I decided to go early so she could watch Camryn dance. Big mistake. Although Camryn did a great job, I swear I had a 1 1/2 year old right after she was done. Long story short. Makenna threw THE BIGGEST FIT ever. And I mean, EVER. We were stuck in the middle of the row, and it started out by her not being able to see, and then me covering her mouth to keep her quiet, and then her make-up coming off and it just escalated from there. She was trying to hit, yelling "MEAN MOMMY!", throwing elbows, you name it, she was doing it. To top it all off after I had tried to grab all of our crap, she goes running off towards the stage (mind you, the performers are dancing to a SLOW, QUIET song) and she is tromping her way up to the stage. I walked out the other way and she finally came up the right way, where I tried with ever fiber of my being to not beat her. And I mean that so lovingly. She screamed and cried for another 20 minutes and then she was fine. And did the cutest dance ever. Oh, I love her dearly. The End.

Yes, her costume is only half a tu-tu and ugly. (She is wearing it the right way)

Camryn's face is PRICELESS!

THIRTY.

Brent is finally on top of the hill. And what I mean by that, he is now THIRTY! He is getting so freaking old.... unless you are reading this and older than thirty, and then he is super young! He has had a few gray hairs, can almost grow a full beard, and is now acting the mature age of 15! We are getting closer and closer to his real age! Maybe by the time he is 100 he will act his true age. His family is known for lasting a long time, so he will probably make it that long, unless the world ends and he goes to hell. Then he won't.

Anyway, I am glad that he is thirty and I am not. I am glad I still have a few years until I am thirty. But this post isn't about me. It is about my man. I hope you had an awesome birthday B! How could you not?! You got to spend it with me!!! And I wasn't even ornery! :) Happy Birthday to you! Thank you for working so hard so that I could buy you birthday presents. Thank you for being sucha great dad to the kiddos. They love you so much. So do I. Peace out old man!

Ariel

It is 10:11 AM.
I have had 1/2 a Diet Pepsi already and haven't even brushed my teeth.
I don't even have a bra on yet!
My kids look white trash with their snotty noses and half-nakedness.
My living room is a disaster, and Kenna wants to play Little Mermaid.
So what shall we do?!
Be responsible, clean up, shower and get ready for the day?
Or should we not, "enjoy" the mess, so I can play Ursula, Eric, Max and King Triton
while Makenna is the beautiful Ariel?!
Who can resist her bright orange wedding veil?!
And Gavs, he is going to marry us!
Maybe by 5:00 we will be dressed.
If not. Oh well...

My talented cousin....

My talented, beautiful cousin McKenzi took these pictures of the kids for me the other day! It wasn't too bad actually. I opted out for no family photo this year, due to the fact thatI didn't want to deal with the stress of having all of us ready and trying to smile. Plus, Brent and I really haven't "grown up" all that much! Anyway, I didn't end up beating them so I consider the shoot a success! Here are some pics of my little monsters. Very adorable little monsters....

UGH.

SO! It has been a couple of weeks since I have updated everyone on my wonderful, unstressful, blissful life. I know that everyone has been DYING! and when I say dying, I mean stalking me, like every twenty minutes just to see if I have updated it. Well, wait no longer!!! I am here to blog my little heart out because frankly, I can!

The first sentence of my blog was supposed to be sarcastic (if you didn't get it in the tone I was using) but really, life hasn't been all that bad lately! Brent is home more (I still haven't decided if it is a good thing or not yet), the kids are sleeping again. Gavin stays in his new bed for the most part except for waking up at seven freaking o'clock in the morning, and I don't have to work. So I seriously can't complain about my life. I could complain about how many times a day I have had to vacuum recently in regards to smashed fruit loops, fruity pebbles, Christmas tree remains and every day grub, but really- I don't want to bore you and make your head hit the keyboard from falling asleep!

OK, enough of my ramblings. First on the list! (drumroll). Soccer.

Makenna FINALLY had her last soccer game on Saturday the 21st. Now, don't get me wrong. It was cute and fun to watch her play, but towards the end of the season, there was whining and crying that went along with it. And unfortunately, I am not that patient of a mom so I was threating Santa and everything under the sun to get her out there. Once she got out there, she ran (watching her shadow the entire time) and would sometimes chase the ball. She was really good however when she did get the ball. Her all-time highest score was FIVE goals. Three for her team and two for the other. We were just proud of her even though she is a little bit directionally challenged. :) She got a KICKIN' (get it KICKS soccer? oh never mind) trophy that she loves and places randomly throughout the house. The soccer was definitely worth the investment. FYI...

Gavin. Dear sweet Gavin. Or should I say, used to be sweet Gavin. I don't know what has gotten into him lately (well, I'm sure it has a lot to do with his father and the fact that he is a little boy) but man this kid goes. And goes and goes and goes.... and then just does naughty things for the heck of it. And then sounds so dang adorable when he says "sorry" after jumping on Makenna's head or throwing all of his food or something like that. And it is even cuter when he runs to the naughty chair as he laughs the whole way. I am not sure what kind of punishment is going to work for the kid. I don't think beating will even work. I will figure it out. He does really well with his accidents and stuff so I can't complaing too much. Even when he comes in at seven in the morning (I know that doesn't sound early to a lot of people, HEATHER) but I find that my best beauty rest is between 5:00 AM and 9:00 AM. Now, really, I don't sleep in the late. Just look at my broken out face and you will believe me! ANYWAY! The other night, I mean morning, Gavin came in around 7:15 and Brent lifted him in bed with us so we could turn on the TV (aren't we awesome parents!) and he decided to lay on my head and look at me and say "HELLO!" It was hilarious. Even that early in the morning. The only frustrating this was, I had FIFTEEN more minutes until my alarm went off for church. I would have pushed the snooze button twice and then been up. Now you wonder why we barely make it to church on time! Anyway, Gavs is awesome and cute and naughty. We love him though.

Thanksgiving rocked. We ate diner at my Grandma Hukill's three nights in a row which made it even better! Mexican on Wed., Thanksgiving fixings on Thursday, and the turky noodle gravy over potatoes on Friday (my fave). The kids were good. There were only 26 of us there, so it was a smaller crowd than normal. Dessert was the best though! She makes the best pies ever. I'm not even that much of a pie person, but they were delish. We went over to Brent's aunts house for more dessert and stuffed our faces there! It was a good day.

Our lights are up (thank you B), the tree is decorated (thanks Kenna) and now I just have to do the shopping (UGH). OK, thanks for indulging my thoughts... if you are still around to read them- if not, you probably have a nice checkered board forehead!

Big Boy....

Man, the past couple of weeks (since Daylight Savings) my lovely children have decided to take it upon themselves to wake up before everyone else in the neighborhood. And they are loud enough to probably wake up the neighborhood. Not the point though. Since the change my kids have hardly slept in their beds! We have a makeshift bed on the floor for Makenna and Gavin has been everywhere in the house. The couch, floor, extra mattress, our bed (that's right, MY BED!) and not his crib. They have been waking up in the middle of the night and it is driving me so crazy! Gavin wouldn't go in his crib for the life of him, so we decided to change it from his crib to a toddler bed. That lasted a whole 12 seconds before he was out and throwing his door open. We finally put him on the mattress on his floor and he slept. But sure enough he came wandering in my room about 3:00 AM... anyway, he finally has a big boy bed with a rail. He was excited until I turned the light off, and he scurried his little bum out of bed and out of his room.... FRUSTRATING! We now put his big boy bed together, got some bedding for it and now we are hoping he will stay in his bed!!! Please, for my own sanity! AHHH...

We will see how tonight goes. Either way, here he is in his new bed!

Bed #1
Current bed! Lets pray that he stays!