Christmas Day Traditions, hip hip hooray!

Christmas Tradition #1: Open new PJs on Christmas Eve.

These are Maddie's new PJs; we opened our last night and loved wearing them all day.

I'm pretty sure I wore mine (thanks, mom and pop, for the new PJs--we adore them!)

to the movie we went to later that afternoon! :)

 oh, boy. new love. justin bieber. bieber fever hit our house this last year. really strong!

 can you read that sign? "man cave" yep, for Ted's study. love it!

I'm a little out of order...as you'll see with next photos...

Christmas Tradition #2: Open the stocking FIRST on the Christmas morn:

This was a favorite tradition of mine growing up; my mom made all the stockings out of felt; they had a girl or boy on them; girls had yarn hair and little turned-up-toe shoes like elves. We opened them in bed. This year we did not open them in bed, but we did in some earlier years with our kids. I did not hand-make our stockings, BUT I did write our names on them with fabric paint :)

I'd like to mention how much i LOVE to fill the stockings...

to find all kinds of yummy treats, little gifts, fun things, just like we got as children from my mom...

I loved this picture from Hobby Lobby. Do other Hobby Lobby stores outside of the Bible belt have pictures like this, refererences Biblical scriptures? This one was a favorite and a commonly shared on while I was a missionary, from Galatians 5:22-23. It's going up in our living room and will remind us of the Gifts of the Spirit of God...

 Christmas Tradition #3: Get new calendars for Christmas

Maddie's: Justin Bieber

Nick's: Dogs

Ted's: Elvis (as always)

Mine: our family in photos--one that I made on Snapfish.com

 Cool science kit from nick's sunday school teacher, Debbie Hatten. We love her! She moved this past year and still came by with a gift for her "secret favorite" kid in the class...

 New cameras from my mom (nick's) and from us to maddie. The kids have used my camera to death (and it did die) and used Natasha's camera (that she gave us a couple years ago--our first digital camera...we are a bit slow, or I am, on the technology front) so much, that we all got new cameras, me included. yea!!!

 Nick said he hates getting clothes for Christmas, but when it's something like this, he is very excited!!

Christmas Tradition #4:  Stay in PJs all day and "play" with all our stuff...

just go through everything, eat all the chocolates (no See's Chocolates this year, which was a real tragedy!) and rolls and cookies...listen to Christmas music and have a fire (or put on the "Holiday Hearth" DVD if you don't have a fireplace...it is awesome! we just hadn't purchased our gas log for the fireplace yet)

 Nick's favorite "Christmas tradition" (he told family friends) is climbing in the trash can to compact all the wrapping paper, etc. Interesting...way to note the important stuff, hee hee

Tradition #5: Delish Breakfast! 

 yes, these are the famous gingerbread pancakes (best ever!!) from friend, Tanya J. Thanks for sharing and giving us a new tradition for Christmas mornings!

Ted has to have oranges, pistachios, and clementines and omelettes.

Me and the kids want berries galore, smoothies, croissants, French toast or yummy pancakes.

 Christmas tradition #6: See a movie.

We always see a Disney or Pixar movie if one comes out. Seems like one always does. Another adoption from my growing up years. We saw was TANGLED in 3D and we completely loved it!

 Texas Christmas Tradition (new) #7: Grill steaks for Christmas.

In the summer it's WAY to hot to grill (much less cook anything), so wintertime gets us "fired up" to use the grill. Steaks are always rare (not bought often) at our house (i'm so punny tonight, how rare!) so we fire them up on Christmas night. This tradition was born the year we moved here and Ted was wearing shorts on Christmas day...and my dad sent us a box of Omaha steaks. Man, they make some GREAT stakes!

Delish!

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

by the way, that is Ted's headlight that he is wearing so he can see in the dark...hahahaha! love it!

Sugar Plums danced

The entire 3rd grade went to see a shortened version of The Nutcracker on the last day of school (yesterday), thus Nick's snazzy attire...

Then the class had a big party with crafts and cookie decorating (sugar cookies made by yours truly, a family tradition and love). Moms and Dads were chaperones and class helpers. I love being part of the school functions and classroom events. Love knowing the faculty and teachers.

ward friends, the Hopkins, and neigbhorhood friends

Enjoying the treats!

Nick's class party

I went to Nick's 2nd grade class to help with the holiday 'stations' set up for the kids. He has 15 kids in his class (nice size!!) and his teacher is wonderful! He has learned how to write stories, give feedback, graph, do a survey, publish a book, rocks (igneous, metamorphic...), historical persons & their achievements, use quotations in written dialogue; that is off the top of my head. His teacher sends home a weekly sheet with questions we can ask him about each subject to help him tell us and explain what he has learned that day. She is awesome!

Making a giant cotton-ball snowman. Pin the nose on the snowman.

This is goofy of me, but I love hugs from this kid! Notice the troll Santa earrings I have. I LOVE them and they drive Ted crazy. He has a fear/creep-me-out feeling about trolls and gnomes. So I always get them out in early December and set them up in the bathroom by his sink to greet him. :)

Nick frosting his sugar (3 circles=snowman) cookies

Crazy, typical Nickel face...

Even in the crowd of his class, Nick will hug and kiss me. Ahhh, I'm treasuring every moment of it.

Merry Buckwalters

December 2008

Santa comes early!

Meet Jada Rose!

Nick is soooooooooooo (infinity) excited. He has asked for a dog for 3 years! Our friends needed to give this beautiful boxer to the right family... They gave us the dog house and 'Santa' brought a bed/pillow, treats, food, collar, name tag, and even a silver dogtag for Nick which says: I LOVE MY DOG NICK BUCKWALTER TAKE IT EASY! (Nacho Libre quote that Nick and Ted love to use daily)

Here they are out in the backyard on Dec. 23rd. We had hoped to share the holidays with our new dog, so Santa brought her early!

Here she is with pink polka-dotted collar and harness for our walks

She is very loving and puts her paws up on our legs when we kneel, as she "hugs" us. She sleeps with Nick every night, right next to his body; he prefers to now sleep on the floor next to her. By morning both of their heads are on the pillow. For real--photos to come...

Christmas Cookie Fest

Every year we have friends & neighbors over to frost about 80 sugar cookies; the same recipe my mom used that we made and frosted as kids. We do this as a family every Valentine's Day, some Easters, all Halloweens, and every Christmas. We usually have at least a few friends over since the batch is soooo big! We even have a turkey cookie cutter so maybe we'll have Thanksgiving turkeys this year!

Here is the first wave of kids, our neighbors who play football or basketball daily with Maddie and Nick.

Here is Parker, our favorite 4 year old who told me that I could be his girlfriend. He poured about half a bottle of sparkly sprinkles on his cookies, just like Nick used to do.

Nick's best buddie, Garret, came; then a new family from church with 4 girls who loved their first time doing this. Good sugar cookies (with real flavor!) and homemade buttercreme frosting (with a touch of almond or lemon extract) are my all-time favorites!! We have to invite people over and make plates to give away or I'd become horrendously sick from eating 30 cookies. I probably do eat half of that in a couple of days and enjoy every minute of it. I'm addicted!