royalmom

Simon is beyond thrilled to see snow. He’s old enough to know what the heck is going on this year.

A little more of this…

And this today for Xander and Simon,

while Isaac did this ALL DAY LONG. He woke up feeling terrible and hasn’t budged from the couch:( Poor guy.

Our friends Sheri and her son RJ came over for a Christmas dinner and it was *wonderful*!

The kids painted and it got a little wild for a few minutes…

But then they settled down to another craft.

Monkey in progress:

Monkey (and “guy with a gun”) complete:

Sheri and I left the kids watching G-Force under Jason’s care while we went out to see Avatar at the theater. The movie is AWESOME!

Overall I’d say it feels like a “best Christmas ever!” 😀

Sporting the new robes…

ready….set…go!

Putting those Snuggies to shame…

Kristin did such an awesome job on these.

Play-doh and Bionicles so early in the day…

Now they are firing up the Wii for the new Super Mario Bros game, a log is crackling in the fireplace and the roast is in the crock pot. Can I go back to bed now? 😀

My simple Christmas prep has gone as planned!

The stockings are stuffed with fresh cookies,

Kristin made these absolutely gorgeous blankets and pillow cases for each of them,

and I bought several nice selections of kid friendly music albums off iTunes and burned them to CDs…

We set up my old stereo for them to play with. The CDs are actually wrapped now and sitting on top of the stereo.

Bed time finally!

We had the kids watching a movie downstairs while I ran two kinds of cookies through the oven for stocking stuffers.

It was working wonderfully since the smell of their popcorn was overpowering the cookie smell.

Unfortunately Simon happened…

The cookies were just cooled enough to divide into baggies when Simon pulled a chair up to the counter. Did he take a cookie to eat? nope.

He bit the tips of the Hershey kisses off of half of the batch. Way to go for the best part! Luckily I had plenty left.

I love that kid! hehe

Dazaaaam! Just realized I processed an entire session and blew the highlights! I know I’m out of practice and my iMac is not as calibrated as the Dell monitor was.

To all my photog friends: Feel free to call me out anytime! 😉 Raise your hand if you saw that and didn’t say anything! hahahaha!

I feel like I just realized I’ve had toilet paper stuck on my shoe all day.

It was tough! I think Jason did most of the work but the kids enjoyed being close and helping a little. Xander’s ‘K’ in “Motor Bike” got ripped so he left it at motor.

I heard the kids get up before us a shuffle out to the dining room to carry out some secret plans. They were drawing pictures for Jason that illustrate them working on the plane and motorcycle together and completing them. Isn’t that the sweetest??

Isaac couldn’t wait and gave his picture to Jason right away. Xander’s is wrapped up under the tree. shhhhhhhh! hehe

We had a nice dinner and gift exchange at my parents house tonight.

Xander and Isaac showing some love for their little cousins Oakley and Noa.

THIS is what we find them up to at midnight. MIDNIGHT! hehehe. Jason is on vacation and when that happens we all naturally gravitate toward later and later nights. They got a new project type toy at the holiday party and have spread it out for construction.

It proved to be a little tough so they brought in some assistance…

The pieces are coming together with little plastic screws to make a plane, I think.