2011 in Review

Here is a recap of our year.  I tried to have the pics arranged chronologically, but they were shuffled around in the folder, and I lack the patience and technical stills to fix it.

Eric hit the jackpot with Lego sets for Christmas.  We experimented with making our first stop action movie.  Eric served as executive producer, director, script writer, music technician....pretty much everything.  This 90 sec video is about 3 hours of work.  I'm sure we will get better as we get practice. 

Christmas Morning

 6 am....This was almost the year that the kids were up before me on Christmas Morning

 Santa brought Megan a car for her Barbies to go to college with

 Both boys recieved a remote control car.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

and all through my house I have 3 kids that are still stirring-very excited for Christmas Morning.

 We let Dad open one gift early, since the Rams were playing the Steelers at Noon.  We needed to give him something to be happy about for the football game.

 After Church, after appetizers, just waiting for the okay to open gifts.

 Princess Jasmine

 Some lego set he's wanted his entire life

 some game he's wanted for two years

 Opening my gift from Eric

 This is what Eric will spend most of his Christmas Vacation

 Megan showing her moves to Just Dance for Kids 2, wearing her new jammies and slippers

 This is what Jonathan will be doing most of his Christmas Vacation, or at least as much as his Mom allows

 This is where I will likely spend most of my Christmas Vacation

Megan set out some cookies for Santa.  The boys no longer care to partake in this tradition...since they know...if you know what I mean



The Bird

Not only did we keep Don and Kathy's cat, we (er, shall I say, Don) also kept their bird.  Don has fun with it.  I do not.  I really don't like the thing all that much.

Tonight, Lucy was out of his cage (I am also not fond of this).  Lucy ended up in our Christmas Tree.  I took a few pictures because the kids thought it was so funny.  Lucy started pecking at the lights, so Don thought he would get him out of the tree to avoid a Christmas Tree Disaster.  This made Lucy angry.  Very angry.  Don just laughed.  I got the tensy type of nervous that I get when the bird is out of his cage.  Don ended up calmly grabbing Lucy by his tail to get him out of the tree.  This further angered Lucy.  Lucy flew away from Don and landed on me.

He landed on my hip.

He did not stay on my hip for long.

Perhaps I reacted with a bit of physical aggression against the bird.  Perhaps I used a really, really, really, really bad adjective to describe the bird when it landed on me.  Perhaps I may have flailed my arms and even screamed a little bit.

Don rescued Lucy and returned him to his cage.

I apologized for saying that really, really, really, really bad word in front of my kids. I don't think they even heard it because they were laughing so hard.

And even more pics

Another set of pictures.  My fav is the one of Meg sitting on Amy's lap, looking at Holly's brother, who is a hunka hunka burnin' love.  I asked Megan what they were talking about-she said she was giving him her phone number.
http://reevesphotography.com/blog/?p=6532

more pics

Here's a link to some more pics from my brother's wedding
http://reevesphotography.com/blog/?p=6481

My fav is the black and white of Jason hugging our Mom, and of course, the one with Holly and her flower girls!

Going to the Chapel

Jason and Holly were married yesterday.  It was a fun, busy, and wonderful weekend.  I have very tired kids.....

Trudy

Poor Trudy.  When she lived with Minot Grandma and Grandpa she craved attention.  Now....she gets way too much of it!  The boys are constantly kidnapping her to their room, and closing the door so she can't escape.  They cuddle her under their arms with a blanket over her so she can't escape.  They pick her up and carry her so she can't escape.  They squeeze her close to them so she can't escape.  Tonight, Eric had her on his lap while he practiced piano.  She actually didn't seem to mind it so much.

Santa Hat

Aunt Amy bought Megan a pink Santa hat over Thanksgiving weekend.  Megan loves it.

Cookies

One of my favorite childhood Christmas memories is celebrating the start of Advent season at Canaan Moravian Church.  We would have a big potluck after Church, then the kids would decorate sugar cookies, make ornaments, and the adults would make the beeswax candles for Christmas Eve service.  Since today is the start of Advent, I thought we would start the same tradition in our family.

I made sure I repeated the story of my favorite Christmas tradition to the kids repeatedly. 
They like it when I do that.

I was expecting the kids to decorate 2 or 3 cookies before getting bored. They did much better than that. I think Megan and Eric did around 8, and Jonathan did a few more that. Don decorated one or two, but there is nothing to show for his. We had a very messy table when it was all done.

*FULL DISCLOSURE*  These cookies are not, um....germ free :-).  Especially the ones that Megan made.  It's just inconvenient to wash your hands every time after licking frosting off your fingers.

 These are some of my cookies...

 These are Eric's

 Jonathan's

 And Megan's (her brothers may have helped with some, but she did most of it by herself)