Adventures with the Ross Family

I expected Jax to be up at the crack of dawn to look at his stocking and open presents.  So imagine my surprise when he finally wakes up at 8am!  That's sleeping in for him!  I couldn't believe it.  As he went into the dining room to check out his stocking he was so surprised!  It was finally filled!  He had been checking them every morning just in case Santa came early. 

Once we got everyone up and moving, I tried to get a picture of the kids before they opened their presents.

It's hard to believe, but Julie actually started making the funny face this time and Jax copied her!  She is so silly.

I did catch one good one of Jax.

And Julie?  What can I say.  She has recently started to say "cheese" and scrunches up her face. 

I'm not sure which camera face I'd prefer?

Anyways, onto presents!  Today, Julie understood what to do with the presents and didn't need any help from Jax!  In fact, she understood so well, that she started opening up Jax's presents as well!  Oops.

And Jax was surprised at some presents:

I love it.  The kids received some great presents and we all dove right in to play!

I've played Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Angry Birds Death Star, and played tea party with Julie's new set a lot today.

What a fun Christmas!

It's finally Christmas Eve!

We explained to Jax that we were only opening a couple of presents tonight and then the rest tomorrow.  I don't think he understood the logic in it, but he played along with us.

Julie had no idea what we were doing so Jax had to help.

They received presents, Angry Bird Games, Cabbage Patch doll, and clothes for tomorrow.  Jax was very happy to be playing with his Angry Bird games.  Pigs with Santa hats...alright!

And Julie promptly starting caring for her baby.

We then had to head out to church.  We went to the 5:00 service because it is geared for kids.  Jax thought it was so neat that he got to hold a candle this year!

I love, love, love singing by the candle light.

Afterwards, we came home and ate dinner.  We finally lighted the Christ candle, to which we explained to Jax that it meant tomorrow is Christmas!

And then we all got into our new pajamas!

Can you guess what the theme of our pj's was?  And notice that Julianne is still feeding her baby.

We put the kids to bed, but Jax had a hard time sleeping because he wanted to hear Santa say, "Ho ho ho."  He also wanted to come out and say hi to Santa.  We convinced him that Santa's not coming til he is asleep and eventually he did fall asleep.

Thanks goodness because Santa was getting tired of waiting!

Now onto Christmas morning!

Isn't he just the sweetest angel? 

Today was the Christmas Pageant at our church.  The pre-schoolers are always angels and they are just so cute!  The pageant was performed at both services and by the second go around, Jax was a pro!

Jaxson's pre-school teacher was out sick today.  I had no idea that I was going to be help leading the angels in both services, but all went fine.  Another mom was there that had actually been to the rehearsal so she atleast knew where everyone was supposed to be!  I would have had no idea.  But I had to leave during Sunday School and lead over at B90D class (our last one!) so the mom was left to teach!  Luckily, the lesson was about Jesus' birth.  Easy peasy.

The pageant went great in both serves!  You never can tell when you have that many kids together trying to tell the birth of Jesus.  But, we only lost one sheep and angel during the whole performance so that was good.  (The poor sheep and angel had seen their parents in the audience and ran off to be with them.  That was kinda funny.)

Afterwards, we fed the kids snacks and let them run around and play.  But I have to tell you, props to Jax's pre-school teacher that teaches these kids week after week.  Being with these 3-5 year olds is exhausting!  I put Jax and Julie down for a nap and ended up taking a nap as well.  I was that tired from this morning!

This year I am really into decorating for Christmas.  Maybe it's the fact that I have a whole board on Pinterest filled with Christmas ideas, Kaye came out at Thanksgiving and helped me with the tree, or that I discovered Carolina Pottery which has made my decorating dreams come true.

It's probaby a mix of all three.

Anyways, I pinned this ornament tree because I absolutey loved it.  And when I ended up with a million silver and red ornaments I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

But I did not like the garland beads she used as a filler.  And I felt like the tree needed some more volume.  So I used this tutorial as a guide, but came up with my own design that I like better.

Here is my interpretation of the Ornament Tree:

Instead of using the garland beads, I used tinsel.  It seemed to give it a more "tree-like" effect.  (If that makes any sense.)  And I added smaller beads in between the bigger ornaments to give it a fuller look. I also glued some small berries in for a more dimensional effect.  I was unsure how this would turn out, but I was pretty happy that my "Pinterest Experiment" turned out.

On a side note, the ornaments I used shattered easily.  So I did have some surprise moments when I trying to get them placed on the tree.  That's always fun.

Cost $5.00 ($4 bucks for the foam cone that was 1/2 off at Joann's and $1 for the tinsel at the dollar store.  All ornaments were free!)

I also pinned this idea of a Christmas word hanging.  And I also saw letters wrapped in garland.

And so I combined them and created a whole new project.

I just cut out the letters out of cardboard.  And then cut up the garland and glued it on.  It took maybe an hour at most.

Cost $0 (I had all the stuff already!)

Kaye and I had already worked on the wreath, but I really, really wanted to add a letter Rr to it and some green mesh.  But when we had went to Carolina Pottery, they didn't have any neat letters.  So when I went back just a couple of days ago, guess what I found?  A green letter Rr!  I picked up yet another roll of Deco Mesh at Sam's Club and got to work!

Cost $11 ($7 for the mesh and $4 for the letter.)

And lastly, I wanted to decorated our front door more.  Justin's sister Lorianne had decorated her door with Deco Mesh and big ornaments.  I loved it and had to try it.

And while I really had wrestle with that Deco Mesh, I think I finally got it "just so."  I wished I would have had more mesh so it would have reached the bottom of the ground. But I didn't so this will work for now!

(On a side note, it was in the 70's as I decorated outside.  By the time I was done, I was hot!  It was very weird to be decorating for Christmas in beautiful warm weather.)

Cost $5 (Big ornaments at the dollar store.)

And there you have it.  I did more crafts this last week than I have all of 2012!

I'm linking to Kelly's Korner!

Justin's mom brought this nativity up while they were here.  She said her kids liked playing with it when they were young and thought Jaxson would enjoy it.  Boy has he ever! 

I've noticed that it's being rearranged each day. 

Yesterday, I got it down from the shelf and told Jaxson the whole story of Jesus' birth.  He thought that it was so neat that I was telling a story using all the people.

So he wanted to make up his own story. 

Today, he told me the story of the angel that would "bop" people on their heads and they would say "Ow."  Then the angel had to stop because she was tired.

Oh..and the angel liked to fly around really fast around the barn as well.

As I started to warn him that he needs to be careful....you can guess what happened.  Both the angel and wiseman lost their heads. 

Poor Jax.  He felt really bad.  But sometimes you just have to learn a lesson the hard way.

Luckily, I was able to glue their heads back on without it being noticable at all.

And now, the rearranging has continued.  Only with a more careful hand.

 

While the boys went over to Duke and Chapel Hill, the girls (and Jaxson) stayed home to decorate for Christmas.  I brought down all the Christmas boxes from storage and we got to work.

Luckily, Kaye was here to help me decorate so it took no time to get the tree up, Deco Mesh wrapped around the tree, and the ornaments strung around the tree.  Those little lights are twinkling...

There's a tree under there, I promise!

In addition to getting the tree up, we updated a Christmas wreath.  

Seriously.  You can never have too much Deco Mesh.  I'm in love with that stuff.

And while we were trimming the tree, Jaxson worked hard on decorating his tree.  For at least 3 minutes.

Ah, I needed a good laugh.  My favorite part was when I told him he needed some ribbon and he threw some ribbon on the tree.  

I'm pretty sure Jaxson shouldn't quit his day job.

Christmas is here at last!  Jax was counting down and let me tell you, it was a hard last couple of days.  He was just so excited and couldn't handle it which resulted in multiple time-outs because he could not act good!  I think every kid goes through that, I remember my mom saying the same thing about us girls.

So anyways, it was finally Christmas Time!  (as Jax says.)

We finally lit the Christ candle and ate our pulled pork sandwiches.

Before we went to the Christmas Eve service at church, we let the kids open some presents. 

Jax loved his red Angry Bird.  Julie opened up her kitchen.  And Jax was pretty excited about that too.

Angry Bird and Pig insisted on heading to church with us.  They all sat together contemplated the Christmas Eve Service.

The Christmas Eve service was great.  First, it was geared towards the kids (And bird who has anger issues and klepto pigs.)  They received activity books about Christmas so it gave them something to do in worship.  And instead of doing a separate children's sermon, the Pastor had the kids come up and he explained the Christmas story for all of us.  It was great.  Look...Jax is paying such good attention!

After service, we went home to eat dinner.  And then the kids started getting cranky and it was time for bed!

And so I leave you with Jax and Justin playing Angry Birds:

We're missing our tv remote. I blame Julie or jax. And we've look in so many places. Under the couch, in the couch cushions toy box etc. this has resulted in us watching tv back in the 60 s. we have to actually get up to change the channels. Which has resulted in us not even bothering with he tv. Ate we lazy? Yes I believe so

Jax is way excited for Christmas. And so am I. But last night we went to kmart and I purposely skipped a toy aisle knowing it had the Andy bird stuff animals. Well thanks to a random person who did not put back a angry bird in the Barbie aisle jax clotted or. And he proudly carried ur around while I picked up hast minute things. At one point he asked me why ange bird is so angry and then made a angry face to demonstrate. So funny
And when it was time to go I told Jim angry bird can't go with us cause GED ongop of the fridge jax said by to the bird kissed it and then told him he will dee him at Christmas time. Where foes he get this stuff?

We're having a very untraditional Christmas meal this year pulled pork sandwiches clam dip. Since we are at chuch Christmas eve and morning I needed something easy and this is. Stick the pod on the oven all day and come home after worship to some yummy food!

Jax is really into Santa this year. And it's because of Barney. If you ask jax what sabra says he will say Jo Jo hi!

My to do list is crazy long. I can't seem to make any headway on it.
The kids are both at tough ages. Jaxson is testing me on everything. Julianne us just plain into everything.  It seems that someone is always needing me for some sort of urgent request. Where's the legis!  I'm hungry!  More chocolate milk.
And it's alway seems like a public spectie going out in public. I really needed to finish my Christmas shopping this week and get everything mailed. I procrastinated a but only because I dreaded taking the kids. And u kept waiting for a better time that never actually came. So here I was shopping and it seemed if I got one kid to be occupied the other one needed.
Here's a snippet of our pleasant mall experience
Jax sees the stupid candy machine and needs candy. Usually we let him and he sticks it in his pocket and is quiet. However. This candy machine upped their prices 50# cause now it costs  2 quarters!  Highway robbery.   And i didn't have a second quarter because who would have guessed 4 m and m's cost 50 cents?  Jax wasn't happy but then quickly moved onto the idea of pushing Julie in her stroller with momma no helping. So he's pushing her down the mall and running into everything that's not even in his way.
Julie decides she's had enough and cries. I'm thinking the whiplash has gotten to her.
Anyways. Jax is mad cause he wants to push her. Julie is made because she doesn't like being a crash rest dummy. I'm annoyed because we haven't even made it to one store yet and already the kids have had enough of the mall.
That's when I start devising a plan of the most important stores and what I can buy on the internet

It is the happiest time of the year.

If you liked crowded malls, long lines, temper tantrums, and a partridge in a pear tree.