Christmas in a Flash

Well, December has come and gone and so has Christmas. I am still in shock of how fast it went by. We started our trip a day early and drove halfway to Reno, to beat some snowfall which was predicted to fall the next morning. I am sure grateful we did, because for most of the drive we had really good road conditions.

Outside the car was great, but inside...not the greatest. Remember how my dear Lexi does NOT like her car seat. She did pretty well about half of the way but even the DVD player wasn't keeping her happy. It was rough, but we made it to Reno all in one piece and full of Advil. Now out of the whole drive we got about maybe 5 minutes of silence from the back seat and this is what it looked like.

One fell asleep while the other was loud and crying, and then when the 2ND child fell asleep finally, then the first child sleeping woke up! Grrr!

We enjoyed dinner with family for the weekend at Wendy and Brad's house, where we camped out for the week.

It was Joseph's birthday while we were there, so we got to go celebrate his third birthday with him. He was so stinking cute. We had some homemade pizza and I put my plate next to him, and went to get a drink. When I returned, I thought someone had taken my spot because there was a half eaten pizza crust on the plate. Then I looked to little Joseph's plate and lo and behold he had swapped pizza slices with me. Funny little man and O so sly too.

Throughout or stay we enjoyed eating at some of our favorite spots, shopping, and visiting with family. The girls decorated a gingerbread train, which I am not sure how much candy actually made it onto the train. Johnny enjoy a day of snowboarding up at Squaw Valley in tons of powder.

The girls were in heaven at Wendy's house. They loved playing outside on the trampoline and swing set. Lexi especially was in heaven playing with Juliana's mass collection of Little Pet Shops.

One night we met up with my cousins and their husband and finance, for some bowling. Lexi LOVED it, Danielle on the other hand was a handful. She was mad that we wouldn't let her walk around and touch all the balls. I did let her bowl a ball once which helped calm her down for 20 seconds. So note to self and parents of 1 yr olds.... bowling is NOT the best idea.

Lexi had fun on Christmas Eve baking with Aunt Wendy.

Emily, Hannah, Juliana and Danielle after Christmas Eve dinner dying to open some presents.

This was the first Christmas in at least 4 years that we all were at Grandma's house. We had a total of 28 of us crammed in one room. So there was tons of camera flashing going off so I had to get a shot of everyone else taking pictures.

Danielle playing with coasters that I probably played with at Grandma's when I was her age.

Lexi fell in love with her Uncle Brad. It was like we didn't even exist. She always wanted to go sit on his lap and show him things. He has such a special touch with little kids. Though I think about the only thing Lexi said to him the whole week, was calling him a "coo coo head"

Finally some presents got to be opened by the kids so they would stay occupied while the adults were busy. Danielle got a new baby and all the fun stuff that come with it, and Lexi got her own little lap top. Both girls were so happy.

In past years, our family has done name exchanges for Christmas, but the last couple of years they have done a white elephant type of exchange but it has to be a good gift. Here is the picture that Grandma Horsley opened....an air soft gun. Can't you just see her getting so much use out of that?

I came home with this BIG beauty. I wanted to get a picture of me standing next to it so you can actually tell how big it is, but it is almost as tall as me. I was hoping Santa would fill that puppy up, but sadly I was disappointed this year. Maybe next year if I am really good.

We came home Christmas Eve and quickly put the girls down because it was way past their bedtimes. The rest of us read and talked about the real Christmas story next to the Christmas tree.

This is what my kids were doing Christmas morning while we went to open presents...

We were woken up by my nieces at 7:30 and tried to wake Lexi up but she wouldn't budge so we went without her. We opened our Santa gifts and stockings and then took a break for breakfast. By then Lexi was ready to wake up and go open some gifts. Danielle needed a lot more sleep. (we didn't get any with her because she is really noisy, but more on that later)

Johnny was super excited about his nose hair trimmer and movie Inception. Can't you tell?

When Danielle finally joined the party she was ready to get some candy out of her stocking. Shocking isn't it that food is the first this she went for? Oh and gotta love the hair!

Lexi got her Tinkerbell fairy workshop that she "asked" Santa for.

Daddy had a battle with the packaging.

Told ya she didn't get much sleep that night, and this is about how I was feeling

at around 3am when she had woken me up for about the 5Th time.And the best gift of all this year, was given to Brad. The infamous leg lamp. Classic! Oh and that baby went straight to the window for all to see.

We had a great Christmas and felt to blest to spend it with the whole Horsley family this year.

*If you noticed Lexi's face in the pictures you will see a big scab on her chin. Well I guess it is possible to get burned by a popsicle. The first time it happened, we weren't home but they said she didn't get burned or fall on anything. It looked red and later started to scab like a burn, but yet she didn't cry or get hurt so it was a mystery. We decided it had to be a popsicle and a few days later she ate another one and it happened again. I put burn cream on it right away so it didn't scab but the poor girl still is trying to heal from it.

*Danielle is horrible to sleep with because she will hit her head against the mattress of her bed and jabber in her sleep like crazy. It was so noisy we have to move her and I could still hear her through the wall. And it was not just a one time thing, it went on almost all night long. I am surprised that she doesn't have bruises on her forehead. We got video and if I can ever figure out how to upload it I will share with all of you.

*One last thing....we sold our house on our drive to Reno. Since I been home I have been packing and trying to prepare to be out of our house in 2 weeks. I will post more details later, but now we have to find a new place to live and fast.