Holiday Pix

See the girls with their new porcelain dolls? Guess what
those dolls aren't new. Three of them were mine when I was
a kid, and one was my sisters. We gave them to the girls this
year, after a five minute speech about not playing with them.
Meanwhile, Auntie Beth decided she would get
each girl a pair of shoes for Christmas, Noelle wanted
imitation uggs, Lorelei wanted Toms. So their wish was
granted. I sort of think Toms look like shoes a homeless
person would make out of scraps, but who am I to buck
the trend? Besides for every pair sold, another pair is
donated.

Here are the girls with my grandpa, their great-grandpa Felix Sr.
Visiting him this year was bitter-sweet, because this was our first
December without Grandma Mita (his wife Mary, we called my Grandma
Mita). She went to be with the Lord in November, right before Thanks-
giving. Grandpa is the last of my four grandparents, and we are all so
thankful for him.

And here we have my family....after church on Sunday.
What a group.... do you like how we're all color coordinated?

15 Days till the Big 15!

In 15 days, Lord willing, Dan & I will have been married for 15 years! I know, it's hard to believe I'm old enough to have been married that long, especially since I still like to shop in the junior department and pretend I'm a 15 year old teenager. (It's not as believable lately, I gotta tell you).

Anyway, I thought it only fitting to come up with 15 reasons Dan & I are still married.

15. He lets me get my way, a lot, not all the time.... but a lot.

14. Dan's the best dad of ALL TIME. (Though, my own dad is sort of tied with him, I have to say). He loves the kids, and takes them on bike rides, and teaches them to roller skate, and tie their shoes, and he reminds me not to yell so much on long car trips.

13. Dan only works with men, no leggy blondes, no curvy brunettes. I really love his workplace. I always look pretty cute to Dan after a whole day with just Scott and Anthony and Scott's dad. I think one of the UPS delivery people is a woman, but I suspect she's not my husband's type.

12. Dan still looks pretty good in soccer shorts.

11. He's accepted I won't watch sports with him, and I've accepted he's not in to romantic gestures.

10. He eats everything I cook, and doesn't complain about the fact that lately, it's mostly cheese quesadillas and progresso soup.

9. We love our kids together, and only the 2 of us can truly understand how the four of them can be so incredibly annoying and yet so incredibly amazing all at once.

8. We both actually enjoy each other's parents. No really, we do.

7. We are both share a love and a commitment to our church.

6. We are honest with each other, even though, sometimes I think he should lie to me and tell me there's nothing I need to work on, I'm perfect the way I am.

5. We were both raised by parents who taught us that divorce is never an option, and that God hates it, and I'm pretty sure they'd just about disown us if it ever came up. That foundation has helped us tremendously (as have their examples to us).

4. When the doctor said, you know you're having twins, right? I started crying, and Dan said, "TWINS! AWESOME!" like it was the greatest news of his life. Seriously, what kind of man is that? A superior one, for sure!

3. We still Love each other.

2. We still LIKE each other.

1. God has shown us great grace and forgiveness when the ugliness of sin does rear it's head, which is every day.

Last of the ABCs

U is for Unbelievable, people would not believe how many cookies I've eaten in the last 7 days. Needless to say, I was forced to turn on a Jillian Michaels DVD this morning as a result. (I said I turned it on, I didn't say I did the exercises).

V is for Vacation is truly vacation when your 4 kids all actually sleep in...... ahhh, we may never be able to get up before 7 again.

W is for What a Mess! I got this one from 1 of my favorite friends & bloggers, Miss Stephanie. It was her response after we let 7 of our 8 children frost and sprinkle sugar cookies for an hour. I'll be picking sprinkles out of the lines in my dining room table for the next 12 months!

X is for eXcitement - Only 2 days to go till Christmas! Everyone's getting dreamy eyed and the adrenalin is pumping, can't wait till the Christmas day let down, when an hour after opening gifts everyone feels depressed and defeated because real life isn't like a Disney channel movie. Kids will be tired and whiny, there will be no beautiful snow on the porch, only gray murky fog, and suddenly I'll start thinking about my credit card bills....

Y is for Yuck, fruitcake.... really? My dad still gets at least one every year from a patient. Y is for Y people? Y ?

Z is for Zoo, maybe this week I'll see that new We Bought a Zoo movie, it looks pretty cute, and Christmas vacation isn't complete without at least one trip to the movie theaters!

Well that's it folks, 26 things you didn't really care about it, listed alphabetically, to give you an idea of my Christmas. All jesting aside, I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas!

More than Half-Way thru the ABCs....

P is for Painting ornaments, a fun cheap craft we do almost every year that keeps the kids busy enough that I can fit in some of that grading I put off until the break....whoops, maybe P should be for procrastination was a bad idea this year.

Q is for Quandry, as in I'm in one because seriously, nothing Christmasy starts with Q.

R is for Regis, yeah I fit him in to my ABC's twice so far, that's my tribute okay, and so far the wanna be guest co-hosts for Ripa aren't cutting it. They're not grouchy enough, they're too nice and Kelly keeps gushing over all of them. I want to see tension, playful banter, and eye rolling please. If I wanted to tune in to 2 people being polite to each other, I'd watch Good Morning America.

S is for Sunday - the day Christmas falls on this year, and you know what even though in my initial fleshly state, that initially seemed inconvenient, I realized that's the best day for Christmas, since after all it is supposed to be about Christ, and it's going to help me teach the kids that concept I'm still struggling through - delayed gratification. Yep, we're ganna make 'em wait to open gifts AFTER church!

T is for Tim Tebow, as in that's all my sister wants for Christmas this year, and Dan would be fine with having him as a brother in law.

ABC's of Christina's Christmas Continue

K is for Kindergarten performances, as in, I've sat through 3 in the past 7 days. The twins sang with their teacher's singing group in one performance (dressed in their PJs), they had Oscar-worthy performances as "cow" and "lamb" in the annual Kindergarten Nativity chapel, and all 4 girls sang in the school Christmas musical. What can I say, their talents are endless, and my attention span is, well, short..... because at each performance I kept thinking.... another song, oh my, how ambitious, when do we get to eat cookies?

L is for Lights, we drive through Gemini street each year, the local neighborhood that decks out each house with lights and cartoon character themes. Instead of being grateful for the experience, now the girls just complain about the single string of lights Dan hung that go across the trim of our roof. They all say, "Dad, Dad.... our lights are the worst ones on the street, we need a nativity scene on our roof, we need a sled hanging over our driveway, Daddy, please..... build us an ice rink in our front yard....."

M is for Making Cookies for Darla's annual cookie exchange. Every year, I slave over making 72 cookies of some sort, well, not every year, sometimes I get my sister to do it for me! And every year it's worth it because seriously, I LOVE COOKIES, and because I'm so self-sacrificing, I hide all the good ones in the freezer for a rainy day (for myself people, I don't waste the good stuff on the kids).

N is for Neighbors, Christmas is a great chance to spread some Christmas cheer to the neighbors you don't usually see or talk to and bring them some cookies or a card.

O is for Open your gifts with low expectations that way you're not disappointed when you see that your student gave you yet another apple shaped ornament that says #1 teacher on it in shiny letters when all you really wanted was.... well, anything but that.

More later....

More ABC's of Christina's Christmas

F is for fragile.... as in, hey I paid a lot of money for that ornament why did you feel the need to drop it and shatter it into a plethora of dangerous tiny shards of glass that I'll be finding in corners from now until March? What me angry? No of course not honey, I love you more than things, or at least I will in an hour or so when I calm down.

G is for guilt-ridden.... because I'm a mom and it's required that you feel guilty about either spending too much money at Christmas, feeding in to the materialism of our culture, or not baking sugar cookies from scratch (because the store bought pilsbury ones are just as good).

H is for Have you bought your kid's teacher a present yet? Because you really, really should if you haven't already, I hear they make like no money.

I is for I miss Regis, which has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, but hey I've never been good with change.

J is for Justin Bieber.... his Christmas album plays repeatedly in my van, at my house, in my head..... and yes, I'm starting to like it.

More Later.

Some ABC's of a Christina Christmas

A is for Are you serious, it's December already?

B is for Better not shout.....so much at the kids anymore, the neighbors are going to turn you in, and when I say you, I mean me.

C is for Coffee, Coffee, Cup of Coffee..... caffeine.... it stimulates the dopamine in my brain, it's my own version of an anti-depressant.

D is for Dan, please stop being a scrooge, and complaining about putting up lights, taking decoration boxes down from storage, and griping about buying me something, I'm starting to think you're the grinch!

E is for Explain to your kids that just because we don't believe in Santa doesn't mean everyone else doesn't believe in Santa, and that when they destroy other children's faith in jolly St. Nick, chances are, mom's going to get a phone call from that child's mom, and that phone call will end up with me apologizing awkwardly and sweating a little.....

More Later