A "Rockin" Good Christmas

It was a great Christmas but...PHEW...I'm glad it's over! All that planning, plotting, and preparing wears a person out. We did lots of fun things and enjoyed our Christmas experiment of opening one gift a day for the week before Christmas. It was nice to see the kids give each gift their full attention and appreciation. We did, of course, save stockings and a couple gifts for Christmas morning. I'm not a huge fan of Christmas morning pictures but I do love this look on Amanda's face when Lauren opened up a new doll she'd been hoping for. I know Lauren probably had an identical look on her own face.

Austin's main gift this year was Guitar Hero but the whole family has taken it over. Aaron, Austin and Amanda stayed up until 1:00 am this morning because they couldn't put it down. You know somethings got to be good if Aaron stays awake for it past 8 pm! I had a feeling Austin would be great at it considering his guitar experience and I was right. What surprised me was how Amanda step right up and was awesome from song one! She rocks!

Christmas Memories

Last year Christmas sucked. There's no prettier way to say it. We'd bought and decorated a tree, then undecorated it two weeks later and gave it away to someone else to decorate once again. We opened Christmas presents two weeks early and then the kids and I drove away from our home in Idaho to find a new one in California. We spent Christmas day alone in a motel room while Aaron was stranded in Idaho, seriously sick and closing up our life in the place we'd hoped to never leave. Yes, it sucked. But this year we are making up for it.

I decided to do Christmas a little differently this year. The joke is that we are celebrating Hanukkah because instead of opening our presents all at once we are opening one gift a day for the week before Christmas. I thought this would give the kids a chance to really appreciate each individual gift instead of throwing one aside to open the next one. Along with opening a gift, we have been doing a fun family activity each day. So far we have driven around to look at Christmas lights, built Gingerbread houses, spent an evening playing Christmas games, and watched a Christmas movie together. Tomorrow will be our "Christmas around the world" night and on Christmas Eve we will have our "Shepherd's" dinner and read about Jesus' birth. So far, I am loving this new way of celebrating and the kids seem to be enjoying it too. I'm hoping we are creating such great Christmas memories this year that they won't remember the not so great once from last year!

Dance

I just came across this quote on another blog and fell in love with it:

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain!

I hope to be doing a lot of dancing in 2009.

Twelve Days of Christmas

Last night the kids decided, somewhat last minute, that they wanted to do the Twelve Days of Christmas for the elderly couple that live across the street. I was a little hesitant because of the spontenaity but because Aaron and I did this once when we were just dating and it made that Christmas so memorable, I decided to go with it. Austin grabbed his Gingerbread House kit we had yet to put together, wrote a little "first day of Christmas" poem and we headed out into the cold to watch him try to sneak it onto the neighbor's porch. He quickly discovered that the drapes were wide open and they were sitting right in front of the window. He stood out there contemplating a strategy for quite a while. When the cold began to get to him and he realized there was no other way, he charged onto the porch, dropped the gift, rang the doorbell and ran for cover. He was so happy with his secret mission...until our neighbor called several minutes later asking if it was us that had just been at their place! The kids were furious when Aaron admitted that it had been us who'd left the package. That is, until they found out that being 88 years old, having your doorbell rang late at night and finding a package on your porch is a little unsettling. Once they knew it was us, the neighbors were happy about their little surprise. The kids were a bit disappointed that it is not a secret anymore but they still had fun running across the street tonight to leave cute little snowman mugs with packets of hot chocolate on the neighbors porch.

Popcorn and Cranberries

This year Austin suggested that we string popcorn and cranberries to hang on our tree. Aaron and I had done this when we decorated our very first Christmas tree, but we hadn't done it since. Always game for a new Christmas activity, I eagerly agreed and we ran to the store the buy cranberries and white popcorn. We popped the corn, set out the berries and threaded our needles with loooong strands of white thread. Then we sat down and got to work. Several hours later we were still sitting there and that's when I realized why we had never done this particular project with out kids. Not only was it taking forever, but there was popcorn smashed on the floor across three rooms and and my fingers had more pricks than a pin cushion. Of course I did get a few good pictures of our work in progress. Here are a couple of my favorites...

The end result was well worth the effort. Our tree this year is the prettiest one we've ever had. Aaron says I say that every year, but this year I REALLY mean it. The popcorn strands were a nice touch but I have a feeling it will be another fifteen years before we do THAT again.

Ringing In the Holiday!

The Christmas Season has now officially begun for the Koffords'. The stockings are hung, the Nutcrackers are set out and this morning we took a trip to the most awesome Christmas tree farm I've ever seen. At the entrance of the farm a Christmas Shop was set up with lots of beautifully decorated trees and holiday decorations. Each of the kids selected an ornament of their choice to add to their personal ornament collections. Outside the shop were thousands of trees to choose from, kiddie rides, refreshment stands, a petting zoo and best of all, a huge fire pit. The day was cloudy and cool, perfect for warming ourselves by the fire. Miraculously, everybody agreed on the same tree, a lightly flocked Noble. It was a great kick off for the fun month ahead.

Quite the Multitasker, She Is...

Not only can she walk and chew gum, she can check email and play gameboy at the same time!