Twas the Night Before Christmas!

In keeping with tradition we spent Christmas Eve with Bobby's family. We headed over at lunch time to hang with our cousins and open presents! 

G and Amelia:

I must admit that Wendy and I both agree that I took the cake for present of the year this year:) When you get tears it means you've hit the jackpot! 

Elaina got a baby from her cousins and she couldn't have been more happy about it. 

What also makes her happy is looking at her picture after you've taken it. "lemme seeeee!! Lemmme see it!"

It made me happy to watch Cade try to diaper the baby she brought with her (at her request). It was about a 10 minute ordeal but he finally got it! Look at that determination on his face:)

 Elaina also got a pair of gloves and a little head wrap from Nana. I had to include this picture because she just looks so cute to me. Who am I kidding though? She looks cute pretty much all the time. 

Rhett enjoyed hanging with the cuz. At least I think he did. His facial expression in this pic would make one think otherwise:)

Hugs from Nana.

We are very blessed to have gotten to spend another Christmas with Nannie. She painted us all cards this year (last year we got some painted ornaments). It's always a treasure because she's such a great artist!

I would love one day to be in a picture with my children's children's children! Wow! 

We finished out the evening with the candlelight service at Zion and I'm pleased to announce that not one hymnal went up in flames and no one caught their hair on fire. That is always the main goal of the candlelight service when you are in a small wooden pew with 7 kids. We had a great time celebrating with family! Merry Christmas Eve!

Yearly Tradition!

I love when this time rolls around. I know that this December in particular has been super busy for Bobby and me. I think we've needed a babysitter literally every Friday and Saturday night of the month for various things. For that reason, I was SO looking forward to a quiet night with my chillins for our yearly Christmas tradition: 

A little popcorn and hot chocolate....

 A little time to be sweet with siblings.....(notice I said "a little" because 'sweet' is rare with these boys)....

 and a little Polar Express. 

This movie has yet to get old to me. I love the magic and the family time. And I better love it while I can. It won't be too far into the future that these kids will roll their beady eyes at me and sigh when I tell them it's Polar Express night :/ 

You Want What?

For a solid at least 6 weeks my little, pink bow wearing, doll playing prissy pants girl has answered the SAME thing every time she's asked, "What do you want for Christmas?" And here's her answer:

I finally taped it so that no one would think I'm lying. A skeleton. A SKELETON! What little girl asks for a skeleton for Christmas?? We're pretty sure it stems back to a Halloween costume her buddy wore that she was apparently enamored with. Who knows. The funny thing is, we went to see Ol' Saint Nick at the mall: (here's a picture of the picture....side note: forget trying to get your big kids to dress up for this event. I saw all of these other parents with boys in little bow ties and khaki pants and whatnot. I'd be a happy gal if I could just get Cade to NOT wear wind pants every day of his life...sigh.) Anyhoo, the picture:

So, after months of "skeleton" Princess Petunia climbed up in this strange man's lap and when he asked her in his deep Santa voice, "Well, what would yoooou like for Christmas, Little Girl?" She stares up at him and in the most sugar pie voice says, "A baaaby dollll". WHAT!!!!???? Where did that come from? Crazy kid. She's gettin' nothing but skeletons from me. 

On a funny side note, this Santa was fantastic. He called Bobby and me over while the kids were still sitting there and let us know that he can't bring everyone electronics but the children would be very happy with the things that he did bring. And he added, "I let them know that the most important thing is not gifts but our health and that we have moms and dads that love us very much" which I thought was so nice of him to say. The funny part is that as we were walking away Grant pipes in and says with such a confused face, "I just don't get why Santa said Christmas wasn't about presents but it was about his elves....what's up with that?" To which I cracked up and said, "Your health, son, your hhhhealllth. Not elves!" I'm so glad I got that cleared up!! Kids never cease to make me laugh:)

Twinkies for Thanksgiving

Dressing like your bestie is ALWAYS fun:)

Halloween Frights!

I know I titled this "Halloween Frights" but there is really nothing frightening about this post at all. Unless you are terrified of girls that are frighteningly cute then you should be okay:) Arrrghhhh, Ye Matey! 

I handed Elaina a magazine months ago that was full of girly costumes. There were queens, princesses, frillies, fairies.....you name it. There were 2 pages or so of boy costumes. She immediately pointed and said, "I'm a pirate!" and she stuck with her guns. So, pirate she was and boy was she cute! 

We buddied up with our pals to hit the streets. Cheerleader left us in the dust with all the big boys but the Skeleton stuck around like a true pirate friend! (Or it may have been because he was just as slow as pirate :) )

Grant was my sister's go to Halloween costume: A Hobo. I know my mom has a picture of that somewhere because I can see it plain as day in my mind's eye. I'll post it for comparison if I can dig it up :)

What's a Hobo without a Hobo buddy? How much do you want to bet that Grant is smiling for this picture behind that mask?

Cade decided to go as a nerd. I'm a little concerned at how well he pulled this off. I had to get him a butt-cut wig because I don't care what kind of product you choose, you can NOT make his helmet hair do anything ridiculous. It is what it is and it's not moving. 

He geeked out with some of his school friends. Whenever I think of this picture it still makes me giggle. Bobby said that they got a lot of "awwwwww"s from teenage girls walking around. I guess when you've got it, you've got it. Butt cuts or not:)

Then there's Old Granpa Rhett.

After I put that mustache on his upper lip I thought we could have just as easily put him in short red shorts and a Hawaiian button up and gone as Tom Selleck. Pretty sure the funniness would have been lost due to the age gap. But I would have laughed. A lot.

Old Nursing Home Grandpa meets Sunday Morning in the Hampton's Grandpa:

It was another fun Halloween night spent with friends. I feel that it should be noted that only 48 hours after the Halloween festivities, Rhett Morgan hid his candy bag in his closet (obviously unbeknownst to me), overdosed on candy(clearly not following the rule of 1 piece after lunch and 1 after dinner), and vomited (always against the rules here as I can't stand vomit and find it completely intolerable if said vomit is due to stupidity) missing his last baseball game of the season (a real nail biter I was told). After recovering on the couch for about an hour he stood up, rubbed his belly, and said with a click of his tongue, "Well, I'm not sick. Looks like I just made some baaad choices!" I wonder how many times I'll have to hear that line in his lifetime. Lord, help me. No, really. Help me.

Year Seven

This weekend we celebrated seven years of funny living with Rhett! He brings so much joy to my days (the ones that he doesn't argue with me on because those days he makes me pull my hair out! Attorney in the making :) ) He requested a slumber party birthday this year so I told him his invite list would be quite short: 3. 

 

 I had no doubt who the crew would be that invaded the Morgan home. He's kept the same bffs for years now....and I love every.single.one of them. 

Along with "slumber party" the other request was "Grandma's  chocolate cake.....with a rocket on top". Rocket? Where was I suppose to find a cake topper rocket? Leave it to mom to come through. Chocolate cake with rocket: check. 

 I would say that Rhett was in "rare form" for his party if that were true. The fact of the matter is that "rare form" is pretty normal for his everyday living. There was the "it's ma birrrrthdayyyy! It's ma birrrrthdayyy!" singing to himself....

And plenty of goofy faces :)

The candle blowing went off without a hitch. No trick candles or anything this year.

Cake was served and there was lots of "mmmm"ing going on. Rhett made the comment, "Hey Guys....isn't this the best chocolate cake you've ever put in your mouth?!" and everyone agreed:) Along with cake, there was goofiness:

tons of smiles....

and more cake :)

Presents were a hit as usual.....gift card, battleship, and baseball cards and lego men. 

Fun times! The night ended with 4 boys sleeping in Rhett's room, all tucked in sleeping bags and cozy. 

On Rhett's actual birthday day we headed out to dinner at Moe's and to Sweet CeCe's with grandparents and cousins. Rhett opted for a money birthday present so I tricked him with a tissue box of money.

A bunch of small bills taped together and rolled up inside the box makes for a really surprised 7 year old! 

Nothin' like high rollin' when you're just a kid:) 

 Happy Birthday, Rhetters. I pray God grants me many, many more years of laughter on your account. I love you to pieces! 

Conversation Piece: Election 2012

As I was putting the boys to bed last night Cade started this conversation with me:

Cade: I can't stand Obama. 

Me: Why not? 

Cade: It's the whole ObamaCare plan he's put into place. I can't even stand it.

Me: Oh. Well, what's that mean for you?

Cade: It means we used to get 6 chicken nuggets at school. Now only 4. We used to get cookies on Friday for dessert. Now no cookies. And, we used to get stuffed crust pizza and now it's just regular! 

Me: (laughing) Honey, that really doesn't have anything to do with ObamaCare. That's Michelle Obama's healthy America initiative. 

Cade: And you know what else?? 

Me: What? 

Cade: Obama's raised all the taxes!

Me: Really? 

Cade: Yes! And you know what he's doing with all that money?.......Putting a pool in the backyard of the White House! 

According to Cade he and his school buddies have been sharing information "learned" during this election season. The misinformation really had me giggling. I'll be sure to put "decreased nugget consumption, nixing of Friday cookie, and a veto of stuffed crust pizza" to the list of reasons I'll be voting Republican:)