Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus!

"Filling the world, He lies in a manger" -Augustine

Happy Birthday to You! (cha cha cha)
Happy Birthday to You! (cha cha cha)
Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus! (cha cha cha)
Happy Birthday to You!
(cha cha cha, ooh la la, boom chicka rocka chicka la la la)

We love to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus (at the top of our lungs) first thing on Christmas morning. How AWESOME is Mr. Jesus that He loves us enough to share the fun of giving and receiving gifts on His special day? All the kids (minus Secret, who was sleeping like a baby) climbed up the ladder to Meadow and Heaven's bed (the fav.) to open stockings.

Yup.
Santa Claus came to town.

Santa liked the random what-not's we left him to snack on (I think the "It's Your Special Day" plate and the "Goody Gumdrops" mug made everything taste even better).

The Reindeer liked their carrots and apples. The left a lot of glitter behind. Pretty sure that's their secret to flying. Lots and lots of glitter.

Among Raven's favorite things to receive was silly putty (he's easy to please).

Among his least favorite things to receive was a bloody lip on Christmas Eve.
1 Trampoline + Lots of Hyper Kids... Sometimes = Bloody Lips

River, smiling his dazzling "River Smile", was all about the skateboards... little and big.

Meadow screamed with glee "What! What! What! What! What!!!? This is my FAVORITE!!!" about every thing she opened (she has a little of her Aunt Nee-Nee in her).

She especially loved her new dolly house and played with it for hours!

Heaven's favorite gift was Secret's new carseat. Yes, Secret got a carseat... these are the kinds of "gifts" you get for Christmas when you are the 5th child.

It's all good...

Secret was just happy to sneak a little Diet Coke, here and there, when she thought Mom wasn't looking.

This is our attempt at a picture with all the kids in it.
"Attempt" being the key word.

When all was said and done, the kids agreed that, although it ROCKS getting gifts... being Elves and giving gifts was even better!

Sleep In Heavenly Peace

While I was sneaking around taking pictures of my beautiful, sleeping babes...

Mr. C. snuck in (past a sleeping Daddy on the couch) ate a snack and left all kinds of magic behind.

More Blessed

Truly

It Is

More Blessed

To Give

Than To Receive

The look on Raven's face says it all...
By GIVING, it's really US who ends up doing most of the RECEIVING.
Heavenly Father and Santa work very similarly, you know. Both perform miracles and give gifts. And both allow regular people (like us) the blessing of being part of answering the prayers of others. We LOVED being "Elves" and helpers to both Santa Claus and Heavenly Father this Christmas to a very special family.

Ho-Ho-Ho!

Merry Christmas!

Love,
River Claus

Oh, Nose!

Heaven's Directions on Decorating Gingerbread Houses:
Place one tiny candy on the roof,

Shove one tiny candy...

Up my nose!

Yikes! A google search for "Removing Candy From Nose" gave me a wide range of advise.
The following is a list of the ones we, desperate parents, tried:
1. Have child blow it out (Duh! too bad 2 year olds don't know how to blow out... she snuffed it up farther).
2. Remove with tweezers (Not a good idea... take it from me).
3. Suck it out with a straw (Yes, I said, SUCK IT OUT WITH A STRAW! Thought about it, tried to make Jared do it. Neither of us could stomach it).
4. Blow into child's mouth and see if it will shoot the candy out the nose (okay, this wasn't found on the internet, this was Jared's idea... sounded good... didn't work).
5. MAKE them sneeze with black pepper (another of Jared's ideas... no good).
6. Dissolve with saline solution and a steamy shower.
In the end it was #6 that actually worked. It took a good hour for the candy to come out. Needless to say, Heaven was traumatized by her parent's efforts to "help" her. Hopefully enough to NOT be stuffing anything up her nose again!

Let's Take A Vote

Santa Claus?

Or Papa Claus?

The vote was unanimous...

Papa Claus or BUST!
The truth is... Santa never even stood a chance. Our kids actually call their Papa "Papa Santa Claus" and Grandma "Grandma Mrs. Claus" all year round.

Spare Bedroom

The good thing about having a Coat Closet downstairs,

Is that it can double as a spare bedroom, when necessary...

Which just so happens to be more often than you'd think.
According to Miss Tommy-Cat and Miss Lucy-Bug.

Jingle All The Way

At our Preschool Christmas Program...

Some preschoolers sang (some didn't) Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Jingle Bells,

Some preschoolers said (some didn't) their part of the "I Believe In Santa Claus" Story,

ALL preschoolers stared in awe (especially this one),

As Mr. Papa accompanied their songs with his trombone
(or "trunk" as some call it).

All Parents clapped and cheered.
Yes, I have the BEST job ever.

Missing Preston

Preston (well, that is, his picture) has become a frequent guest at meal time. Meadow, especially, really misses him!

School is Cool...

REALLY cool, when you get to do awesome projects like make a wreath out of dragon scales and have that count as a "book report" on Harry Potter 4.... and dress up a paper doll as a little Irish boy, with real material and buttons and such. I'm pretty sure I always just did plain-old-boring-reports when I was a kid.

Brrrrrrrrrr!

It sounded really fun to go play in the snow that had been brought into the Hammond's neighborhood... Evidently, sounding and experiencing are two very different things.
Just ask River.

Heaven wasn't one bit interested in getting down and playing in the "freezing-and-cold" snow.

Raven didn't care how painful his wet hands were, he was determined to make a snowman,

And Meadow was every bit as determined to make a snow angel.
Or slushy-mushy-ice-angel in this case.

After some tears and lots of complaints, the kids decided that instead of real snow,

It was much more comfortable to catch "fake" snow on their tongues at the mall.

There...

Much better!
What can I say... they take after me. I've never been a fan of the cold, wet stuff!