McKenna's First Christmas - So much fun!!!!

McKenna's first Christmas was so much fun! Don't you just love the chair.

Clapping because she was so excited about her stocking!

McKenna's holding a baby doll that my grandmother, her great-grandmother, made.

Look at those beautiful eyes!

Christian showing McKenna the new penguin teether he got for her.

Kisses for mommy! One of the best moments of Christmas!

McKenna did a pretty good job of opening presents. Although her brother was right there to help her each time a present needed to be opened!

That's the grin I get now whenever she sees the camera! She's learning early isn't she? And that's her new baby doll stroller/walker. I'm so excited to have pink toys!

Christian gave McKenna a new baby for Christmas and she loved it! Watch the video at the bottom to hear her squealing about it!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!

We miss you Chatterton family, Marshall cousins and Brinkley cousins! Wish we could all be together!

There's a lot of excitement around here! I hope each of you has a wonderful day with your family!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

How thankful we are that you're our SAVIOR!

Christmas Crafts

Monday was craft day! And today was cookie baking day (pictures of that another time). Check out what we made on Monday!

Rudolph made out of a footprint and two hand prints.
Snowman made with Christian's thumb print.

This makes a very cute gift!!

Poor Abby is always stuck with boys. Christian and Nathan at home and then lots of boys in her class at school. She's totally out numbered all the time. So to get a little girl time we invited our friend Kate to come over to make crafts with us!! In this picture the girls are filling their socks with rice to make their snowmen.

Abby's snowman.

Kate's snowman (You'll notice that Abby and Kate made the same exact snowman. Even their buttons are in the same exact color order. Isn't having a best friend great)!

Christian's guy that he named "snowman." Very original!

And Nate! Oh Nate! He spilled rice EVERYWHERE! From the stove, to the refrigerator, to the living room. What a disaster! He started crying immediately (and truth be told - I wanted to cry too) and I told him that I wasn't mad just disappointed that I would have a big mess to clean up. I think that made him feel even worse that I was disappointed, so he gave up on the snowman and refused to make one. Thankfully the sweet little guy recovered after his nap and ended up with a very cute snowman. I love this picture because he actually gave me a real smile. Not the squinty ones I usually get from a three year old.

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Thanks for the great craft ideas SARAH! Don't you just love blogging! I would have never made these crafts if it wasn't for you and your blog!!

Christmas is Coming!!!!

It's getting closer!!

Yes that's McKenna in boy pjs! Blue is just as comfy and warm as pink, so why buy pink when you've already got blue! She doesn't seem to care, so I don't either!

The Jesse Tree is getting full (you can't see all the ornaments because most of them are on the right side of the tree by Christian's head). I did NOT rearrange all the ornaments on this tree :)

We went to Daddy's work today for a Christmas party and when we were getting ready to leave Christian said; "Daddy when you get home it's family time." He loves our family time that we've had around the Jesse Tree this Christmas! This picture was from last night!

Rewind to Saturday Night

If you had come to my house on Saturday night here's what you would have seen.

My family

Amy's family

My brother Tim's family.

Uncle Tim with lots of presents

McKenna opening her very first gift with a little help from her brother.

Finally getting the hang of it! I think she'll do just fine on Christmas morning!

Hannah and Elizabeth opening their Littlest Pet Shop stuff.

Christian opening his armor. Nate and Adam opening their armor.

Adam putting on his armor.

Christian in his armor!

Emma and Abby with their new roller blades.

I know what your thinking....."Have they lost their minds??? Three sets of armor, including a sword given to each three year old? Roller blades for two girls among all the other chaos?" All I have to say is NO ONE GOT HURT! The only sword injury we've had so far was Nate poking himself in the eye.

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Now back to our night!

Christian with some new playdough!

Nate got a very cool monster truck race track that was the hit of the night.

Look at McKenna's face!!! She got lots of attention from her twin cousins Hannah and B-Beth.

The twins spent lots of time playing with McKenna.

Hmmm...It looks like she's trying to get away!

I think McKenna preferred hanging out with Auntie Erin! Much calmer!!

Everyone decorated their own cake. Can you tell that Abby's is a ginger bread man?
Seven kids with sprinkles results in lots of great memories and just so you know, I still have green icing on some of my chairs! It was a great night and I'm so thankful the Brinkley's made the effort (they had quite an eventful trip) to come and see us! We miss them and love spending time with them!!

Group Shots are always IMPOSSIBLE!

I've always wished for the perfect picture of all the cousins together, but it never seems to happen with this side of our family. We had great success over Thanksgiving with our Chatterton cousins, but this Brinkley/Marshall bunch seems to bring out the worst in at least one person most of the time.

Everyone thinks Uncle Tim is funny except for Nate. It got much, much worse after this!

Now it's Adam not cooperating.

And Nate again.

Oh yeah! Now it's Christian's turn.

And this is the only "smile" Christian could come up with in the middle of his major tantrum.

And it's been that way for years! That's Abby in the purple on the verge of a major meltdown because she wanted to hold Christian and Emma got to hold him instead. To see a history of our attempts, click here!