"12 Christmas Things About Me Hoopla"

Joey tagged me and here I go at trying to think of twelve things...

1. I am with Joey and I really don't like blinking Christmas lights. I bought some solar-powered lights last year. They were not cheap. We didn't put them up this year...they blink:(

2. I procrastinate with this holiday big time. Every year I think" I am just going to get it done early" never happens...I must enjoy the pressure some how...I don't know. I always have so much to do by the time it's Christmas week it is hard to enjoy the holiday.

3. Santa came to Ava's Kindergarten class today! They all got to tell him what they wanted. First off Ava told him, " I really want a REAL American Girl doll, not a fake one from Target." " My mom says I have to be older to have a REAL American Girl doll" Santa's reply..."oh, no,no. You don't have to be older, you just have to be old enough to take care of it. I am sure you would take care of it." Ava was so thrilled to come home and share the wonderful news with me! She doesn't have to wait to get the REAL thing! Well, hip-hip hooray Santa. I'd love to get to talk to this Santa myself sometime.:)

4. I enjoy singing this song to my kids at Christmas time. Have you heard it?
"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny a half-a-penny will do, if you haven't got a half-a-penny...god bless you!" Now the ironic thing is, my mom used to sing this a lot at Christmas time. It used to drive me completely nuts and I thought she did it to torture me. I love to sing it;)

5. I especially love to bake, cook, make candy, all of that at Christmas! There are too many recipes and not enough time! (oh where, oh where, has my diet gone?) don't even ask right now@!~?*

6. The older I get Christmas comes and goes way too fast!

7. I think Christmas is the most romantic holiday. Even more than Valentine's. It is my all time favorite holiday.

8. Santa does not wrap the gifts at our house. He never wrapped the ones at my house growing up either. I know how busy he is and I guess he knows we don't mind:)

9. I collect nativities. I think they are so beautiful, wonderful, and one of my favorite parts of Christmas.

10. I miss my mom more at Christmas time than any other time of the year. Sometimes, I can't even think about her at Christmas because I just will start crying:( I know it is silly because we only live a few hours away, but I just think she should come and live with me for the Christmas season:)

11. The kids always have to have new jammies Christmas Eve. I don't know why...it's just fun.

12. My goal for Christmas this year...No wrapping Chrismas Eve!! I will be done! That is my plan at least:)

Wow! I can't believe I found twelve...yeah!

Now here are a few rules for Katie, Patsy, Wende, and LaRae because I know they want to participate, right?!

1. List 12 random things about yourself that has to do with Christmas
2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm'-word
3. You have to specifically tag people when you're done. None of this "if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged" stuff is allowed...then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you -- but the more, the merrier to get this 'hoopla' circulating through the blogosphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it and I'd like to get as many people involved as possible.
5. If you want to -- please give me, Andrea, some link-love as the 'Hoopla-Creator'. I love new blog-traffic

11.

This boy is handy...

Doesn't this look like a fun project? How did I get so lucky to have a guy who can fix anything? Growing up my dad was one of these guys. It's broken he fixes it. Now, I have my own handy guy:) Doug some how whittled a small piece of wood to take the place of the broken part in my vacuum! Wow... that's just about all I can say... wow!

The First Birthday...Finally!

Well, it's better late than never! I am exactly two months late in posting, because Nicolette turned one October 12. Beware...there is a mass of photos to come! I have had a hard time admitting my baby is one. Now that two months has passed I think I am used to the idea. (it's a miracle). This picture was taken on Nicolette's real birthday October 12, 2007. This means a lot to me. I have some hangups when it comes to celebrating things on the day that is not technically the event. We were not able to celebrate Nicolette's birthday day on the correct day. This will bug me forever but, it all turned out fine and great so I should get over it:) I was busy preparing food for a stake young womens thing the entire day...into the night...the next morning etc. We did take time out to take these pictures of the official day!

Janae, Doug, and Nicolette October12, 2007.

Mom and baby first birthday:)

We finally celebrated Nicolette's birthday on October 15. She absolutely loved having her party with her sisters. Her sisters also loved having a party for Nicolette. I was really impressed with how much she enjoyed opening each and every gift. When opening gifts she would, take out the tissue paper, peak down inside the gift bag, and then pull out the gift. It was really cute:)

Nicolette has really gone through a phase of loving dogs. Her only really word at age one was "woof" (if that's really a word). We got her this really cute musical dog, she has really enjoyed that toy.

Here she is woofing at the new dog.

still woofing at the dog...

This was her feeling very serious with the opening of packages.

Nicolette loved these new boots. Ironically, my mom and I both unknowingly bought her the same exact boots! Also, she has already outgrown them:( they were so so cute!

This was a book my mom gave Nicolette. It is her favorite book to look at.

The cake...yum...yum...

I love this picture because it shows her very dainty little hand just trying a bit of cake.

Vivien helped Nicolette blow out her candle...of course.

And...the first piece of cake goes to the b-day girl!

Here is the first cake picture...notice how nice and clean and tidy everything is. Notice how she is even trying to use the spoon...haha!

Oh...yummy, yummy, this baby was loving her first cake experience.

The ice cream is better eaten with fingers:)

The face is starting to show signs of the tidy eater not feeling so dainty in her eating.

She finally just threw the spoon down...she had had enough of dainty eating!

The final mess! Oh, it was a great party! Happy birthday baby:)

My Broken Camera

Well, my broken camera has really put a crimp in my blogging of late! I have old pictures I could be blogging......yet, I'm not! Blogging has helped my picture taking so much. I feel like I need a picture of everything to document what's going on. I REALLY miss having a working camera.
The good news...I spent almost $70.00 on a new camera battery today and I have hope this will fix the problem. Unfortunately, I have not had one spare moment today to try out the new battery.....maybe tonight:) Today was just one of those days, phone calls not returned, laundry not done, things not checked off the list. When did I turn into one of these kind of not-get-it done girls? Oh well, I keep on trying:)

Things have been busy around here since December hit! School, primary, and Christmas shopping seem to take up the time. Little Nicolette has a horrible cold right now! I hate it when they get so sick when they are this little. It has been hard. I am listening to her trying to breath over the baby monitor right now.....really sad:(

I will be posting on the camera situation soon.