And A Happy New Year

We are heading to Bob and Joan's for to hang out for the night. 1st we are all taking a nap so we can make it to midnight! Joan and Alesha are providing a seafood feast and I got some serious dessert covered. And of course a little (lots) champagne. Gotta get it all out of my system. I am not a resolution kinda girl, but I will not be baking ANYTHING until Teagen's birthday. That alone should help Jason and I drop 10 lbs each!

Wishing all Health, Safety and PEACE in 2008!!! Cheers!

Christmas Morning

What a whirlwind.3 days of crazyness and its over. I wish I had pics from Xmas eve, everyone was dressed up and looked so stinkin' cute!

The morning was fun. After gifts we lazed around for a while, munched and played. finally got around to getting ready for my Dads. They spoiled us as usual and went way overboard. I will have to take a photo of my new carving from my dad and post it. It is amazing. How can his stuff keep getting better? Anyway, we had a great dinner and too much dessert. Dad and Cindy loved on the kiddos for a while and then when babies started to get grumpy we all left.

Grady wound up getting sick that night. 103.5 temp and crabby. No other symptoms of anything. Weird. Maybe teeth (those dang molars) but that seems way to high a temp for teeth. Now Jason and I are under the weather. We always get sick together and him way worse! I am fighting this cold with everything I got... tea, vitamins, oranges, water, juice. We will see. I am going to bed now to see if I can sleep some of it off.

Grandma Donna's

Yesterday did not turn out as planned, thanks to the horrible weather. We were supposed to go to My Grandpa Freed house for the early afternoon in Grand Ledge and then go to Jason's Mom's in Grand Rapids for the evening. It was decided that it would be too dangerous to drive to my Grandpas and my dad didnt even want us to leave Donna's and drive from there. Well, it was pretty scary, but we made it. It took forever. Jason did great. He is amazing under pressure and a great driver(DO NOT TELL HIM I HAVE ADMITTED THIS) Seriously we would be behind taillights and then they would just totally dissappear. I am so bummed not to see my two preggo cousins and everyone else at my Grandpas but the risk is NOT worth anything. But we had a great time at Donna and Marks. the 1st photot is all the Schultz kids.Jason's Bro has 4, Alesha has 2 and then our 3. What a group. Good time, Good food, and the kids and everyone were totally spoiled. My photos stink. I hate taking indoor pictures. I miss all the shots with the grandparents.Oh,well.
Today i have to bake a pineapple upside down cake for the Gilchrist party at 5pm in Whitehall , and then rush off to Flanders (Cindys fam) in Montague. Whew..crazy last part of our day, but we wouldn't miss any of it. Its Tradition!

These are a few of my Favorite things...

My Hand-made Christmas gifts. Starting with the 1st one A stocking made in 1978 from my Gramma A. So adorable. Then the next 2 photos are my annual Santas from my Grandpa and Grandma Freed. We got one each year once we get married. I won an extra one as a draw gift one year. What a bonus! The next photo w/ three santas are ones my dad made.His style is totally different from my grandpa and I LOVE it.

Grandma Marion (Cindy's Mom) makes the felt stockings and have so much fine detail, and our regular family stockings come from Jason's mom and are made by a family friend. I have tons more handmade gift that I totally treasure but then this would go on forever! I just know how lucky I am to have such talented people in my life. Thank you for sharing all that with my little house. My appreciation for all things homemade come from all of you!

Well, here is yet another winter tradition in our house. Jason and Summer started this one last year. Covering the windows with paper snowflakes. I really love this one because we can keep them up past Christmas. I add some paper doilie hearts when Valentine's Day is close. The best part is that everyone can make paper snowflakes ( Ok, not Grady yet) Its as crafty as Jason gets and even my Dad made a couple when they babysat for us. Now we have lights up on the house and around the front windows and the snow flakes look even better!

I am so LOVING hearing every ones traditions. people are posting them on their blogs and its so fun to see your own twist on the holidays and everyday life. Please keep sharing!

Tradition

Here are two more of our little traditions. 1st is our advent calendar. I got it when Summer was little but I think I will have to upgrade next year to a bigger one. I want one with little doors or drawers for each day of the month. Right now I had to SQUEEZE 2 tiny candy bars in each pocket for the girls. They look forward to it each day and we get a little math practice doing the countdown.

The 2nd photo is "The CRAZY House" This house is a 1/2 mile from us and is indeed crazy. Its on Shuller(I think) off Laketon near the lake. Their yard and lot is COVERED with the tackiest stuff in Christmas history AND WE LOVE IT. We've been calling it "The CRAZY House" for 10 years, since Jason and I moved to Muskegon. Summer fell in love as a toddler and now if we are out past dark and no one is crying, we have to drive past it. I think we have been past 4 or 5 times this year already. These people just want to make all the little kids happy and it is just awesome.

Gotta work for 4 hours tonight. I've got a stop to make to get a gift on my way in. Going to take my X-mas cards to work and hopefully if its as slow as yesterday I can get them mostly done! Jason is out grocery shopping ( love that) And I am making lunch for my babes. Have a great weekend!

Oh, Christmas Tree

This is Tigger(on the TV) Teagen and our sweet little tree. I do love this little tree even though its fake. At this point in life it is necessary. TO many little kids and dogs. Even the cat leaves it alone. I don't have to worry about Grady filling his cheeks with pine needles. Our ceilings are so high that if we didn't put the tree on the little table, it would just look ridiculous. I have to say that Christmas Morning this tree is awesome with all the gift piled up underneath. My only concern is that the poor thing may collapse due to the sheer volume of ornament that it displays!

One day when we move, it will become the "kids tree" and hold only kid-made ornaments and then we will get a REAL family tree. Sorry my photo is so cruddy. I took it last night while the kids watched some specials on TV. Did anyone else see the Shrek Christmas? I only saw part of it but it was funny! Grady was laughing so hard he kept falling over!