Christmas Week Extrodinare!

(Yep, I know I spelled the last word in my title wrong, I don't need to be corrected)

Well, our Christmas was fantastic, did I really say that, yes Yes I did!

We left Thursday the 22 for my parents in Kennewick. Before that Monday Dave was still getting over the weak part of his sickness, than Tuesday we delivered our goodie plates, and had our own little family program. Sami sang "Picture a Christmas" for us, she loves that song, and does a great job of it.

Wednesday night I got to go to YW/YM and be a Waldo character. I dressed in one of Dave's baggy sweatshirts, wore a baseball hat and wandered around the Spokane Northtown mall while the YW/YM tried to find me. A lot of them didn't notice me it worked out great. It was a fun night. When I got home the girls were in bed, and I finished getting us ready to go out of town.

Thursday when we got to town it was around noon and so we stopped off at Papa Murphys and bought a pizza for lunch than went to my parents house to settle in. I saved up all our laundry and so I started to work on it. My parents had flown in from Utah Wednesday to Portland and than drove up to stay the night at there property in the Mountains before coming home Thursday evening. When they got back we got ready and went to dinner at McDonalds than to the mall. I bought myself a new maternity shirt, that is super cute and fancy and love it, than we walked around and browsed Barnes and Noble while waiting for my parents. The girls love the kid section of Barnes, we don't go to big stores like that often, when they are 30 min away it just doesn't happen. We need to remedy that. I just say, what's the point of going when you have no money to spend, it's true, because I could go crazy at Barnes and Noble.

Friday we just kind of hung around. I took Sami with me to the special church store at the stake center near the temple before stopping by to visit our good friends Rachel, Kyler and Chelsea Adams. I love this angle of the temple, I take this picture a lot.

It was a super cold and windy day, and so I had to beg Sami to walk across the parking lot with me to check out this Nativity. She was a bit scared of it. I think Nativities in yards are extremely tacky... this is the only place where they should ever be, it's a very sacred thing to me. At churches and temples, that's it. Christ birth to me is a very sacred and respectful thing, seeing plastic versions of Nativity's scattered in people's yards, with a blow up santa next to it and reindeer is just so wrong. Sorry that is just how I feel. It ruins the real meaning of it to me.

Saturday was just a get ready for Christmas day, of course being Christmas Eve and all. I don't remember exactly what we did that day. We ate fried chicken with coleslaw that tasted like nastiness... than the family came over at 5 for dinner and program.

We had some yummy food my mom made Taco Soup and my dad made panni's. The spice in the soup it was just not appetizing to me, and just had a yummy panni. As I was finishing eating the baby started kicking like crazy right at my lower ab, and the only way i could get comfortable was to lounge on couch. than we had our normal Natvitiy puppet story, Sami was a lamb and I was I don't know I gave mine away Daphne wasn't interested in participating. After we went next door and sang a few songs to Pat Dixon, our long time neighbor and friend, she is amazing, and than we drove to Grandma Ellen's and Paul's to sing and chat with them. They gave the kids little bags of snacks, and Daphne ran around being naughty, she was tired.

When we got back to my parents house I had the girls open there Christmas pi's that they picked out. I meant to have some for David and myself but that didn't happen, maybe next year.

Than they went to bed and we set the presents out for the morning. My parents asked us what time we were getting up and I said 6:30 but at 5:20 when Sami woke up we convinced her to go back to bed until 6 I think Dave was more excited than she was and so he wanted to get up.

We carried on the tradition of the Ransom family hall photo, and every other year we take turns who stands with the kids. Last year it was me, this year it's Dave. Next year I will be holding the baby... =)

We got down to business. It was me and Dave watching the girls unwrap. We really didn't get much, two presents each and so we just kinda opened them as we went along nothing exciting. I got my Scentsy, and a maternity workout DVD.

With the girls we started with the smaller gifts... I made them these doll bags that I ran out of edging for and need to still finish, they will be more excited about them later anyways.

I think Daphne was a bit confused... she was so sad. At one point, wanting Sisters toys.

They loved helping Dad open his secret gift from me...

A figurine for his figurine shelf. It's not really a big deal, I found it on the Disney site and thought it was a good time to sneak in a gift with out his knowledge. He also got the Star Wars trilogy on blu ray the first 3. And my parents gave him a set of nice headphones. I used them and he got mad... they work good. My parents gave me a maternity dress and a grill. It's awesome I am using it tomorrow. One side is flat plates, the other is waffle plates, and they are removable. It opens and lays out, I am so excited. Now I can throw away the $10 one we bought when Sami was a baby.

My parents came out at the end and helped the girls enjoy there gifts. Daphne got the Toy Story collection. Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Bullseye, and a slinky dog toy. That she thought was broken for awhile. They got pez, candy canes, a coloring book and a princess crown in there stocking.

You can kind of see Sami's big present in this picture. It's by my dads leg. It's a polly pocket princess castle. She has mermaid, Belle, and Rapunzel and so we bought her Tiana and Jasmine and it came with Cinderella and a bunch of furniture. She loves it, I knew she would.

After we finished opening our gifts we watched as my parents opened theres. My mom got a brand new red lap top. My dad got a tv for his work out room, and a gun. It was pretty fun. They are so cute they give each other a list of what they want and than buy what's on the list. I think me and Dave will do that from now on. We weren't very good this year.

My mom also gave the girls dresses, they are adorable. She bought them from a friend that doesn't use patterns, but they were amazing and matchy matchy of course. She made them for a 2 and 4 year old... my kids aren't the typical 2 and 4 year old size... Try... 3 and 5... so they are about an inch or two short so my mom is going to fix them up, I am so excited, I didn't get pictures of them in them, because I forgot Daphnes tights and so she wore her sunday shoes with Sami's socks and her diaper butt was hanging out...

After church we headed over to Dave's mom's house to have some Christmas with her. The girls got slap bracelets, matchy sweaters (Sami's wearing her's) and cute socks. Dave got a carabeaner, and a travel shovel. I got this awesome food gift idea book, which I am so looking forward to. Than she gave us a s'more making kit. We haven't tried it out yet, we keep getting too full. It's for camping, but we are going to try it out soon!

At 4 the cousins started arriving to unwrap gifts. We saved the girls last two gifts from Grandpa and Grandma out so that they could unwrap them with there cousins. Sami got a big Mermaid doll, and a paper doll Princess book. Daphne got a baby with a horse stroller and a bed, and a stuffed puppy dog. They also bought her a winter coat on Thursday night at Old Navy for $15. She had just a thicker jacket, this one will fit her next year too and she loves it. It's nice to have parents that spoil us when we don't have a lot of extra money to spare, or no extra money to spare.

Monday we headed to Boardman to visit Dave's dad and tried out Kinect for the X-Box. Dave chopped fruit and I played the Easy version on a dance game. I want the Kinect now... Dave might be able to get it free from his gaming review website Velocity gamer. They give him free games all the time because of the feed there site gets... it's crazy, we shall see what happens.

Tuesday we just hung around vegging, we had plans but they didn't happen. We had Burger King, watched our new Lion King, and Kung Fu Panda 2, and relaxed. Our vacuum died the day before we left and so my brother gave us his old one, that will last us hopefully until income tax return... going with out a vacuum with our little kids is impossible.

Wednesday, today we hung out and packed up. It was hard to make sure we got every little toy. I know we left a least a squikie flounder behind, those dang things are so small. I am going back down at the end of the month for my little sisters baby shower. She is having a girl... to be named Reagan. Me and Dave get to find out what we are having next week hopefully. Than all this talk of what name we like best will be put to rest. We came up with a boy name we like better, on the way home. It will be revealed if we are having a boy, if not it will be saved for later. Dave went over to Paul's and helped him with a technology thing than came home and we loaded the car and headed over to say by to Barb. Than we stopped by Ross, Best Buy and Michales. I got some crafty stuff to start on Valentines Day stuff for the website and couple new maternity shirts. I grew this week and half my clothes don't fit me anymore. It was part of my gift. I still have a Michael Buble Christmas album coming... once Dave downloads it off iTunes...

Well have a good week and hope you had a great Christmas. I got to get our Christmas cards out, and start packing up Christmas (not til the New Year) and preparing for V-Day and baby ultra sound day, YEAH!