Happy Birthday my sweet girl!

Not only is it Christmas but it is also Jacqui's twelfth birthday. Lets not go into how old that makes me feel. Next year she is going to be a teenager. Oh but don't think that it hasn't already started. She and I were shopping for clothes the other day and in the middle of the store I had to stop and call my mom to apologize to her for all the times I drove her crazy trying on clothes! I'll show Jacqui something I think she might like and she just gives me "the look" like I have no clue what fashion is. I can tell you that I'm being paid back in full. My mom of course just laughed.

Really hard.

I didn't find it quite so funny! Damn that mothers curse!!

Look how grown up and beautiful she looks!

Every year - and I mean EVERY year - I even out all the kids gifts between the kids and then I remember "Oh - Jacqui's birthday" and I have to readjust the budget.

She mostly just wants clothes now a days. And shoes. Lord knows her foot grows faster then I can keep up with. Her MawMaw in Texas sent her some shoes for Christmas and they were size 8.5 - they barely fit. I think she's probably got about a month or two before she outgrows them!!!! So much for sharing shoes - I'm only a 6.5! Next she's going to be taller then me too!

Can't remember what exactly she got - but as you can see she is a little excited. I think it was an ITunes gift certificate for the new IPOD she got for Christmas. Either that or money to buy the new phone she wants to upgrade to.

So here we are - another year, another birthday. This time TWELVE. Doesn't seem possible. Could someone please tell me how this...


turned into this...

A look inside the Ski Christmas!

On Christmas Eve I asked Matt "Are you excited about Christmas buddy??"

He replied "No - I'm really not thinking about it all that much."

Well that night the kids went to bed at 9pm. Matt woke up at 11:30pm, and midnight. At 2:30am he woke up again so I told him to go turn on his TV and watch it till he fell asleep. At 4:30am he woke me up again. In between that, Cadence woke us up to go potty and ended up getting in bed with us which is always real comfortable especially now that my belly is HUGE. At 7 am Matt woke us up again. No - he wasn't excited at all!!!! By that time I couldn't sleep anymore but Ski wanted another hour. So I got up and poured Matt a glass of milk, me a glass of water and I went into his room to share some cookies and milk with him before everyone woke up. Would you believe it, he was finally asleep again! So there I sat - the only one awake. Finally at 8am everyone woke up to this...

Santa had even finished all his cookies and milk, fed his reindeer and wrote Cadence a letter back! He also left a bone for each of the dogs on the table and some circus tickets for all of us to go to the circus in February.

If you remember from the previous posts, all Cadence wanted Santa to bring her was Scooby Doo toys. Here is the look on her face when she got them!!!!

The rest are pretty self explanatory. They are just a look inside of our Christmas morning!!!!

I can honestly say none of us need anything for quite a while. Thank you to everyone who sent us gifts and we hope everyone had a GREAT Christmas!

Christmas Eve

We had a pretty quiet but nice Christmas Eve. Ski and Caders tracked Santa on the internet so she could see where he was and when he would be on his way to our house. Jacqui and Matt play along too even though they are "too old" for that kind of thing!!!

I was busy making pumpkin pies and Jacqui's birthday cake and also cookies to leave for Santa. This year all he got was the pre-made chocolate chip cookie dough kind that I could cut and bake.

Tradition at our house is that we all open one present that night before we go to bed. I don't know who was more excited to get a gift - Ski or the kids. He has had his big old head under the tree for weeks trying to shake his presents and guess what they were.

Jacqui and Matt knew they were getting the same thing so they devised a plan to sit back to back and open them at the same time.

Cadence got a Scooby Doo Christmas movie and couldn't wait to go in Matt's room to watch it!!!

After opening their hand held Guitar Hero games, this was how I saw them for the rest of the evening.

Eating some dough from the chocolate chip cookie wrapper!!!

I let Cadence fill the plate with cookies for Santa - she decided he needed three of them.

Matt poured him some milk too.

Then we all ate a few cookies our self!!!!

I LOVE this picture. I don't know who makes who happier!!!!

How could Santa resist a feast like this! Even the reindeer got carrots. One for each of them!!!! Caders also wrote him a letter to remind him to bring her some Scooby Doo toys!!!!!

It was an AWESOME Christmas Eve - one of the best I've ever had!!!!

The holiday season!

This year I was so excited for Christmas! Cadence is at the age where she finally understands and gets excited about Santa and also, we were going to be home with all three kids this year. Usually the kids go with their dads because they don't get very much time with him beside the summer. Our holiday season was filled with parties and friends and more parties and more friends.

This was Ski's squadron Christmas party. She couldn't wait to see Santa and tell him that she wanted Scooby Doo presents. The whole time she waited in line to see him she just stared!!! Over the course of the last month we've had to have Santa call a few times to let Cadence know that he could see her when she wasn't eating her dinner or when she didn't want to go to bed. She'd always get so upset if she thought Santa was going to be mad at her!!!

Abby, Cadence and Hannah - the daughters of workcenter 690's SNCO's.

Now that Matt is officially a Pvt in the Young Marines he's done some pretty cool things. Back in November during veterans day he went to Washington DC to visit all the monuments and to go to the Marine Corps Museum. For Christmas they were in the annual Havelock Christmas Parade.

Here is Cadence sitting on the curb waiting for the parade to start. She wanted to get a good seat so that she could get lots of candy!!! The sun was in her eyes!!! Of course you can't keep that thumb out of her mouth either.

Once the parade started she was up on her feet racing to get candy. We didn't bring anything to put it in so she used my camera case. It was a little awkward but it worked!!!
The Marine Corps band marching by! Cadence yelled "The Marines!!!! Just like my daddy!!!" She was so excited.

Here come the Cherry Point Young Marines!

Matt is in the back - the one who's bearing needs a little work STILL!!!

The kids wanted to do something special for our families who are far away from us in other states. So when school got out for Christmas break we took a day and made a bunch of crafts to send to them!!!

They all worked so hard and did a great job!

We had a great holiday season and look forward to Christmas day being just as great!!!!