Christmas 2010

Last year I made a New Year's Resolution to blog at least once a month. I thought that was really conservative and that I'd for sure blog more often than that - like at least every Sunday. Well, I've written many blog posts in my head, but most of them never make it here. I'm sorry to say that I'm a sorry blogger. I thought of increasing my frequency with a NEW New Year's resolution, but frankly, with much of my attention going to a cute new little Sam and losing the weight on my hips that he donated to me (okay, okay, it was all my fault), I thought it might be pushing me too far. So, I'm just hoping not to backslide. On that note, here's my entry for February. Now I can check at least ONE thing off my list that won't get undone in 30 seconds.

Some of these guys don't look too thrilled, but they really did have a lot of fun making snowmen ornaments for the tree. I was watching the Zimmerman kids, so there were 9 kids here (one Zim wasn't here), and was trying to think of something fun and holidayish to do. Then I remembered that I had a bag of snowman ornament kits from Oriental Trading that I'd meant the kids to make LAST year. Hooray! I was really impressed with the different snowmen that came out of the project. I had an example one made, but no one even looked at that. They all borrowed parts and made things out of paper, etc. to come up with curly mustaches, hobo sticks and funny hair and on and on.
Here are the kids on Christmas Eve. Joe had a great idea this year. We have so many nativity sets, but no where to put them, so Joe told each kid to pick a set and sit down with it. He then read the Christmas story from the Bible and had each kid act out each part with their nativity set (okay, Sam didn't participate, but he was a really good boy in his bouncer). It really made the kids pay attention and have fun at the same time. I think this will become a new Palmer family tradition.

Here's Joshua with his glass nativity set. I'm glad Maggie didn't pick that one.

Margaret used the Playmobile nativity set for most of it, but she just couldn't bear to put down the porcelain baby Jesus.

I can't believe I didn't take a picture of our Christmas Eve dinner. It was our usual tradition where we pick the parts of dinner out of a hat and each of us chooses a food for that category. This year it all actually went together well - hot chocolate (Maggie), Pepperoni pizza (Josh), Caesar salad (Joe), ice cream sundaes (Dan), french fries (Aaron). And I can't remember what I chose!

Aaah, Christmas morning. Aaron and Josh were the first ones up. Pringles for breakfast anyone?

Dan seems a little confused about Sam's stocking stuffer. A bottle? Is someone supposed to be excited about this? Well, I can't help being practical sometimes.

Dan was thrilled to get a scooter. I'm hoping we don't regret this purchase as we're sitting in an emergency room someday. He's had a scooter before, so it's not that this is a new thing for him, it's just that he's such a daredevil. And this scooter has a wheelie bar.

Dad getting mobbed as he tries to keep a record of gifts received.

HOLY STRAWBERRY SMELLING DOLL! Maggie's eyes are bugging out! She loves Strawberry Shortcake, because she loves "smelly" things.
Aaron, Josh and I had a nice little evening the day after Christmas. We went to the Washington D.C. visitor's center to watch some of our friends perform. Our friends, the Pachecos, have relatives that perform there every year and this year Aaron and Josh's friends, J.P. and Jonah, got to perform with them. They did a great job. Aaron was almost green with envy - he'd love to be up on stage and was bemoaning the fact that we don't have any good connections. Or talents. The temple was beautiful, though.

It was a nice Christmas vacation. We didn't go anywhere and we didn't have any visitors, which was actually perfect. Joe wasn't home for more than Christmas Eve, Day and the Sunday right after, so we would have been poor hosts. He's been working on a case that has taken up every waking and almost every sleeping minute of his time. Hopefully the new year will bring him better working hours. Happy New Year to you all!