It's been awhile...

I have been so busy during the month of December as I usually am and my journaling has suffered immensely. Keep in mind if you are reading this a lot of it is probably going to be very boring to you. I am trying to keep up my blog so I can print it into a personal journal in the future so a lot of it is just for that purpose.

Please notice the fabulous picture quality. Ryan was kind enough to lend his very high quality camera and his talents during this Christmas break. We are so impressed that we are now looking into hopefully buying a camera like this sometime during the year. It makes such a difference to have such great pictures to tell our story.

December 5

This Friday turned out to be such a fun Christmas party. Everyone made the trip out to my house from Moreno Valley and Shannon from Hemet.

Photo Compliments of Desiree's fabulous professional camera.

From the top left to right:

Katherine, Kamalyn, Shannon,

Jennifer, Amber Kiersten,

Laura, Genni,

Cory, Desiree

(Ok, could I be anymore "look at me, look at me," in the dead center and in a bright red shirt?)

Some people came with projects and others just wanted to take a break and chat. We had a gift exchange in which there were fabulous gifts. I set the limit to $10 and because our girls are such bargain shoppers there were gifts that were up to $25.00 in value that they found on sale!! And, by the way girls, I went down to Joann's the very next morning and got that snowman that was stolen from me in the gift swap. I love it!! Good job in finding that Cory!! Such a fabulous group. Genni calls us the PMC (Playgroup Mom's Crew) which I think is absolutely hilarious. I have never had the privilege to be a part of a "crew" before. I have decided that at this time in my life I have the BEST friends I have ever had. This includes my hometown friends, my MoVal Friends, my Menifee Ward Friends and others that have moved all over the country. I am so blessed to have the circle of friends that surrounds me. So grateful for you!! I wish everyone could live so close to us.

December 17

Playgroup Christmas Potluck. Another fabulous day with the PMC. It was a packed house at Katherine's house with good friends and good food!! I have been lucky enough to be able to stay a little later these days thanks to my good friend Debbie picking Tyler up on Wednesdays. As I said, blessed to have such good friends.

December 22

Ryan and Lisha and their gang showed up at our house around 8 or 9 p.m. Ryan is Trent's oldest brother. They have Ally (7), Emma (5), Luke (4) and Clark (4 months). We are blessed to have cousins so close in age. Emma and Tyler are 2 weeks apart and Clark and Cael are 4 days apart!! I felt bad for Nathan and Luke. They are just a little too far apart and just learned how to push each other's buttons. They didn't really have playmate's over the break, but hopefully next time we are together that gap will become smaller and Nathan will have learned how to share. :)

December 23

Lisha and I got up and went down to Temecula to get snacks at Sam's Club for their big adventure, more about that later. We then hit the mall so that she could run into the Disney Store to get passes for her kids for Disneyland. This was their big present this year. The mall was of course packed and her baby Clark was with us so I just parked and waited for her. When she came out she was SO excited because when you purchase your passes from the Disney Store they give them to you in really nice Mickey Mouse Christmas tins for free!! This was the perfect wrapping for them. With a few other stops we had been out for four hours by the time we got home. By this time my husband was frazzled!! The kids were wild!! All 5 of the bigger ones. They had not seen each other in years so it was like making new friends! Many of you know how wild my boys are. Now add 3 wild cousins to the mix and it's a party. I am used to the noise and can fade it into the background, but for my husband who spends his days in a quiet office this is impossible. I thought he was going to blow his top. Now he knows what we go through every day right??

Trent had put a ham in for Christmas dinner while we were out so when we got home we got deviled eggs, mashed potatoes and a dessert ready. I think Lisha called it Dream Whip. When I asked Neil what the official name is he was a smartie and said, "cheesecake." Trent's mom used to make it and it was delicious. She did a graham cracker crust, cream cheese and dream whip and covered it with 2 cans of pie cherries. I can't wait to bring it to one of our potlucks. I want to put blueberries on it though. Trent's stepmom Shelly brought a pie like this with the blueberries later this week and it too was delightful. I can't wait to share.

So we had our Christmas dinner on Tuesday the 23rd. Ryan and Lisha had come to spend Christmas at Disneyland with their kids and we wanted to share Christmas dinner with them. It turned out that this was perfect as I will explain on my Christmas Day entry.

December 24

Christmas Eve morning began around 6 a.m. with gleeful screams from my nieces and nephew. I have to admit that when my kids woke up I was pretty miserable. I am definitely not a morning person though. You could tell me that I'd won a million dollars at 6 a.m. and you would still probably get a dirty look. So they were off bright and early.

We were not far behind them. We have never done any "California" things with Ryan and Lisha so we bit the bullet and paid the fees for Disneyland on a blackout day. It was definitely worth it. It was pretty dead. The longest we waited in line for anything was 20 minutes for Toy Story. We got fast passes for California Screamin' and the four of us went on it twice each in a half hour!! For the most part we were able to walk right on the rides. By the time we got there they had done a bunch of rides by 11 a.m.

Christmas Eve at Disneyland!! I would have never thought in my life that I would spend such a traditional holiday at Disneyland, but we did it.

My Favorite Picture
Poor little Clark and Cael didn't make a lot of our pictures this month. They were both sleeping in the stroller for this one. They were there though, I promise. I thought this was such a fantastic picture of everyone.

It rained during the Pixar Parade, but of course when you are at Disneyland you just really don't care. Even in the rain it is still the Happiest Place on Earth.
Towards the end of the night we came across Holiday Mickey and Minnie. Now for any of you that have ever been to Disneyland you know that time with the characters is limited. This was Ryan and Lisha's kids' first time at Disneyland and I have never seen a family allowed so much time with Mickey and Minnie. They each had their little books for them to sign and they talked to them for awhile. It was so neat that they took so much time with them. They were so excited. Before they got up there Lisha and I decided that someone had spiked Minnie's eggnog. Lisha said it must have been their holiday party before they came out. Minnie was acting so silly and weird. She kept flipping up her skirt and covering her mouth like she was being naughty. I have seen a lot of characters at Disneyland and I have never seen one act SO weird. It was hilarious.

Notice the Happy Birthday button. If you have never been with someone wearing one you wouldn't know how funny it is. Everywhere you go all the Disneyland workers say, "Happy Birthday." For those of you who know Trent you will know that this was so annoying to him. It was pretty funny. His birthday was four days later. Lisha also wore one and I think she enjoyed it more than he did.

My First Time on California Screamin'

Look Very closely at Trent's face in this picture

I am not a roller coaster person, or so I thought, but I LOVED this so much. Trent and I were laughing so hard during most of the ride.

Ryan couldn't believe these pickles!!

At 7:30 p.m., we were standing outside of Small World, (for those of you who are frequent visitors, it is finally open again) and all the lights went out, music started playing and it started "snowing"!! It was so neat. This is why this place is SO magical. Like Trent said, they really know how to do it!!

It was a Christmas Eve we will never forget!!

December 25
CHRISTMAS DAY!!

On Christmas morning Trent found Tyler just wandering around the hall upstairs. No excitement, nothing. He told me that there was something wrong with this. We are not making a big enough deal of it. He said that when he was little he and his brothers would go get into their stockings bright and early and just be waiting downstairs anxiously for their parents. Apparantly Tyler is not to this point yet. Either he is too spoiled every other day of the year or we need to try harder to make Christmas exciting.

We went downstairs and opened presents one by one so that we could see what everyone got. This is how they used to do it at Trent's house and he really wants to do presents this way. Santa's gift to each person is left unwrapped so that they can see it right when they wake up.

Tyler asked Santa for a new Speed Racer backpack and Nathan asked for Handy Manny.

Tyler got a Leapfrog Tag from Grandma and Grandpa

Tyler got Rocket Bath Toy from Nate

Nate got a Rocket Bath Toy from Tyler

For all you moms with boys who bathe together, yes, I know, I am a genius. It was an accident though. Tyler picked out this rocket for Nathan at Target on the night it was raining so hard here. The power went out at Target so they weren't able to get it. The next day Tyler and I were at Wal-Mart and we picked up the rocket for Nate. On his way home, Trent picked up a rocket for Nathan. I told him it was ok because if Nathan had one, then of course Tyler would have to have one. I get a pat on the back for this idea because if only one would have gotten one there would be endless bath times of fighting. They both love having their own in the bath. Now if only we would have gotten Tyler Handy Manny also...

Cars coloring kit for Church from Mom
Car's Game Bucket


Nathan threw a fit to open this bodywash from Trent's stocking. He seemed pretty pleased with it, he obviously had no clue what it was.

Dinoco Lightning McQueen from Grandma and Grandpa.

Bolt from mom. Nathan loved this movie so much that I thought he would love to have Bolt. Unfortunately he decided that he doesn't want it and gave it to Tyler. :)
Tyler gladly accepted.
Handy Manny hasn't left Nathan's side since Christmas morning. He is hard plastic and he even sleeps beside him at night. Manny's leg fell off last night and Trent had to take him apart and put it back on. He adores this silly little Manny. They are best friends right now.

One very important lesson that I learned this year is that no matter how old a child gets or how many toys a child has, they always need at least one toy for Christmas. We got Tyler education things, movies, games, clothes and his backpack and when it came right down to it he played Handy Manny with Nathan all day. Trent felt so bad for him that he went to the Toys R Us after Christmas sale and picked up a Big Speedracer car and track for half off. This made everything better. He took his car to Grandpa's and has been playing with it ever since. Lesson learned as a parent.

The present"hander-outer."

Merry Christmas 2009 Hansen Family

Not preparing Christmas dinner on Christmas day turned out to be so great for me. Everyone is always so tired that day and being the one in charge of the food when you are tired is no fun. We had a big breakfast which Trent prepared and we snacked during the day. I think that this was a great start to a new Holiday tradition. Maybe Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve from now on.

For my journaling purposes:

Trent is the WORST person to shop for. I love to shop for people and surprise them, but there are very few things that I have ever gotten him that he actually kept. I get him cologne and he takes it back because he says it's too much money, I can't buy him pants because he has to try them on, etc., etc. So he decided that the first weekend in December he wanted to go to Arizona for a football game with his brothers. He counted this trip as his Christmas present from me. Presents he received on Christmas Day were 2 Old Navy Shirts, a shutterfly calendar and snapfish mousepad for his office with his beautiful family on them. My family sent him some money because he is so picky and a football X-Box game. My sister sent him a Kohl's gift card.
I gave him cash for his birthday. He has since spent half of his earnings on a treadmill for his "home gym," in the garage. He can't wait until summer when the garage is a sweatbox to really make the most of it. The thought of working out in there makes me sick, but he will be so happy.

I decided in November when my brother let me borrow his Microsoft Zune that this was something I just had to have. The one I wanted was 120 GB which is huge, but I wanted to just start with the best instead of trying to work my way up. I decided that I was going to take the money I had saved for Christmas and ask my parents for a gift card towards it. Well, when their box came there was no gift card so I had a suspicion that they had just bought it for me. I was pretty frustrated because this was such a pricey gift and I did not expect this at all. I shared my suspicion with Trent. On Christmas Eve he found my present and opened it after I had gone to bed and sure enough it was a Zune. He wanted to open it up so that he could load it up with music for me as part of his gift. He had not bought anything for me to open because we had agreed that my gift from him was money towards it. He was so frustrated because he had nothing for me to open that he cut out CD cover pictures from a Target ad and cut this Christmas tree out of scrapbook paper and made it for me. He put it in a box and wrapped it up. When I opened it he was laughing and a little embarrassed and told me that the tree was all crooked because he was trying to do it at 2 a.m. He was feeling so badly that I didn't have anything to open from him because of our "plan" that he was up trying to brainstorm. I love these kinds of things from him because this side of his personality doesn't come out that often.

The day after Christmas he went out and got me the radio tuner to use it in the car and a little pink IPOD speaker box that I can set the Zune in to play it at home. As if my parents hadn't already done enough for me they also sent a Bazzill metal shadowbox, and 3 Pampered Chef items, the egg slicer, gravy separator and the pie shield. Spoiled I tell you. When I lectured my parents and told them they did not need to be buying all this stuff for me they assured me that they had extra money for Christmas this year and split it evenly between everyone and wanted to make sure that I got what I really wanted. It really was SO thoughtful, I loved it. The Zune was from my brother Brock also and my sister sent me a case for it.

Kids' presents:

Tyler: (Santa) Speedracer Backpack, (Mom and Dad)-Cars Game Box, Nemo Leapfrog Cartridge, 27 Disney Scholastic First Reader Books (My best ebay deal ever for $8.00), Cars Drawing set, Movies-Eight Below, Jungle Book and Herbie, Cars Jeans, shirt and sweatshirt, Cars pajamas. (Nathan)-Little Einstein's Rocket. (Grandpa Mike and Grandma Stacy)-Leapfrog Tag Pen and books, cars black marker book, Dinoco Lightning. (Grandpa Hansen and Mimi)-Cars Book and roller skate shoes. Kind of like the wheelies.

Nathan-(Santa)-Handy Manny, (Mom and Dad)-Bolt which he gave to Tyler, Handy Manny tools that talk, Dora Little Touch Leappad Cartridge, Cars shirts, pajamas, Movies-Cars, Peter Pan, My Friends Tigger and Pooh's Friendly Tales, Disney Books, (Grandpa Mike and Grandma Stacy)-Little People Nativity, Handy Manny's Toolbox, (Grandpa Neil and Mimi)-Sheep Book and Ambulance that plays the ER song.

Cael-(Mom and Dad)-Nike outfit, (Grandpa Mike and Grandma Stacy)-Leapster plush activity worm. We are all eventually going to get him a stationary jumper, we just haven't picked it out yet.

And that is our Christmas break in not so much of a nutshell. So much happens in this month. I am still not done, but need to start another post to share our adventures of Tucson and Yuma. So much more to come...