Christmas

We had a great Christmas at the Hodson house this year.  Price ended up in our bed on Christmas Eve and kept asking if it was time to go out and see presents.  Finally at 6am we let me go out.  The kids got lots of loot.

Kylee got a digital camera, pony, clothes, art set, etc.

 Brynlee got a hula hoop, art set, doll stuff, etc.

 Price got a skateboard ramp and pads, ds and wii games, and a remote control car.  Before I could get his picture he was already downstairs playing the Wii.

 Jer (amazing husband of the year) made us a great Christmas breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes.  We also got a hot chocolate maker from my sister so we had some delish hot cocoa.  Jeremy got the usual: church/work clothes, but he also got a Satellite radio for his car.

 I had a great day. I got a warm Nebraska sweatshirt, some workout clothes and a Ipod shuffle.  We got a new TV stand and computer desk and computer.  Our old computer was so old and slow.  It's been nice having a decent computer.

 Here's our new living room.  I'm loving it!

On Christmas day our friends the Andersons came over.  Our house was a wreck as we were re-arranging everything, but it was nice that Jeremy had help with assembly and moving stuff.

A great Christmas day!

We spent the next few days re-arranging and cleaning the house.  Our garage door was on the fritz and we thought we'd have to break down and get a new one.  Luckily we found some support beams and were able to fix our old one for now.  I have no desire to put up a garage door in this single digit weather we've been having.  Add 18 foot support beams to the ridiculous things we've hauled in our van.  That list would include a queen size mattress and box springs (on the roof), landscape bricks and lots of other junk.  But I'm just glad we have a working garage door.
On Christmas the girls closet came crashing down.  Somehow it just broke because "nobody" was hanging on it.  Jeremy fixed it, so hopefully it will be good and won't come down again.  No if we could only keep the kids from hanging on it.
We've had a busy week of organizing and cleaning.  Yesterday we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese to play some games and spend some of their Christmas money.  They had fun and won some lame prizes, but they loved it.  Now on to the last few days of 2012

Christmas Eve

We did our traditional Christmas Eve dinner.  Normally we have ham which is easy to make, but this year I was overruled and we had a turkey instead.  Since we go to Indiana every year I don't have much experience cooking a turkey.  I don't think I've ever made one with stuffing in it before.  But it actually turned out and was quite tasty. 

The turkey masterpiece:

 I made a caramel coconut cheesecake (left) which turned out great despite Jeremy leaving it in the oven for 30 minutes longer than I wanted it.  Next time I will wait 5 minutes before leaving to go workout.  Then I'll know it is taken out at the right time.  But I appreciate him anyway.  On the right I made a Dutch apple pie.  It turned out really good, if I do say so myself.

 After dinner the girls dressed up and acted out the Nativity while Jeremy read it from Luke 2.  Price wasn't feeling that great so he just layed on the floor.  But if you look closely you can see his fingers behind Kylee's head; the little stinker.

 Luckily he was feeling up to playing Silent Night for all of us.  He's been practicing it for the last week and a half and did a great job.  He really is talented at the piano.  Now if only he liked practicing more than he does.

We had a really great Christmas Eve.  Gena came over and spent the day with us.  She helped me get dinner ready, played with the kids and had fun hanging out with us.  We also had Tim Gunther and Linda and Henry Redcliffe over for dinner.  It was a nice night and the food turned out good

Sunday before Christmas

These are some pictures I took the Sunday before Christmas.  These girls love doing puzzles.  They have been playing so well together lately.  It's made it nice that they will go play and I can do other things.

 I love this picture.  The girls are so cute with their poses and Price is his usual silly self.  Although in this picture he is pretty subdued compared to the other ones we took.  I love these kids!

Jeremy wrote a great talk for this Sunday.  But he was the last speaker and there was not enough time for him to give it.  So hopefully he will be able to give it in a few weeks, but I think it was one of those things that the talk was more for him (and me too) than it was to be given in church.

Getting ready for Christmas

It has been a busy few weeks since Christmas.  Very productive, though.  The Monday after Thanksgiving Jeremy took the day off we were able to have a day date and go get some Christmas shopping done.  We had a yummy lunch at Hu Hot and then hit some stores and got most of the kids' presents.  Since then I've been able to finish all the shopping and have mailed out the Christmas cards and pretty much finished our Christmas prep.  I wrapped a few presents yesterday and Kylee has been wanting to open then ever since.

Jeremy has been working up in Cresco this week; which is about 2 hours away.  So we haven't seen much of him.  On Monday we had Gena and Sarah and Tyler Perry over for dinner.  Sarah's husband was out of town too so we got together and hadd dinner and  Family Home Evening.  Tyler is so cute and talks up a storm.

On Friday was the yearly Nativity Celebration at the church.  There are so many nativity displays to see-it seems that every year there are so many new ones too.  The hit for the kids was the Lego one and the Veggie Tale one.  I just like seeing all the different ones from other countries.  Then we dressed up and had our annual picture taken as the Hodson family nativity.  Maybe someday I"ll appreciate these pictures, but this year I looked horrible. 

On Saturday there was a Jazz Celebration at Price's school.  It was to celebrate the end of the fall section of Kids on Course.  Price did ceramics and we got to see his many creations.  The other group of kids did Orff (which is like a xylophone) and dance.  So we watched them perform and then there was the Ray Blue quartet that performed.  They were a  jazz band and it was really fun to listen to them.  Definitely something we woudn't have done otherwise.