A Wonderful Christmas Time

My brother Jacob was appalled to learn we were not a Christmas card giving family. I've simply never felt the need to dazzle my loved ones' mailboxes with pictures of our family when everyone who I'd send a letter to already reads our blog. So mostly I made this as a joke just to give my brother...but then it turned out so cute that I ended up sending it to all my family. And friends. And even threw it on with our neighbor gifts at the last minute. I guess you could say Jacob converted me to the world of Christmas cards.

On Christmas Eve we went over to my parents' house for the traditional monthly party -- Christmas style!

We had a little program that was so fun -- especially when my mom got all the kids accompanying her on bells while she played Jingle Bells on the piano.

The bells proved to be a fun toy throughout the week. And surprise! We had a little Newland boy pop in for the week. My boys love Newland so they were excited to see their Californian cousin.

After the program, we made our way back to our house to get ready for Santa to come.

Due to a few recent happenings, we needed some evidence to recommit Eli to the idea of Santa Claus. We left the traditional cookies, milk and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer on Christmas Eve, and when the kids woke up in the morning, two cookies were gone and so were all of the carrots except half of one.

The boys could not believe it! RUDOLPH CLEARLY CAME INTO OUR HOUSE because he left behind a half-eaten carrot. They were cracking up all morning as they imagined how Rudolph got into our house, and whenever anyone asked about their Christmas, the first thing they would say is that Rudolph was in our house. It was a big hit and was just what we needed to convince Eli that Santa is real.

Here's Carson's Santa stash.

And Eli's.

I was worried this may be the first year that Christmas excitement would wake my kids at an unreasonable hour but they slept in past 7:00 Christmas morning! It was awesome! Eli caught a glimpse of a few things downstairs as he was walking across the hall to our room after he woke up and it took all Jeff's energy to keep Eli contained in our room long enough for me to go to the bathroom and wake up Carson.

Then the squeals of glee filled our home.

Santa couldn't let the Thomas tradition of baby cereal boxes die just yet.

Eli was brainwashed into thinking he wanted a "semi full of cars." What do you know?!? Santa delivered!

Carson was pretty excited about his new tractors.

After a mini cereal box breakfast, we started ripping open the presents under the tree. Here are the boys opening up their sock monkeys.

The sock monkeys weren't initially a hot item with Rescue Bot action figures and tractors to compete with. We left Christmas afternoon to go to my parents' house and got home super late Christmas night. Eli was in bed half asleep and started saying something from his room right after we put him to bed. Jeff went up to find Eli was requesting his sock monkey to sleep with. Victory!

The only time I despise Natural Ice chapstick is when it slips into a load of laundry and splotches a whole batch of clothes. Unfortunately, this happened a few weeks before Christmas and Jeff's favorite Dodger's shirt got the brunt of the stains. I felt the need to replace his shirt, and Christmas was the perfect time to do it!

I am a self-proclaimed terrible gift giver. I am the worst. It agonizes me to try to think of gifts people would like. Especially when it is someone who I should know really well and be able to easily come up with a gift for them. For example, my husband.

Well, this year I wanted to be sneaky and surprise Jeff with something. What would he like? I racked my brain for days when finally I had the idea to gift him a date night. I would arrange to have my mom watch the boys and have a scheduled date already picked out and ready to go. But what would we do??

I finally landed upon the idea to take him to a Jazz game. He loves the Jazz! Guys love sports! This is awesome! I have found the best gift of all time! I took the plunge and bought the tickets.

The day after I bought the tickets, we were down in Cedar City for Thanksgiving. We don't have cable at our house, so Jeff loves to watch sports with his dad when we are down there because it's the only time he has access to them. As luck would have it, a Jazz game was on. Halfway through the game, Jeff turned to me completely unprovoked and said, "You know, I just don't like basketball like I used to."

I tried to change his mind, "Oh really?!? I thought you LOVED basketball!" Mind you, I am terrible at masking my feelings, so I was giggling uncontrollably at my secret that I had just uncharacteristically bought him tickets to a Jazz game. The giggling got him worried.

"Oh no. You didn't like...buy me a bunch of basketball gear for Christmas did you?" He questioned. I confidently shook my head. Then he threw this out to me, "Yeah, I don't know what it is. I used to love basketball, but I just don't care about it anymore. Maybe it's cause the Jazz suck this year."

The uncontrollable giggling went on. It was just too good. Here I thought I had the perfect gift and he was unknowingly already telling me how much he hated it. Ha. And it was so funny but I would have to wait a whole month before we could laugh about it together.

And that, D. Jeffery Excell is why I will continue to never gift anything to you again for the future of forever.

Anyway. Back to the boys opening up all their presents. Jeff found a steal of a deal on Black Friday for scooters so we got one for each of the boys. Eli loves to try out the neighbors' scooters, so I'm excited to see how much he likes having one of his own this summer.

Our last big gift of this year was a tub o' Legos. As soon as Carson could tell that it was Legos beneath the wrapping paper, he shouted, "I'm going to be a master builder!" Can you tell The Lego Movie was our favorite movie of 2014?

Christmas Tea and Recital 2014

The boys have discovered they love hot chocolate this winter. Last week for family night we stocked up on hot chocolate and sipped the evening away with the glow of the Christmas tree in the background. It was pretty dreamy -- as you can tell by Carson's expression.

I've committed myself to making a Christmas ornament every year with the boys. This year I found a cute ornament idea, and only upon making it did I realize it wasn't very kid friendly. So other than the boys posing for a quick shot of their profile, they didn't get to help much with the ornaments of 2014. Whoops!

Santa, we have a problem. Not only has Eli already been doubting your existence, but maybe he also accidentally stumbled upon every single one of his presents last week right after his bout of Santa doubt.

All of our toys were stowed away behind the locked door of our guest room where I was sure they were safe. The boys rarely play in the basement, and even if they did, they never open the guest room door. And even if they tried, it was locked!

Well. The night before, I was scrambling to finish up a curtain order. Where do I keep my curtain supplies? Behind the locked door of the guest bedroom. The only thing I can come up with is I must have not clicked the door all the way closed on my last break-in to grab supplies because the handle was still locked when the boys found their way into the toy stash.

I was in the kitchen when I heard Carson's big Christmas toy start to make noise. As I was pausing to detect whether or not my worst fears of the boys spoiling their Christmas were true, Eli yelled up to me, "Mom, is it okay that Carson is playing with these tractors?"

I've never run down the stairs so fast.

I threw the toys out of Carson's hands and shooed the boys out of the room. Then I went upstairs to gather my thoughts as the denial set in. Maybe they only saw those tractors. I told myself, even though all their toys were completely out in the open all over that room. Maybe they won't realize those toys are for Christmas. I began hoping. There was only one way to figure out how much they knew, so I went to interrogate Eli.

"Eli." I began, "Did you see anything else in that room or did you just see the tractors and come to get me?"
Eli looked at me with a smirk like he knew all the secrets of the guest room, but he knew he shouldn't know about anything in there, "Nothing." He said, "Well. Maybe I was just looking at those scooters for a minute."

Blast. His big Christmas presents were suddenly not a surprise anymore. And I single handedly ruined Christmas. I tried to recover with one quick jab, "Those presents aren't for you. We're giving those away to other kids!" I attempted.

Eli saw right through me.

Remind me to rent out a storage shed next year to stash all our presents in because this little boy is only going to get smarter!

We spent the weekend in Cedar City to celebrate Christmas early with the Excell side. We've made a new thing of stopping by Costco in Spanish Fork on the way down because they have cheap food and an awesome park right next door. Eli loves to climb on this rock and then he puts his hands up in the air when he reaches the top, so proud of himself.

The boys were so good on the way down! They both took naps, so they were all ready to stay up late with Grandma and Grandpa to watch The Polar Express that evening.

The next morning we made sugar cookies in preparation of our recital that evening. And I was reminded that boys sometimes don't have the patience for decorating cookies. Or the patience for posing for pictures.

Can you guess which cookie Carson dumped a whole can of sprinkles on decorated?

We had to make a trip to our favorite Cedar lunch spot -- Brad's Food Hut -- for lunch. It was just as delicious as I remembered it. I especially enjoyed my food because the boys were in daddy obsession mode where they were both rejecting me and clinging to Jeff. Jeff felt a little silly when both boys insisted on sitting squished on one bench with him while I was sprawled out alone on the other side.

The boys loved Mary's stash of Christmas books. Especially when Mary was the story teller. Mary also had a computer game Eli loved to play. When we got home, I pulled the same game up for Eli. He looked at me in shock as he said, "Mom! How do you know about this game? Are you awesome like Grandma?!"

The Cox Family came that afternoon with a pile of sticker crafts. These kids did stickers perfectly quietly and contently for well over an hour. They were so cute together!

With the older kids busy, these two rekindled their friendship in the basement playing "ghost" by turning off all the lights and running around like crazies screaming their heads off with glee.

Soon enough it was time for the cousin book exchange. I love this tradition! Carson got a Transformer book that we spent the rest of the day repeatedly reading and Eli got a Disney storybook.

After a delicious Chinese dinner, we settled down in the living room for the annual Christmas Tea and Recital.

The boys couldn't help themselves from getting their wiggles out during every musical number.  

I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to post this picture to the internet, but look how cute Grandma and Grandpa Elf are!! How could I keep this to myself?

With another successful Christmas Tea and Recital down, we finished up the evening slurping down Grinch Floats.

Grandma and Grandpa Elf brought the boys matching pajamas. My favorite!

It was so nice to have the boys get a fun new toy from Jeff's parents while we were down there because I still had my neighbor gifts to work on when we got back. The boys were busy with their toys all morning while I assembled my slew of cookies to give away. Can I just remind myself never to do this again. Thankfully my pregnancy somewhat justified the calorie intake this little project encouraged.

Eli spent the whole day today with his nose buried in his book from the cousin exchange. 

The toy of the year is the Wubble. Looks like a bubble, plays like a ball. This thing has been flying off every wall of our house.

But we have all had a lot of fun with it!

Eli likes to pretend the ball is Doctor Morocco (the bad guy from Rescue Bots) and beats him up. Works for me because he used to make me pretend I was Doctor Morocco and beat me up, so that ball has saved me a few punches from Eli in Bot Mode.

The kids are at such fun ages this year for Christmas. I can't wait for Christmas Day!

Did He Just Say?...

Jeff and I were talking about going to get some oranges from a street vendor.
Me: "I really want some of those oranges from the orange man."
Jeff: "Okay. We'll get some."
Me: "If we don't go now I think we'll miss him."
Jeff, "Okay. I'll go right now."
Me: "Alright! Go hunt him down for me!"

The next day this happened:
Eli, "Dad, did you find the orange man?"
Jeff, "No. He wasn't there when I went to find him."
Eli, "Were you going to kill him and take all his oranges?"
Jeff, "WHAT?!? Why do you think I would kill him? We don't kill people!"
Eli, "But you were on a hunt for the orange man."

***

My favorite quotes from a rant Eli was having because I wouldn't let him play a computer game until after he ate his lunch:

"You're breaking my life and you're breaking everyone else's life."

"I only like you a little bit right now, Mom."

***

We were going to eat dinner at a restaurant next to JoAnn's Fabric.
Me, "Who wants to go to JoAnn's?!?"
Eli, "That's a girl store that only moms like."

***

While in Cedar City, talking to Eli after he woke up for the day:
Mary (Jeff's mom), "Eli! Did you sleep good last night?"
Eli, "I had to sleep with my night light on so I wasn't scared."
Mary, "You don't need to be scared at Grandma's house. What were you scared of?"
Eli, "I was scared everything in my room was going to come to life."

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

When you hear your kids scream, "Take a picture of us, Mommy!" from the other room, that's not an opportunity you can pass up. With my camera in hand, I walked in to find these two snuggle bugs cozied up together watching a show. 

Am I the only one out there who thinks Christmas trees shouldn't be set up until after Thanksgiving? If you ask Jeff I am!

Eli was a pro at twisting the tree around for Jeff which made stringing the lights a breeze.

Christmas has arrived!

Maybe I want a girl because I'm longing for one of my children to like me and I have led myself to believe a girl may like me as much as our boys like Jeff. When he is home, he doesn't get one inch to breathe. These little rascals are all over him from the moment Jeff opens the garage to the moment they insist only he sings them their songs at bedtime.

The kids love me by default when Jeff isn't around. I love it when Eli plays next to me on days I'm stuck behind the sewing machine. This day he found a bag full of buttons and raced them around the table for a good hour pretending they were race cars.

Joe and Kenz came over one evening and cooked us some pizza! Eli said the dinner prayer and recited his latest favorite phrase, "Thankful for Jesus, The Holy Ghost and John the Baptist." I'm convinced he's the only person who regularly expresses gratitude for John the Baptist and I love him for that.

See. The boys. And then imagine me all by myself. Lonely. Talking to myself. Being ignored because these three are in a manly bubble of bonding.

Last Sunday we bribed the kids to watch the Christmas Devotional with us by offering them hot chocolate while we watched. The setup was risky, but I'm proud to say the kids slurped their hot chocolate down so fast they didn't even get the chance to spill a drop on the carpet!

Since the weather has been heavenly, we figured it was a good week to venture to Temple Square to see the lights.

The boys were complete wild hooligans. They spent the evening climbing over everything, jumping off every ledge they could find, and running in opposite directions. I'll just tell myself that their excited behavior was a result of the energy they had from feeling the Spirit during our lovely outing.

Also any time the camera was out, they posed like this? Ready to defeat bad guys at a moment's notice.

Jeff and I swapped turns sneaking away for pictures while the other one chased the kids around.

Last week I taught Eli how to write his last name. I was so proud when I opened his backpack one day and saw he had attempted to put his full name on one of his school papers. So close!

We had our ward party yesterday.

My kids butt in front of all the other kids and maaaaaaaaaybe I didn't make them go to the back of the line because I didn't really want to have to wait either. So we went with it and I only feel mildly guilty about it.

As we were driving home from the party, Eli began this reasoning, "That wasn't the real Santa."
We asked why he thought that wasn't the real Santa. "Well, he didn't have any reindeer. Or toys. He was just a pretend Santa."

Eli's doubts were only solidified when we were running errands later that day and unexpectedly ran into another Santa at JoAnn's.

The questioning continued, "Ummm. Mom. That Santa did not look like the other Santa."
Me, "So which one do you think is the real Santa? The one that was at the church or the one at JoAnn's?"
Eli shook his head while replying, "No. They both aren't the real Santa."
Me, "Who are they?"
Eli, "I think Santa has a machine he uses to make Santa helpers who go around to all the stores. But Santa stays in the North Pole."

We may be in trouble with our logical little boy!