Merry Christmas! (In February!)

Does it count that I blogged about Christmas BEFORE Valentine's Day?! I'm trying. :-D

Nate: "Mom, is Santa real?"
Me: "Well, what do you think?"
"My friends say he's not real. They say your parents are Santa."
"Are you calling me fat?!"
"Uhh...no. (seriously perplexed look) Can we go see Santa? I want to tell him what I want."



Just before Christmas, the boys had a Holiday concert. Nathan played the recorder and sang. Ethan played the violin. They did great and begged me to go! (If you know how shy they are, this was a feat!)




For Christmas this year, I wanted to give the kids something that would help them learn a skill or find a new hobby. After talking to Mom, I settled on getting Kate a sewing machine. I was soooo excited to do sewing projects with her....right up until my search to get the boys something of a similar caliber failed and I settled for Nintendo DSi's. EPIC FAIL, Kirsten. See the happiness in her face as she receives a DS game she can use to play on the boys' game systems? PURE EXHILARATION.


Please note the immediate place of worship the Nintendos were elevated to as the waffles (the boys' fav breakfast) sit, losing all heat and yumminess by the minute.


After real tears were shed and the battle of "You gave me THIS for CHRISTMAS?!?!" was over, Kate and I spent a little while learning how to thread a bobbin, thread the sewing machine, and finally a quick sewing project; a pillow for Kitty. There's Kate's pretty smile! :-)


After our family Christmas morning was over, we headed up to Darrick's parent's house for some fun. Here's grandma giving the kids their presents and playing.


Alex and his dino buddy.


Darrick and Uncle Clinton sharing a brotherly love moment.


Grandpa and Alex.


Katelyn figured out you could use the camera, photo editor, and voice recorder on the DSi. She was having a bit of fun swirling a picture of Darrick into a deformed mass. lol.




The boys.


I'm not sure what Clinton was smoking, but it must have been good.


After we were done at Darrick's parent's, we headed over to Mom and Dad's house to see everyone. Grandma stole some Ethan-sugar right away.


Steve quietly grabbed his guitar and began to play for us. As he strummed reverently and tears welled up in his eyes, he stared up at the star on the tree and sang:
"There's a lady who's sure...
All that glitters is gold...
And she's buying a stairway to heaven..."
:-P


Steve and Mom had an awesome idea! They cut PVC pipe and created marshmallow guns for the kids. They could build them however they wanted and BOY did those marshmallows FLY!

Alex was still getting the hang of his. It looks like he has a side-shooter. lol


Nate's duck and roll saved him from being pegged with a spongey sugar pellet.


Sinister as he looks, in his next breath, he blew his marshmallow straight up into the air and pegged himself on the head. ;-)


No, we didn't show him how to fix his gun. It was just too entertaining!


Here's my Stevie honoring a 15 year tradition of him handing out all the presents under the tree. Yes, I teased him good. No, he did not forgive me until much later. lol


Grandma and Grandpa Sebring checking out their loot for the year.


Me and Steve with the presents he got me for Christmas. No. Steve, honey. The camera is over here.... He must still be singing Stairway to Heaven in his head.


Grandma and her boys! (I don't remember what was so exciting.)


Me thinks Alex was feeling short.


Steve and his much-anticipated beanie cap. I believe he wore it to sleep that night and showered in it in the morning.


Ya, Casey? These are all the goods you DIDN'T get because you DITCHED us for PETER. See the one on the left? Gold bullion. You'll think twice before going on a ski trip with Pete next year now, wontcha.


And the end to a perfect holiday....mistletoe moochies!


We had so much fun with our families on Christmas. Thanks for the great holiday everyone! I'll be sure to post Nate's birthday pictures by the 4th of July. ;-)

- Kirst

It's almost Valentine's Day!

Which means I'll be posting Christmas pics soon! :-P

Happy Thanksgiving! (And I'm only a month late!)

Hello! Now that I've fulfilled my procrastination obligations, I'm ready to blog!:-)

This Thanksgiving was phenomenal! Dad and Casey had to go all noble on us and save lives on Thursday, so we had Thanksgiving on Wednesday. Pete and Missi endured hours of "Are we there yet?" to join us for some good times and tasty goodness. Grandma and grandpa Murray traveled from afar to partake of the insanity. Even Casey joined us on Wednesday for some L-Tryptophan and carb overload.(of course, the day I forget my camera!). Thank goodness for blogging sister-in-laws! (Thanks for the extra pics, Miss.)

Here's a couple of my favorite people in the whole world! (Don't let him fool you, folks. He looks like the best grandpa ever, but really he delights in feeding children plastic grapes and laughing at them when they spit it across the room.) ;-)


Here we are trying to get dinner on the table. It was a feast to be remembered. And Missi brought the BEST cranberry chutney. Yum! And mom's tablescape was gorgeous. She gave Sandra Lee a run for her money!


The food was fab and the fam was fun. We wrapped it up early and headed home to sleep off the gluttony.

Thursday (Thanksgiving), I promised I would make rolls for Darrick's parents, so I planned on spending the day in the kitchen. I was pleasantly surprised when the whole crew showed up to hang out with us while I cooked.

Alex took Grandma and Grandma straight out to the garden to show them his bounty. And then he ate all his bounty (sweet peas), one by one.
"See Grandma? This one tastes good...and this one...and this one too!"

Here's Steve in his tragic teenage boredom flinging dinosaurs at Nate. At least they were both entertained. :-)

I love this picture! I wish we lived closer to Pete and Missi so we could take many more just like this.

Alex LOVED having Spencer around, but he'd try to drag him whenever Spencer didn't come on his own. I can't imagine what would happen to a puppy if we got one. lol

The inseparable princesses. Katie was so happy to have Claire around. It was like finally getting the little sister she's been asking for that Mommy said she was never going to get, because if Mommy has any more babies, our carbon footprint on the planet will be too big and it will kill more Polar Bears. And we can't have that, now can we? :-P

"Look, Spencer. This is my red shovel. You can play with it. Just kidding. Give it back."

Dallin, our family soccer champ, was very gracious while playing soccer with Ethan and Nate. Even though Ethan and Nathan started making up their own rules, Dallin went along with it anyway. He's a good sport!

Grandpa and Spencer playing ball. Uncle Pete gettin in on some of the soccer action.

Grandpa played "I chase, you scream" with the girls the whole time. It was VERY cute.
"Grannnnpa! Come and get these oranges! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Eeeeeeek!" Run. Scream. Repeat.

Friday was amazing. We haven't seen our cousins in something like 20 years! They were nice enough to make a trek out to Tucson to come see us. We went out to Dad's airfield to have lunch at the cafe and then let the kids have a helicopter field trip. The cutest thing was when the kids were all done eating, they wanted to get up and go outside. Dad and Jack went out there with what looked like 20 little ducklings following them around while the rest of us ate. (Yeah, I know. A picture would have been good, Kirsten.)

The whole crew: Angela's boys, Christian and Wyland. Jennifer's daughter, Sophia. And Pete's and my crew of monkeys.

Spencer was so cute. He and grandpa had fun exploring the helicopter.

I was going to photoshop Dad out of this picture because, well, that would just be funny! lol But I didn't...so... Rotating pilots.

Family picture time! Jack's family + 1. (I forgot her name! But Jennifer brought the German foreign exchange student that was staying with her. She was a sweetheart.) Good lookin' crew right there.

Our family. Nothing like a warm Thanksgiving holiday in shorts. :-)

Later that day, all of us regrouped at Dad's house for some visiting time. Angela brought her puppy and Katie couldn't get enough of that little chihuahua.

We sat outside and chatted for a bit. Then, Peter and Missi came back from visiting friends and we played Loaded Questions. It was a fun way to get reacquainted with everyone. Now I know that Susan worked at a dime store and the movie of Grandma's life would be played by Lucille Ball. ;-)

While saying our goodbyes, I had to take a few last-minute goofy pics. Here's me and my favorite Grampa playing kissy face.

Thanks to everyone who came to visit for Thanksgiving. It was an amazing holiday and we had a blast. We miss you all and hope we can see each other again soon.

The Blog Before the Thanksgiving Blog (Yes, that's my title.)

I'm seriously lacking in the time and creativity department at the moment, but I know some of you really wanted this picture, so here it is! My beautiful baby girls! We just need Sophia and Emily in there! ;-)

Halloween Fun

Yes. Yes. I know. It looks like Kirsten blogs 4 times a year. Once on Halloween. Once on Thanksgiving. Once on Christmas. And one random post thrown in for good measure.

So here's Halloween!

I came down with the flu on Friday while at work. I thought about not going trick-or-treating at all, or just sending Darrick out with them, but we actually went all out this year and got them the costumes they wanted. Plus they'd hate me. "Mom! You promised!" So we went. Two clone troopers, a vampiress, a tiger, and an escaped detainee from the CDC swine flu prison.

(I apologize for the picture quality. I have a pretty nice digital camera, but failed to check for kid gunk on the lens. *sigh* )

Ethan and I are terribly uncoordinated when it comes to taking pictures. He always tries to smile for me and I always seem to catch him in between the sigh and the smile. "Oh fine, Mom. Cheese!"

Nate was soooo pumped for Halloween this year! It was funny because he and Ethan looked so much alike in their costumes (even with the masks off), that a couple of times Nate was turned away from candy because they said "You just came up here kiddo! You already got some!". He sort of smiled and said "Oh sorry!". I had to take Ethan up there next to Nate so they could see my twin clone troopers and hook Nate up with some candy.

And there's always this one house where the family goes all out. Every year they dress up, sit outside, and jump out of bushes to scare people. Every year. Same house. Same bush. So we walked up to the house, the kids knowing what was going to happen. Nate must have forgotten though because when the guy jumped out, he screamed and dropped all his candy, then stood there completely frozen. Freddie Kreuger helped him pick up his candy, gave him a hug and said sorry. :-)

I'm not sure what pose this is, but how super cute! Katie looks like the nice vampiress that cares for baby animals. Maybe she runs a shelter.
Just too cute. :-)


I asked Katelyn to give me her "devilish vampire grin". This is what I got.

And here in the backyard after I showed her what "devilish" looked like.



Alex was so siked for that tiger outfit! He still puts it on and chases the kids around the backyard. I tried to film it for you guys but the kids keep stealing the batteries out of all the electronics for the Xbox controllers. So I tried to use both cameras and neither had batteries. Foiled again!

Ethan and Alex playing trick-or-treat in their little house.

Nate the clone trooper. (He begged for this pose. If only you could hear the sound effects.)

That's Halloween! We'll see you at Thanksgiving! :-P