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I am a Christian. I am a loving wife to my Army-National-Guard-Recruiter-Husband of 15 years. I am a stay-at-home-mother to our four handsome sons. I am a photographer. My blog is about as erratic, eclectic and random as I am, painted with rainbows of photos and words that are hills and valleys you travel; so lovely sometimes that they hurt you. These are the stories of how far we've come in the last 15 years as Christians, as a family and as individuals.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Christmas 2011

Christmas was very intimate this year, just the six of us, no out-of-town family visiting, but my sister, Lauren did come by with my nephew, Ryan on Christmas Eve and we exchanged gifts and played games.  I cooked a small ham and some traditional side dishes and the plan was to watch a movie after dinner, but as it happens, Ryan got really tired and irritable so we watched the movie after they left.

The boys got the movie Dolphin Tale for Christmas so that's what we watched. Aunt Lauren got Scrabble for the boys and they couldn't wait to play and we were able to get a game in before she and Ryan left. Then everyone went to bed around 10:00 PM so we could all wake up rested Christmas morning.
~ Christmas Morning ~

 We gave the boys a mini donut maker and let them open it on Christmas Eve so guess what we had for breakfast Christmas Morning?  MINI DONUTS!!!  They loved decorating them and choosing different batter/flavor; the favotire was the vanilla batter with a traditional glaze.
~I love Hayden's face~
The big "Santa" gift was this awesome basketball backboard and hoop!  After Brad installed it above the garage on the front of the house the boys were thrilled to "play basketball" which consisted of them trying to see if they could get the ball in the hoop!  They know nothing of the rules of the game.  Hayden was the first one to to make it in with his mini basketball! 
Brad had brought home two regular-sized camouflage National Guard basketballs (and since Tristen was not interested in playing ball outside with his brothers, he's turning into such a teenager).  Each boy had their own ball and they'd throw them at the hoop at the same time and "whoevers ball makes it in, wins!" 
Merry Christmas Everyone, I hope yours was as full of life and laughter as ours was!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

how nice ! thank you for the post . i loved it . looks like the boys had a good Christmas .
db

Anonymous said...

are you ever going to write ? i think ill have to go back to snail mail with you .
please come back .
D

Diane said...

I can't believe I am just now reading this. Sounds like you had a wonderful family Christmas. Nothing like the chaotic one the year before when we were ALL there. Of course, that was a great Christmas too .... busy, but exciting too.

Anonymous said...

dear friend , I'm missing you .Please post something :{ !
d

debby said...

Mandy, I'm doing the blog rounds and wanted to tell you how great it was to see you at Stacey's wedding. Love your Christmas pics!

April winder said...

I thought I had seen your christmas post but I was checking out your blogs today and saw this one. It's awesome! I didn't realize the boys had a basketball hoop now. Wish we had one. Love the donuts too. When are you gonna blog more?