Gammy and Popsy's Christmas Visit 2010

Five kiddos with their Gammy on Christmas morning.
Girls decked in red on Christmas Eve.
Playing Black Jack and War card games with Popsy on the 24th. Poor Gammy hearing MUCH chaos from the main floor with happy screaming, jumping, banging while she was laid up in the basement guest room with a terrible migraine. Sad! Praise God she got some medicine and was better for Christmas Day!

The kids love Pet Shops!

The kids have been into the Littlest Pet Shops for a few years now and have quite the collection going! They have had SO much fun together creating all kinds of story lines for their pets' lives, as well as making homes, villages, etc. for them to live in. We love that our children can play so well at make-believing and enjoy doing it together!

Favorite Parie quotes of Christmas

"MOM!!!! I got baby JESUS!!! Hey guys, I got BABY JESUS!!!" as she ran from the kitchen through the house announcing to us who was in the felt pocket on December 25th! (I guess when you are newly 5 years old, you haven't yet figured out that baby Jesus will ALWAYS be in the last pocket b/c we always celebrate the day of His birth on the 25th! I was SO glad it was her turn in the rotation schedule for the 25th when she had such unbridled joy at her discovery of Jesus in the pocket that morning!)

On the 27th Paris melted me when out of the blue as she's taking her bath and playing with princesses in the tub, she asks, "Mom, who is Jesus' queen?" I guess in her mind every King needs a queen!

the Beloved Advent Calendar

The kids had a ball for the second year in a row with the homemade Advent Calendar that Gammy created for them. I so loved the family tradition of not only the chocolate advent calendar we got to open each day in December until Christmas but also the felt pocket Advent calendar with little goodies to discover each day and pin on the Christmas scene. Well, Mom was SO thoughtful to make one for our kids when I voiced how much I'd loved ours growing up. She even made a nativity scene at the base of the felt Christmas tree so the kids could add each character to the stable leading up to Christmas Day. Well, the advent calendar tradition lives strong in the hearts of the Colgan kids. They love to each open their own calendar's window revealing the chocolate treat for that particular day in December. This usually happens right after breakfast each day (which is in and of itself a treat...to have chocolate that early in the morning is not something that Mom would typically allow save for a month of Christmas fun!) Next, the BIG treat comes! Each child rotates through at a turn to reach inside the felt pocket for that date in December to find a little goodie to velcro to either the felt Christmas tree or manger scene. This year the children decided on their own that the rotation would go oldest to youngest, minus Tommy. So every third day would be their chance at discovering the hidden goodie in the felt pocket. I didn't know whether to intervene and request that Tommy be included in their rotation schedule but decided in the end that if he became aware of the fun of this tradition at some point in the rotation schedule, then we'd work him into it. Luckily for the big kids, he remained oblivious to the fun not requiring him to be worked into the schedule until next year's rotation! They were thrilled not to have to wait FOUR days to get their turn again at the fun!

a Tommy Christmas crack-up

Tommy had us all rolling (not unusual!) in his reaction to the singing, ear flopping doggie that Poppy and Alicia gave him. We could tell he LOVED it (he is a HUGE dog lover!), but we laughed as we tried to guess whether he was "dancing" with the doggie or wrestling it with WWF-style moves! He even did an encore performance later in the evening (after his second nap of the day!) for our family friends, the McBrides, who came for Christmas dinner and dessert. Our other Tommy crack-up (besides him wearing his "hat" around which was really the girls' barrette) was him trying to hang with the big boys' activities involving stair sliding at lightning fast speeds and stair jumping (seeing how many steps they could ascend in one leap). Tommy's attempts at these athletic endeavors were hilarious as he'd watch the 10, 8, 7, and almost 7 year old boys perform them with ease and try his best to copy them, loving every minute of our peals of laughter at his 21 month old version of these feats.

Tommy's Christmas also involved wearing a hair clippie!

Tom Tom's bangs have needed their first trim but we've just opted to sweep them (often!) out of his eyes with our hands throughout the day. I do get tired of wiping them over with my hand (and often think of my cutie Popsy who just can not abide hair in children's eyes...of which I am in complete agreement!) So, I finally found one of the girls' clippies and popped that barrette right in his bangs for the rest of the morning! He was so funny when he looked up at me after having "installed" the clippie for the first time and said clear as day, "Hat!" as he touched the barrette. I said, "Yes, hat!" just to save his developing manhood!

a Christmas of VEHICLES for Tom Tom!

Tommy is our kiddo obsessed with vehicles (an obsession he shares with his precious cousin, William!) None of our other kids were as into driving around vehicles as Tommy has been and is currently! He can be found scooting around our home on his knees as he "drives" from room to room with any number of favorite vehicles. He doesn't seem to have preferences based on size, color, make or model! How lucky for us! He is pretty much WELL satisfied with anything that has wheels (or wings!)

An 8 Person tent was a HUGE hit from Tio and Tia!

My funny story on the tent is that I took the cardboard box holding all the contents of the tent out of the green fabric bag upstairs and carried it into our unfinished basement to set it up so I could practice and understand how to do it (and for the kids to play in!) I didn't see any directions or labels for any of the mulitiple-sized tent poles, etc. But no problem, I could and would (!) figure this simple tent out and by golly, I won't go upstairs until it is up correctly. So after multiple trial and error test runs with poles of different lengths in different slots, I finally achieved my goal and viola, the tent was up and ready to play in, much to the kids' delight. Well, I ascended the basement stairs with my chin held high ready to brag to Charlie that I'd just put up my first eight person tent by myself and with NO directions when I saw the beautifully illustrated and carefully detailed instructions for putting up our tent right on the inside of the green fabric bag staring me in the face as I opened the door from the basement into our kitchen. Oops! My stubborn persistence won out but instructions would've been welcomed had I bothered to search for them!

Fun gifts from family

Sarah loved her Barbie from Poppy and Alicia and sure looks cute in her froggie robe from Uncle Ray and Aunt Lisa!

Fletcher loved making aliens from lunar lava that Grandpa and Pat Pat gave him (the girls and I had a blast making them with him for hours on Christmas Day!)

Stockings (gifts from Mom & Dad) are opened first thing in the morning

This year we had the family chat on Christmas Eve and reminded the kids of the "rule" that they don't wake us up until 7 a.m. on Christmas Day. (This is the same rule the Thompson family observed for my entire childhood!) The funny thing was I was the first one awake and SO excited. I was awake in the 6 o'clock hour just waiting for someone else to make a peep. I was so glad when I heard Tommy make the slightest noise at quarter 'til 7. I went rushing down the hall singing "Happy Birthday to Jesus" and squealing "Merry Christmas" at the top of my lungs!! The kids and I did happy dances around the upstairs while we waited for Charlie to get his shower (our family all knows that Charlie doesn't descend the stairs on any day before he's had a good morning shower!)

Colgan and McBride kids blowing out Jesus' Bday candles