Christmas Eve 2008

Christmas Eve was a blast this year - the kids were so excited and we were, too! Grandma & Pop Pop were with us, of course. Granny and Aunt Cheryl were in town already, while Robbie, Bobbie, Bob and Aunt Christa were coming in over the next few days. We started off the afternoon with church and then headed back home for some food and fun.
The kids put out reindeer hay, which is a new tradition we have started over the last couple years and then they headed to bed.
Do you think Addie or Logan got to sleep anytime soon?

Logan's Class Holiday Party

Logan's class had a holiday party and the girls and I were able to attend, too! The kids all made ornaments using their fingerprints as snowmen and a great time was had by everyone! Logan hung out with some buddies, and while it wasn't planned, the boys match perfectly, don't they?! Ha Ha!

Kieran's Christmas Program

We just love the fact that Kieran had a part in her school's Christmas Program. Here is a video clip showing that all she really wanted to do, along with Carson, a classmate, was to get to Daddy ASAP. She was successful!

Gingerbread Houses

For the first time, we decided to make Gingerbread Houses this year. Having never done it before, Coeli allocated 30 minutes toward this project. She even ran it by a certain sister of her's (Cheryl - I won't mention you here) and received validation that we should just get it done. Never mind the fact that it was 45 minutes before hard bedtime - meaning in bed, lights out and hopefully, asleep). Two and a half hours later, the masterpieces were complete! Can you just imagine Coeli's patience and "fun mom" levels at that point?! That didn't even include a Kieran factor, since she was in bed already! Below is Addison and her house. We love this pictures as it so perfectly depicts our Addie Cat. Eating candy the whole way through, Addie actually designed a well-planned decoration scheme, right down to the cute smiley face instead of a window on the lower right.Also in perfect personality form, Logan chose to copy the design on the box, right down to the colors (see completed picture at end). You can only imagine the pain-staking time it took to 1) look at the box, 2) place one candy, 3) look at the box, 4) place one candy, etc., etc., etc.!!!Finally, below was the finished product, including very tough frosting EVERYWHERE! This would not be as much of a challenge had it not been made with egg whites, to which Kieran is highly allergic. All tolled, 4 1/2 hours later, with a clean kitchen and well past Coeli's bedtime, the project was truly complete. Note to self - put it on the calendar next year as an all-day block out, pray for good weather so it can be done outside, and use regular frosting (isn't there some that have sprinkles mixed in it? Maybe that will suffice as decorations, too?)

Addison's Preschool Christmas Program

Addison's school had it's annual Christmas Program and the theme this year was trains. There were some songs about trains, but they were a little long and slooooooow. We decided to include "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", as it had the most oompf to it.

Addison looked adorable in her Conductor's outfit.




Before the show, we asked Addie to get in front of the tree for some pictures. I was looking in the little screen on the camera, when Addison asked if she should put her leg out. Having no idea what she meant (and being used to her asking random questions) I said yes and here is what I got. I have no idea where she got the idea to put her hip out in a pose, but here we are, and there she is, and boy are we in trouble!

Footie Jammies and Looking for Santa

OK, so Coeli had this great idea to take a cute picture of all three kids in their footie Pajamas, and then to take one of them looking in the chimney for Santa. The plan was to put both on our Christmas card this year. Then, after viewing the pictures, it seemed redundant to have both pictures, so she settled on the one looking for Santa. Upon viewing the preview at Sam's Club, it suddenly struck her that, 1) you couldn't see the kids faces and half the people receiving said cards would complain about that, and 2) the other half of those receiving these would be thinking "Why did we get a picture of the Wagner kids' hineys?". Needless to say, the pictures didn't survive the cutting room floor. Aside from that, they are cute pictures though, aren't they?

Santa Pictures

We had 2 Santa visits this year. The first was at the tree lighting ceremony in Argyle, TX. It was our first super cold night (that's below 35 degrees, for all you Northerners), so everyone (except Coeli) was very bundled up. Notice that Kieran is, in fact, wearing the pumpkin hat mentioned in the Halloween post! As you can see, Kieran was none too happy about having to get anywhere near the Big Man.

Next was the annual party at Addison's heart surgery hospital. We always are so happy to go to this party and have been sure not to miss it, even the year she had her surgery in November 2005. Logan and Addison were very happy to talk to Santa and ask for their one thing (God Bless them!). Logan wanted Heelys and Addison wanted a new Cinderella costume since as she puts it "it is too small and shows her belly" and as Coeli puts it "it was starting to look like one of the inappropriate adult costumes they feature at Party City each year". In any case, thank goodness Santa came through!

At first, we didn't even attempt to get Kiki close to Santa. But then at the end, he was getting ready to go so we did one sneaky picture when she didn't realize he was there, and then one after she saw him.

We hate to torture the poor kid, but those pictures are priceless later, right? Right?? RIGHT???

The "Blue" Tree

A couple miles from our house, there is a tree that must be 50 feet tall. Last year, the owners decorated it with the new white LED lights (which look blue to me) and we were so excited that they did it again this year! The picture doesn't do it justice, but suffice it to say that many a car can be seen stopping for 1o minutes or more to stare at the tree!

Christmas tree

We went shopping for our tree, which is always a favorite happening during the holidays. The kids love to play tag and hide & seek while we are looking for a tree. The previous two years Kieran stayed in the car. So we made a big deal about how this was the first time Kieran drank hot chocolate on the way to the tree place, went shopping at the tree place, played hide & seek at the tree place, and played tag at the tree place. Little did we know that she would add in another first by pooping at the tree place! Logan and Addison practically peed their pants when I added that to the story. I must have told it 20 times over the next few days. It never got old for them! We did get a steal of a deal (God bless the tree man!) and had our biggest tree yet - 9 feet!

Poor Barbie!

One morning, I noticed something strange by the stairs and upon closer inspection, this is what I saw:What was more disturbing, was the reason Barbie was like that. Logan and Addie told me she was behaving very badly and she wouldn't listen. We then had a nice discussion about proper behavior and appropriate consequences. For the record, we have never hung our children for bad behavior.

The Kids First Charity Run

We participated in a Charity run for MS on November15th. While it was a clear day, it was cold, cold, cold! God bless the kids, they did great and were not deterred at all! They each received a medal for finishing and were very anxious to do another. We have talked about organizing one ourselves, but that has not come to fruition yet. Maybe in the spring!

Hill Rolling - Texas Style

It can be tough to find some good hills for rolling around here, so we headed up to some local schools to get started. Next time, maybe we'll find some real ones!

Jumping In The Leaves - Texas Style

Only in Texas would we actually go to a park to rake leaves in order to have a leaf pile for jumping. At first some others at the picnic tables looked at us rather strangely, but then their kids came down and wanted to rake and jump, too! We must have spent close to an hour raking & jumping, raking & jumping, and raking & jumping. We had a lot of fun except for the couple remnants of leaves each of us had down our pants - it was not very comfortable!


Posing for the inevitable picture barrage from Mom!

Kieran had so much fun. We thought she might get irritated easily, but no such nonsense from her!

Halloween 2008

We had a great time celebrating Halloween for several weeks this year. It is one of Coeli's favorite times (what else would you expect from the Candy Queen?) and the kids, too. Memom and Pop Pop gave the girls these adorable Hello Kitty Skeleton Bone Glitter shirts and they loved wearing them together.

Addison had a "Pumpkin Party" - no, you can not call it a Halloween Party these days! - at her school. Beforehand, she was very excited for Mommy to wear the Big Ballerina costume, but when Coeli actually showed up wearing it, she was mortified. How is that possible at four years old?!

Next was Kieran's party, and while Mommy had great intentions of Kiki being a spider just like her big brother and sister were at her age, once she saw the pumpkin there was no stopping her. Never mind the fact that it is intended for a 6-12 month old! Take note of the pumpkin hat as it is still being seen in our house and it is now post-Christmas!

We finally got to Halloween night and ended up with Belle from Beauty & the Beast, Darth Vadar, and a Pumpkin. The funny news was that the Belle costume was from last Christmas, Darth Vadar was from Evan, the boy next door, and the Pumpkin was from last Halloween. Actually, it started out as Logan's first costume in 2002! The Wagners made out rather cheap this year!

Coeli and Tim (!) dressed up this year and went as the Big Chefs (thanks to the Schoepf's for the lenders). Addison was ok with the adult costumes this time out and Tim had fun despite teasing from the neighbors (they were actually quite envious - you can hide a lot of candy in those big costumes, you know!).

These are some of our neighbor girls looking lovely.

One of our favorite times is coming home and dumping everything out on the table. Their buckets were overflowing this year!