christmas morning

i'm not sure who was more excited for santa's arrival brian and i or the kids. i wrapped the presants until late into the night on xmas eve (brian offered moral support from bed while snoring) when i brought them downstairs and stood back and looked it looked magical. xavier made cookies and we left carrots along with a spectacular picture he drew for santa (it was of santa in his sleigh with all the rein deer flying him) as a gift for him. if only i could have all three of my kids looking at the camera...i guess two out of three is good! quincy's smile makes up for it ;)

marcella and her new baby doll. santa new just was to get marcella bella. she's slept with her ever since. she still has her naked baby that only wears socks. her bed space is shrinking due to snugglies and babies, not sure how she's rests in there but it works i guess.

xavier and his martin madness. he's been wanting this for sooooooooo long. marcella and quincy bestowed this wonderful gifty upon him and as you can tell he was TOTALLY jazzed about getting it.

christmas dinner

as the song goes "these are a few of my favorite things" or people as the case may be. my mom, dayle, tamera (aunt tam to the kids) and jade came over to celebrate the day of jesus' birth. i love the picture of xavier blessing the table...he really comes up with some heart felt blessing...the thanksgiving blessing takes the cake though.

christmas day

aunt tam and jade got marcella this leopard handbag, hat and glove set and BOY DID SHE LOVE IT! at first she just loved the box it came in...isn't that so true for little kids sometimes the box is just as good lol...for quincy it was the wrapping paper.

she knew she looked pretty in this whole ensemble

this is my pouty face darrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrling!

CHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

xmas eve and new xmas pjs

when i was a kid we had a very small elf figure named Happy Holly (this guy was my moms when she was a kid so he's really old and neat looking) and he "flew" about the house checking on you and reported back to Santa if you were good or bad. i think i liked happy holly better than santa....i even snuck him to school one day in kindergarten because i had told all my friends that i had an elf that could fly and no one believed me so i brought him and he sat on my desk alllllllllll day and didn't move and inch...i was so confused, and my friends thought i was a sham...anyway, fast forward to when i had xavier. mom gave me a "new" happy holly one for my family, this one was not nearly as cool but since she wasn't giving up hers he'd do (i hope to some day own the original...hint...hint". happy holly has become a tradition in my home. his biggest job is to bring the first christmas gift on the eve and they are xmas jammies. here are the pics from christmas eve :) xavier discovers the package happy holly delivered to his room while he was playing downstairs. he said to me "man he's a sneaky little elf...i didn't even hear him!"

he exclaimed these were the best jammies yet...so soft and snugly with polar bears on them

marcella and quincy with their jammies...quincy just wanted to eat the paper. look at cassius' tongue i caught him in mid yawn lol

awww so cute

my backyard

i'm copying ellen and mara

xavier picked these photos

mama deer and her babies

these guys keep coming to our neighbor's yard because she puts out apples and such. aren't they so cute?!

lacy tree

this is a tree in our neighbor's yard. i thought it looked like lace with all of the snow and ice on it's branches. i was trying to capture it on film, but it doesn't do it justicestice.

so not cool

all i can say is "STUPID SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

quincy the reindeer

these just make me giggle looking at him, i swear i can hear the jingle of the bell on the antler...

he's such a good sport

he's thinking "now dang it, i KNOW i hear something up there, where is it?!"

puttn' some work in

since my dogs are big babies and won't walk on the snow to pee or poop, brian got out there and cleared a path for them to the grass..thanks dad!

xavier wanted to help so he got out there and was clearing too, thanks xay!

he earned his keep today ;)

quincy and i visit my aunt, uncle and my nana

thanks to brian and his frequent fliers miles i was able to fly down to visit my nana who is 94!!! the last time i had seen her and my uncle ron and autny marty was 10 years ago at our wedding. too much time has gone by! it was so great to sit and talk and laugh with them.

warming our butts by the fire (as i write this i giggle because my maiden name is butler lol)

this is me with my cousin chad (who has two totally cute kids and a SUPER cute boxer named oscar), uncle ron and my dad. we sat at that table until midnight shootn' that shit, talkn' politics and laughing, i really had a great time! aunty marty made an amazing dinner, which i attempted to cook when i got home but it didn't turn out nearly as good as when she made it :(

dad and nana. i asked her if i could take a picture with her but she was reluctant and i didn't want to push. quincy thought she was magic...his face just would light up with a HUGE smile when she looked at him. he would lean in to her to give her a kiss and touched her face...so sweet. i know she really enjoyed him as well, when it was time to leave she asked if he had to go too. i hope to get down there again soon, i promise not to let another 10 years go by again!

Q

ok, so i'm over talking about the snow, taking pictures of the snow and even THINKING about snow. so here is a post that has NOTHING to do with snow! marcella found these puffy letters and started putting them all over quincy...one happended to be a Q...he smiled the whole time while she was decorating him...such a good boy!

dog shots

our handsome boy

doesn't it look like cassius is trying to eat logan...he's actually yelling at him to go away, and the look on logan's face is priceless..."please don't hurt me cassius"

running with their boy

i had to post this shot one more time...too funny

that's me sledding, well atempting to sled, notice cassius biting the sled, and if there was sound to this picture you'd hear marcella screaming for me to come back.

more igloo building

our handsome first born...cassius looking on as the kids build the igloo

tyler and xavier shoveling snow...the snow has been too dry for them to mold the cubes, so they were filling in the spaces with the shovled snow

filling the sled to bring snow to the igloo with claire

a rare picture of me, thank you brian for snapping the shot in between clearing the cars off of the snow.

sledding

the whole time xavier was sledding the dogs are chasing him down the hill barking and biting at the sled.