Christmas Eve '09

This Christmas Eve was like many others we have done, which I like. I like a sense of tradition and normalcy. I'm not big on change, so when things are exactly the same as the year before, that's a good year for me! Last year was the different year, where Dustin read the Christmas story (and freaked out my kids.. hehehhe), but this year we were back at UBC (wonder why?? j/k Dustin...). I enjoy the "kid-friendly" service and the kids seem to like it. Although, I know visions of tearing open gifts are in their heads the entire time. It was kind of funny because it had rained for a couple of days before and on Christmas eve. The grounds were all muddy and just basically mush, so I guess they couldn't put out the nativity set. So, when we all get to church Noah looks at me and says, "Hey, Mom!? Where's that baby Jesus set up??" (I promise he goes to church.. and fairly regularly!!) For some reason, that made me laugh. Set up?? really?? Anyways, so we went to the Christmas Eve service and then came back to our house this year (in the midst of all that my mom managed to lose her purse.. but she also lost her voice... she isn't good at keeping up with things apparently! They eventually found her purse at the church). Anyways, I made potato soup, and Meg brought over Chili and we enjoyed a "relaxed" dinner (if you consider a 3 year old and 6 year old running around the house and begging to open up presents relaxed.. meanwhile a 7 week old is crying and an 18 month old just wants to go to bed.... you get the picture). We finally got to the presents and of course, all got spoiled. My parents got Chris and me a wii! It's been a blast to play with..... not sure who is getting more use out of it! ha! The kids big gift this year from both aunts and uncles and sets of grandparents was a playground for the backyard. They LOVE it. Mom loves it, too!! They have already spent countless hours on it outside, and I am hesitant to say, I might have a bit of sanity back.. only a bit though. Again, I will post pics of it soon. Thanks guys, really. The kids LOVE it!

The coolest part about Christmas eve was the way MY present was wrapped. Nobody else got pretty wrapped presents from my mom this year (just ask her.. she was a bit "grinchafied"), but I DID!!! WAHOOOOO!! WHO IS THE FAVORITE THIS YEAR.. MEGAN??? WHO??? if you will recall last years post... you will see that everybody had pretty presents wrapped by my mother, except her own daughter. well, she made up for it this year!!!

Isn't she beautiful???? the lights.. the name.. gorgeous!!!

I love how Chris's name was really small at the bottom of the lighted present

and my name was HUGE!! heh heh heh heh

so, that's Christmas Eve in a nutshell. We are grateful to my parents and brother and sister-in-law. Not only for the gifts (o.k.. i'm not going to lie.. we all know that Lindsay loves her presents.. ha), but for being such a great family. I love hanging out with my family. It's so relaxed and we all have fun. We are loud and crazy when we get together, but there is never a dull moment! Thanks for wonderful memories! Love you all ... (even the family members who aren't in Houston.. ya'll are always missed!!)

My dad has been wanting this book.. Slobbering Love Affair... gotta love it!

(WHY is this typing blue??? i'm having deja vu!!! or is it deja blue?? heh heh he)

Sweet Addison's first Christmas! For better pictures of her, click on A Clean Mess (the blog on

the left side of my blog. That's a link to Dustin and Megan's blog.. I'm a good publicist.. my

check better be in the mail...)

Kara was so over it!! little did we know her shoulder was out-of-socket

more on that on our Christmas day blog...as I said

never a dull moment!!

Noah and his volcano! WHAT were we thinking???

Mimi (UNDERLINING AND BLUE??? GRRRRR) and my sweet Kate.. so sweet!!

Tomorrow, hopefully, I will blog about Christmas day! Merry Christmas!

Christmas season in one post...

minus Christmas Eve and Day. This December proved to be a special one. For one, Noah lost two teeth (see post below), and it snowed!!! Most neighborhoods got TONS of snow (by TONS, I mean a good "texas"version of tons... aka, a couple of inches).. at our house, it snowed a LOT, but none... not even a little.. stuck. The kids were SO disappointed... but like I told them, they are lucky! When we were growing up, I remember it snowing 1 MAYBE 2 times. But it has already snowed 3 times in Noah's lifetime and twice in Kate's. They need to get over their moaning and be happy! Anyways, here are a few pics of the lovely white stuff (and nope.. not dandruff!)

Let's see... what else happened? Oh, for Noah's school, we got to go up and have a "Christmas Feast" with him. It was really cute. The kids made decorations for the tables in the cafeteria, then they had a buffet style line to get all your "fixins" and the local intermediate orchestra came and played Christmas music during the lunch. It was so cute, and luckily, Chris was able to take the day off to come! After Noah's feast, we ran to Kate's MDO, and got to hear her Christmas performance. In true "Surface Style" she was shy and didn't really sing... and covered her ears during the clapping (freak), but we were so PROUD and excited, because she (are you ready for this???) actually faced the audience!! We might have a star in the making yet!!! Alright, maybe I should just hold out for Kara!?

why, Yes, I DID notice I don't have a picture of Kate facing forward on the stage.. but my ever-so-trusty Father-in-Law took pics. He downloaded them to snapfish, so I have to download them here, and then I will post them on her own blog entry!! (don't hold your breath... you think I blog bad.. you should see my scrapbooks.. they are very sad looking!!)

During the Christmas break, I took a craft idea from my friend Laine on her blog (you can get to her blog on the link on the left "sugar and spice" and find some fun ideas) and made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. They turned out so cute, and I.. I mean the kids, had a blast doing them!!

Here is my beautiful house:

here is kara and chris with hers... and she ate it before she even made it...

Here is Kate and her beautiful Princess graham cracker house..... (yes, they are turned around.. so tilt your head and get over it!! :))

One last of Boosie eating hers...

o.k... Will do my Christmas post next time.. I'm beat.. two in a row!! Merry Christmas!!

2 down...

Let's see, on December ? uh, towards the beginning.. Noah lost his first tooth!! I had an entire sentimental post set out for this one, and FINALLY got the pictures downloaded.. and then he lost a second tooth two weeks later. My goodness, he is going to have to be back on baby food! Of course, now he is forcing other teeth to be loose.. and his sister swears that she has a loose tooth, while Kara is just trying to GET her teeth! Anyways, here are a few pics.

First one down:

second one down:

Thanksgiving

wow! 2 post in 2 days! But seriously, can't keep blogging like this. My expectations will go too high, then I won't be able to meet expectations, then I will go in to a state of depression, and get on some anti-depressants (which, btw, breaking "news" did you know that anti-depressants can change your mood and personality???? uh, isn't that what they are there for?? anyways, that was this mornings news.. I'm going to be a news anchor, I think I could do that job..) now, where was I?? and what was I going to blog about on this second day of blogging?? hmmm.. oh yeah, that's right.. THANKSGIVING!! Yeah, I'm a little late on this post, but oh well.

For Thanksgiving this year, Chris and I decided to give his parents a break, and have it at our new house. We figured since we have a bigger house this year, and there was an expected 20 people, that our house was the best choice. They happily agreed, and still did the food. I thought that was a deal. ALL I had to do was clean the house.. no food prep or anything! (BUT, if you know me, cleaning the house = HUGE deal!). Anyways, we started cleaning a week before Thanksgiving (see BABY POWDER post... at least that got us started...). The night before Thanksgiving everything was ready to go.. except, I had to decorate the kitchen (since moving in, I still hadn't put up too many decorations so I decided the night before Thanksgiving that this was indeed the time to decorate), clean and repaint my chairs (they are black chairs and for some unknown reason, Noah thinks that eating the chairs counts as a meal. Yes, he is 6.. thanks for asking. I figure there has to be SOME kind of protein/lead in the paint, so it shouldn't hurt... WHAT?? lead is BAD??? uh oh, better get him tested... Although drawing blood from him is a terrible experience... maybe I'll wait and schedule for a time when he disobeys.. that way it can be his "punishment" "I told you NOT to hit your sisters... now we have to get your blood drawn!".. no?? oh well... back to Thanksgiving)... and clean out the fridge and microwave.. my two LEAST favorite things to clean! (funny story, though. When I was on bedrest when I was pregnant with Kate, my mom cleaned out the refridge for me so I would have a nice clean fridge when I came home from the hospital. Well, I kind of leave things in the fridge for a LONG time.. you know, out of sight - out of mind... anyways, when she cleaned out a tea container that had been there probably since I was pregnant with Noah, she SWEARS there was a worm growing in there.. hahaha... maybe it's a good thing I'm writing this AFTER Thanksgiving... TMI???)

Anyways, Thanksgiving morning comes and I decided we needed some pies, so I run and get them, and everything was ready! We had a turnout of 18. Yes, you ARE right.. we were expecting 20, but in a DRAMATIC turn of events (not really...) My brother and sister-in-law (that just had a baby, Addison.. so cute!) went to my parents for Thanksgiving, so obviously, my parents had to stay at their house. (Megans parents were coming for Thanksgiving but decided not to so they had no place to go.... hmmm.. that totally just made it sound like my parents were their last choice.. hahaha.. see why I SHOULD be the favorite??) So all of Chris's side of the family came and we had a WONDERFUL time. It was so nice having people over at our new house to "initiate" it. There were 5 kids and 13 adults. The food was wonderful!!! Those Surface's and Millers (my mother-in-laws family) sure know how to cook! We had a great time with wonderful people! We have SO much to be thankful for!! There were only a few things missing! A certain set of parents (mine, of course!), a certain new niece (addison), I guess a brother (Dustin), and of course, Addisons mommy (MEG :)), another sister and brother-in-law (Chris's sister, Michelle and her husband, Deke.. and they are expecting in May!!! So next year.. another new baby!! yay!!!) and an Aunt and Uncle from Colorado, who I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to come visit us down here!! (where, by the way Uncle Nelson, It was 77 degrees yesterday, and today a cold front came through and it's 50 degrees.. so much better than below 0!!!!!!! ), I would also love my grandpa and mamaw to come down as well!! So I expect my family to make SOME kind of showing next year!!! Maybe they read my blog too much and know about the worm in the fridge! Maybe I say too much.....

Anyways, no pics. because the pictures my father-in-law took, for some reason, won't download on this wonderful computer we have... (darn MAC)...

until next post... (don't expect one tomorrow.. like I said, don't want to raise the bar too high!!)

Girls will be girls!

So, yesterday I take Kate and Kara to Target. We had to pick up some Christmas cards to send out, and plus the girls and I just wanted to get out of the house. Kate had to pack a purse before we left, which of course was a pink "meow" purse. I thought it was so cute. She grabs her purse and out the door we go. We get to Target and I put Kara in the front of the basket, and since Kate is a "big girl", she got to sit in the big part of the basket. I went down the card aisle which takes me FOREVER! I must find the perfect Christmas cards to send out. (SHHH.. don't tell.. I actually buy two separate Christmas cards. A goofy one, and a reason for the season one...It's a lottery to see which one you get...) Anyways, that aisle takes a while to go down. As I was looking at the cards, Kate was looking at the things in her purse.. and I wasn't paying much attention. We start looking around the store at other things, then I precede to check out. Kate said, "WAIT!!!" You FORGOT to get me my purse and shoes!!" I asked her what in the WORLD she was talking about. She gets in her purse, PULLS OUT A NEWSPAPER ADD, opens it up and shows me the purse, and shoes, that I was supposed to get her! Um... wow. I looked at it and told her they were pretty, but it wasn't a Target add, but a PAYLESS add. She looked at me and said, "Then we need to go to Payless. I need this purse and these shoes.". Wow. There are no words. REALLY?? She is 3 and she is taking adds to the store to show ME what to get HER??? I have never brought an add to the store.. I don't know where she got that! I guess it's just in her girly DNA!! She's such a hoot!