Christmas afternoon

Christmas with the bonds...dinner/appetizers, white elephant and kids name exchange....organized chaos is how I would describe this! We ate yummy food and played white elephant exchange with a twist which turned out to be pretty fun....the hot gift was $20, $1 dollar bills and a lottery ticket.

Christmas Morning

gum ball machine...would turn out to be horrible for Sadie

new shoes

flat iron


RC truck




This was the aftermath of a great Christmas morning!

We were so excited for Christmas morning because Sadie is at such a fun age and was so excited for Santa to come and the big kids got super fun gifts too, but 3:30 a.m. might have ruined it for us...Yes one of our children (not going to name names) woke up at 3:30, and then woke up everyone else in the house. It was horrible, we were so tired and decided to just check out the stuff that Santa brought (bikes, kitchen & RC truck) and then go back to bed and when the sun actually came up we could open the rest of the presents and go outside and play with our new toys! I am pretty sure this was painful for the kids as about every 45 minutes to an hour they were waking us up asking if it was time yet! AHHHH this could really kill the spirit of Christmas for me.

Anyway once we were up for the day it was super fun...the girls got beach cruiser bikes, Riley got an RC off road truck and Sadie got a kitchen from santa and then a bunch of other fun stuff from mom and dad. Hayley saved up her money and went to target and bought her sisters and her brother something special that each of them wanted! This has been a great Christmas...especially with the news that baby boy number 5 (Nixon Nate) will be coming in May of 2011.

Christmas Eve 2010

I am pretty sure this baby was as big as she was...


Yes we have a basketball hoop on our patio...little ghetto but that is how we roll!



Christmas Eve is always a super busy day for us, but so fun. Papa Bob and Grandma Suzanne take the kids to the movies and lunch during the day while we finish up our last minute stuff. This year they saw Yogi Bear, which I think brought back memories for Papa Bob and the kids thought was pretty funny. We then open presents and hang out with Papa Bob and Grandma Suzanne and the kids for a few hours before Grandma Patsy and her family all come over for dinner and a white elephant gift exchange, which usually lends itself to some pretty comical gifts and not to forget the dollar game...which by the way, this fun party is always held at my house and I have yet to win and some patio basketball!

Christmas Cookies

Hayley and Andrew

Making shapes...


Maybe a little too much dough...crazy girl!

Hopefully this is a tradition I can keep up every year....Christmas Cookies. I made all the dough without any help from little fingers that way they were eatable! We had our cousins Aden, Andrew and Casie over to help. We rolled out the dough, made fun Christmas shapes, cooked them and then frosted them. Yummy, yummy! Most of them looked a little suspect, but they sure tasted good!

Christmas Nativity

For the last few years the Wright's have invited us over for their yearly nativity celebration...There is always yummy food, great conversations and of course the long awaited nativity. We are so lucky to have such amazing friends! With all the hustle and bustle of the holidays its great to have this night to remind us what we are really celebrating!

Riley was a wise man, Sadie and Hayley were angles! So stinking cute

Christmas Tree Adventures

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Well its no secret that going to get a fresh Christmas Tree is one of our families favorite traditions (started by Ryan and he will not compromise). We headed out on our journey and went to the place we usually buy our tree when its all said and done, but we have to visit at least 3-4 places to make sure its the right one, but they did not have anything up to Ryan's standards so we then hit 2 more spots and ended up at Higley and Guadalupe to a new spot where I found what I thought was "the one". First of all it was $60 cheaper than the one Ryan wanted so that alone made it perfect in my eyes, after some voting and contemplating we agreed to buy the tree. We got home and I was informed that I was never aloud to pick out the tree again, because although it was a "great price" it was not perfect....it had a rather large hole on one side and the branches were cut up to high (more room for presents right?). Anyway no before pics or on the hunt pics like we normally have due to no camera but his is the finished product. One of my favorite traditions of Christmas time is wrapping. I love to get fun matching paper with lots of ribbon and bows and spend hours making them look perfect. Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas Card 2010

I love having a Christmas card every year...As a child I can remember going to my grandma Roberts house on Christmas Eve every year and she had this huge bulletin board of Christmas cards she would send out to friends and family from when my mom was a baby until just a few years ago with everyone including great grandchildren. We spent hours looking at how everyone had grown up, funny styles, horrible matching outfits and I absolutely loved it! So even though my family hates doing it, and we do not always get professional pics taken, at least we have a card....and this year we announced our new baby coming April of 2011.