Christmas 2010

Santa filled the stockings to the brim with all kinds of goodies.

Jax is all ready to start opening the gifts on Christmas morning, but apparently no one else was ready.

"Wow, I actually got a gift?"

Catie is showing Aunt Ann one of her Christmas, oh sorry "Holiday", projects from school.

 

One can never have enough soft cuddly stuffed animals!!!

Abby was so excited to get her own jewelry box. Then she figured out that it was empty and that Catie has a large collection of jewels in her room and went upstairs to "borrow" some. Not a pleasant scene once Catie found out what she was up to...

Jackson loved the marshmallow crossbow that Uncle John got him. It shoots marshmallows over 30 feet! He/we loved shooting the squirrels in the backyard. The best moment of Christmas was when dad turned around and was hit from point blank range right between his eyebrows with a big white marshmallow! Where is a video camera when you need one?

Mom and Abster... or as Stiv likes to call them... Velcro!
 

Catie and Stiv worked hard on their snowman and enjoyed the white Christmas night outdoors until just before bedtime.

Don't be fooled, Abby and Jackson are just posers!

These magical jackets really do keep us warm!

Catie Cooper was proud to have her Grandma Moe and Mom visit for her Kindergarten class party.

Oh, Dad was there too...

Midvale Elementary School makes sure to be all-inclusive for the holiday season and incorporates many difference varieties of religious songs into their holiday program. 

Pancakes, PJ's and Santa

Hurry, Santa is coming!!!

Everyone in our household is excited for Christmas to finally arrive. Our elf Scout has been sending back daily reports to Santa, the Christmas parties are over and we have enjoyed all the cards from friends across the county.   

All that is left is church on Friday and Santa will finally deliver the kids coal Saturday morning!

The Schwartz children with Santa...

Do you think Santa knows how naughty Catie was just before they were to meet?

Catie is getting a bird's eye view of the book Santa was reading to the kids...

We were really thankful to be included in the Wilson's Pancakes with Santa this past week. Tricia put on one of the nicest Christmas parties for children you will ever see! The kids can't seem to figure out how she got Santa to attend the party during his busiest time of year!

Scout Arrives and The Party

 Well we broke out the Elf on the Shelf book on December 1st in the hopes that our elf "Scout" would keep the kids behavior in check. A bad report to Santa is usually all the motivation we need for a major behavior modification.

While we have grown fond of Scout over the last couple of years, we need a more menacing elf! Scout is just not getting it done. The kids enjoy finding where Scout appears every morning after his journey to the North Pole to update Santa on their behavior, but they don't seem to think that they are in any danger of receiving coal for Christmas. 

Jackson had to wait a couple of weeks to have his birthday party because the soccer season prevented almost everyone from attending in November. Good things come to those who wait! Jackson and his 18 friends had a grand time at Q-Zar laser tag.

The party was for eight people. We sent Jax to school with his eight printed invitations to hand out to his agreed upon friends. Well, in typical Jax fashion he started hand writing invitations and handing them out to "the rest of his friends"! As we always say..."the more the merrier"!

The custom Lego cake that we had made was a big hit!!!

A rare picture with Mom, Dad and the Birthday boy. Catie was at a friend's house and Abby stayed home with Grandma Sandye and Grandpa Jim.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving started off with our running the Thanksgiving day half marathon along with a couple of our friends... Oh wait, only Ann ran this year because everyone else was either out of shape or nursing an injury. The race conditions were absolutely perfect for a long run as the temp was mid 50's and overcast. Sadly, our license to eat on this holiday is coming to a close as this annual event is being moved to October next year. We are not happy about this as another great tradition bites the dust.

Ann is heading out for her run through the hilly streets of the ATL on a brand new course that everyone seemed to agree was an improvement.

She must have had a good run because she is still smiling heading into finish!

We bumped into our friend Casey toward the end of the run. They both look like they could turn around and run the course again!

We invited ourselves along with Grandma Schwartz over to the Shores for Thanksgiving dinner again. This year we even made several of the side dishes. Stiv was supposed pickup two pies at this special bakery, instead he just bought them at Sam's Club and just told everyone they were from the "special" bakery...

Issac is a huge Michael Jackson fan and has Catie engrossed in a Michael Jackson movie. We think the boxing gloves were an attempt to keep Catie inline!

Ariel and Abby are playing their favorite game Cariboo.

More silliness and TV watching kept the kids busy while the adults ignored them during dinner. Our Thanksgiving at the Shores was great fun with fantastic food and company. Unfortunately, it all came crashing down when the Abster barfed all over the dining room table just before dessert was served! Not a good scene...

The next morning we were all up early to set up the Christmas decoration. The kids were big help and actually helped carry up the supplies from the basement before doing an outstanding job of decorating the tree.

Happy Birthday Jackson!!!

Jackson was so excited to turn 9, he was up at 6 AM looking for people to wish him happy birthday and did not want to go to bed until midnight...just in case someone else wanted to stop by with another present!

It's nice to be loved by your sisters...or over run...however you want to look at it.

Abster was a big help opening the boxes. Once again, parents of the year....who needs all five fingers???


Mr. Lego got yet another Lego present. If Jax had three wishes he would waste them all on Legos.


Yes! Ice cream cake for all!!!

Halloween 2010

It has been a gorgeous fall this year and we have taken advantage of it with many outdoor activities. Halloween started weeks before the big day with the kids testing out their costumes around the house several times a week. If we only had a nickel for every time a ninja or cat girl tried to scare us around the house...

We usually wait to carve pumps until Halloween day so they don't rot from the relative heat. Ann made the lid opening to her pumpkin so small she had to perform laparscopic surgery to carve all the goo out. Naturally the kids were all grossed out by the pumpkin goo and did not want to help with that part of the carving.

We are so proud of our of finished product!

The ninja, the peacock, and the cat girl...sounds like the to start to an interesting story...

Abby was not sure how she felt about her costume...

The Wilsons invited us over for their what is now annual Halloween pre-trick or treat party. They really upped the ante this year with more decorations, great tasting pizza and even goody bags for kids and parents! "Creepy" Jimmy was excited to hand out the goody bags to his guests. Thanks Wilsons for making Halloween so much fun! (Come to think of it they pretty much make every holiday a party!) One of these days we have to return the favor and host something....

Our cat girl loves her party favors!!!!

Here is the whole Arbor Springs gang. Once the party was over and Trick or Treat began, this kids were off to the races. Stiv could barely keep up as they frantically sprinted from house to house.

The annual Midvale Fall Festival was a couple weeks ago and is the largest fundraiser of the year for the school. We volunteered to run one of the activities, as you can see it was not one of the popular ones.

Abster loved riding the mini pony around and around and around. None of the animals look very happy to be here....

Catie loved the mini-pumpkin painting station...

The kids thought it would be fun to eat breakfast in one of their tents on a lazy Saturday morning.

Oh you have to love the missing front tooth phase... the thing was loose for an eternity before it fell out. We even tried the old tie it to a door knob and slam the door trick!


Jackson passed his test for the green stripe belt! He did a great job with all four phases of the test, kicking, forms, sparring and board breaking.