2016 christmas ornaments

The kids are old pros at this, so it didn't take very long for them to find their ornaments for this year.

(Read about how this family tradition came to be HERE.)

Vanessa fell in love with this woolly mammoth the moment she saw it.

Ryan insisted that this Santa Claus head wasn't creepy...we agreed to disagree, ha!

Ethan couldn't stop laughing when he found this hamburger and immediately decided it was his ornament.

And Jeff thought this green pig from Angry Birds was absolutely hilarious!

I also managed to FINALLY buy a separate container for each of the kids' ornaments, just to make it easier to tell their collections apart. I surprised myself at how organized that move was, ha!

christmas decorating

I will admit that I'm one of those people that refuse to put anything Christmas before Thanksgiving. Call me a scrooge or a grinch, but I like to celebrate Thanksgiving separately. Yes, I know being grateful for Jesus Christ is part of the reason we celebrate Christmas, but I like to focus solely on the Savior during Christmas, whereas Thanksgiving, for me, is more secular, I guess? I don't think I'm explaining it right...anyway, the short of it is that our Christmas decorations do not go up until the day after Thanksgiving.

Yes, it's Black Friday, but I don't participate in it, and Scott also has that day off, so out come the decorations!

Ryan was gone for the festivities, out shopping in the craziness of Black Friday with his friends. So it was up to the other three to get everything up.

Our tree is 12-ft. high and one of the main reasons why we wait until Black Friday to put the tree up; Scott has the day off and the only one that can lug it up from our basement storage, ha! We used to have a 6-ft. tree, but once we moved into our house, the tall ceiling was just begging for a taller one.

I won't put up an "after" picture because it's pretty much the same set up from years past (and I'm sure there's a pic somewhere on this blog), but it was a very satisfying feeling after everything was put up and arranged. This is my favorite time of year, so I'm so excited to finally have Christmas displayed inside our home. The countdown now begins!

Yay, Christmas!

this kid...

He never listens to me; every year I tell him to stop growing, but he doesn't listen to me. So, here we are, another year older and hopefully wiser.

Where does the time go? And how did he get so big?

He didn't seem very enthusiastic about going out to celebrate tonight, but he did go, so that's something. I think his friends were doing something tonight, but he decided to to keep our family tradition of birthday celebrating going.

It was really casual and low-key: dinner at Chick-Fil-a and then ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. He was glued to his phone most of the time, most likely texting his friends to tell them how lame we are, but oh well. He also didn't have any ice cream, claiming it was too cold for it, so we got our treats to go and headed home.

Quick and quiet, that was our evening.

I've been learning not to take it personally when Ryan doesn't seem thrilled to spend time with us; he is, after all, a teenager and his friends are what's most important at the moment. But, I can't help but feel sad a little, too. I mean, he'll be a high school senior next year and plans to serve a mission soon after graduating. We don't have too much time left to spend with him and it's hard to compete for his attention with his friends.

Such is life, I guess.

Happy Birthday, Ryan! Love you to the sky and back!

Anyway, here's the requisite list of reasons why I love this kid:

17 Reasons Why I Love Ryan

  1. He likes to tease and joke around with me

  2. Lame jokes still make him laugh.

  3. He seeks me out to talk with me.

  4. He still likes to pray with me before he leaves for school in the morning.

  5. He treats his female friends with respect and courtesy.

  6. He's very intelligent.

  7. He works hard in school.

  8. He loves his siblings even though they drive him crazy most of the time.

  9. He loves our dogs.

10. He enjoys family time when he's not out and about with his friends

11. He's responsible.

12. He's very respectful and kind to others.

13. He tells me he loves me before he leaves the house.

14. His smile makes me smile.

15. He'll text me during school even when he's not supposed to.

16. He genuinely cares about his friends.

17. He's very creative when it comes to entertaining himself and/or others.