1000th post!

I feel like this post should have something special in it. So, along with our Christmas happenings, I will let you in on our plan and motto for 2010.

Use it or lose it!...2010
The idea is to use everything this year that we own. What we don't use or know that we will never use, we get rid of it. Do you have items in your home that you keep because SOMEDAY you may use them, but when an opportunity comes to use them, you don't. One example for me is keeping disposable decorating bags. I used them years ago, but now they just take up space and I keep them because I may decide SOMEDAY to use them again...although I haven't used them for several years. I am determined to keep them, so now I need a plan to actually use them. My plan is to use them for Valentine's Day goodies.

Another item that is on my mind is Zoe's picture frame that she received several years ago after her baptism. We have yet to put a picture in it! We need to put a picture in it or get rid of it. I will get Zoe's input of whether or not to keep the frame and if she does want to keep it, then she needs to decide what picture to put in it, I will get the picture printed, and we will put the picture in the frame.

I mentioned to Matt that sometimes I wear items of clothing just because I have them, but I don't love them. So a question to ask ourselves is, "Do we use an item just because we have it or do we really love it?" This thought motivated Matt to go through his clothes this morning and get rid of the items that he doesn't love. This motivated me to do the same. Matt took a large garbage bag of clothes to the dump this morning. :-) The clothes go in a clothes bin for other people to go through and take what they want.

I'll keep you posted on our progress. Use it or lose it!...2010.

Now on to Christmas...every gift we received, we will use! This is not a problem because we received awesome gifts. :-) As I give gifts this year, I will keep in mind the usefulness of the gift. I don't want my gift to be clutter or have little meaning.

I will start my overview of our Christmas happenings on Wednesday evening when Eleanor and Zach went over to my parents' home to spend the night and I took Emily shopping, so she could buy Zoe a gift. While Emily and I were gone, Zoe made Emily's gift. This is the first year that a child of mine has come up with a gift idea for someone on their own and carried it out, which was nice. Zoe was excited about making the gift and having Emily open it. Since Zoe was making Emily a gift, we decided to have Emily give Zoe a gift, Eleanor and Zach exchanged gifts and Kate and Noah exchanged gifts. The kids have so much fun shopping for each other and opening their sibling gifts.

Christmas Eve morning was super busy as I made applesauce cookies (Matt's favorite) and sugar cookies (my favorite). When the cookies were done and Matt came home from work, we met the missionaries to go caroling at the Foster's, the Tyne's, the Daigle's, Mary's, the Noonan's, the Leeman's, and the Brown's. Zoe, Emily, and Noah came with us while my parents watched Eleanor, Zach, and Kate. It was fun to see our friends on Christmas Eve and at the last home, we were sounding pretty good, I think. :-)

We did some last minute shopping in town and picked up Chinese food before coming home. I took Christmas Eve and Christmas day off from dieting. Matt and I noticed, though that we crave a lot of yummy food while dieting, but we didn't crave anything when we could eat whatever we wanted to. It was still fun to eat whatever we wanted and it tasted yummy, but food is more appealing when you can't have it. That's the way it is with a lot of things isn't it. Anyway, while I was enjoying my Chinese food, the kids watched, "A Christmas Memory" and Matt went to the post office (which had just closed) after talking with one of the post office workers about picking up a package that could not be delivered that day (one of Kate's Christmas presents) because we weren't home. The worker said she would stay until Matt got there, which was so nice! However, the worker couldn't get to the package after all because the room the package was in was locked. My mom and I had a backup plan in case this package didn't arrive in time, so it worked out anyway. We'll save this gift for Kate's birthday.

Kate and Noah started fighting over a book, so I suggested that Kate read the book to Noah. She thought that was a great idea. I captured this cute picture of them in the chair together.


We watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", which is our Christmas Eve tradition and then we sent the kids to bed. Matt and I stayed up to watch "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", which has also become a tradition. We watched it one year after flipping through the channels when we had cable and now we borrow mom's copy to watch. The movie ended at 1am and we made it to bed around 2:30am. The kids woke us up at 6am.

We had a great Christmas! My parents and my grandmother came over in the morning. We let the kids open their stockings (we have new stockings this year thanks to Sunshine!) and they opened one gift before we ate breakfast.


Santa was very generous this year. Emily got a bed for her AG dolls, Emily & Nikki.

Eleanor got an AG doll, Ruthie (who she frequently calls Rudy) and Kate received Fancy Nancy.

Zoe received Julie's bed. Julie & Josephina share the bed.

Zach received a Thomas the Train set and Noah got a big box of legos. I don't have pictures for them, though. My camera battery died soon after we started unwrapping presents, so I only have a few pictures. Here are a few more pictures that I took.

We have a fish! A very lazy fish if you ask everyone. The fish does not move. We keep expecting to find it belly side up. The fish came in a small container, so we wonder if it just got used to being still. The kids are bored of him already. We're thinking of naming him slug or some other lazy term.

We find more enjoyment out of Zoe's swedish fish aquarium that she made for Emily. The swedish fish moves more than our real fish!

Noah became a pro at unwrapping presents. After awhile, when we would hand him a gift he would exclaim, "Yeah!" Then he would find a spot to sit down and unwrap his present. So cute!


Zach was very pleased with his coloring book and crayons from his Primary teacher, Sister Liza.

He chose to color in his coloring book instead of eating breakfast.

Matt took pictures of us eating. I am so glad I was able to make our traditional egg sausage casserole this year. I can prepare most of it on Christmas Eve and it is so yummy!

Zoe wanted us to try to make waffles again (we tried last Christmas, but failed), but we stuck with pancakes. Delicious!


All of the kids, except for Noah, received a new webkinz. Now Zach has a webkinz cat of his very own.

Zach really loved this cat until Eleanor received a Fur Real puppy. He wanted to claim the puppy, but we wouldn't let him. He was very mad about that! Now we know what to get him for his birthday.

Zoe is excited to go ice skating!
Kate was the only kid concerned about getting her wrapping paper into the trash bag when she unwrapped her presents. When she received a present, she would move close to the trash bag. She would tear a piece of wrapping paper off her present and then stick it in the trash bag. We loved it! Her example didn't catch on, though.


Zoe, Emily, and Eleanor received earring trees. I may be more excited about these gifts then they are. I love the organized earrings! Now they can pick a pair of earrings to wear without searching for a match. Eleanor received her first pair of earrings for Christmas and she got her ears pierced today! She was so nervous, but she did it and she is happy that she did!



Her earrings are emerald flowers. So pretty!

We went over to mom and dad's for dinner on Christmas. We don't usually have a Christmas dinner, but we just had to plan a delicious dinner while Matt and I had the day off from dieting! We took some pictures with grammie before dad brought her home.


We're glad you spent Christmas with us, grammie!

Is that a long enough post for my 1000th? It's probably a good thing that my camera battery died while opening presents!

Okay, so I have a few more pictures. Noah is such a cuddle bug. We love it!



And here are Zach and Matt building one of Zach's new lego sets this evening. Zach loves the legos! He got to stay up a bit past his bedtime to finish his lego creation. :-)


Did I mention that I got the Twilight series for Christmas? Use it or lose it...it's time for me to go use this gift. :-)