It's great to be eight.....

...just ask Tanner.

His birthday started with a request for breakfast in bed, which Dad made for him. French toast and juice in a sippy cup! (We don't usually allow food out of the kitchen/dining room to avoid messes!)
There was lunch with Dad and Marc was excited because Tanner actually wanted to go somewhere besides McDonalds or Burger King. When they left, the plan was to go to Taco Bell. While that would not be my choice if I could go anywhere I wanted, it was his. But, when they came home they told me that had gone to McDonald's after all. Tanner said it had been a year since he had a chicken patty! Marc took the camera but forgot to actually use it!

We then had a great party at Lazer Kraze, a local laser tag place. Great for me because all I had to do was send the invites and bring the cake!

Mary enjoyed the arcade.

So did Sarah.

The cousins inside the arena.

The army man cake.

After the party, we invited the family back to our house for dinner. Tanner's request? Hamburgers and french fries. I think that means Marc had the same meal twice in one day.

After dinner everyone joined in for our inaugural playing of Beatles RockBand. I think grandpa may have enjoyed in the most.

A little info about Tanner at eight.....

• He is SO smart.
• He LOVES Legos.
• He is a voracious reader and prefers non-fiction, especially wars and military books.
• He is a Cougar fan (of course) and roots for the Steelers as well (just like his dad).
• He likes spending time with friends , but I think he secretly prefers his family, especially when we play games or do fun things together.
• He has a great giggle.
• He is a thoughtful brother and son.

Christmas

I wish I had my own personal photographer who would come and capture Christmas morning on film and allow Marc and I to just sit and enjoy the children and all the excitement. Ella woke up at 3:30, blaming the wind for waking her up. Marc and I are not sure she went back to sleep. By the time everyone else woke up, around 8:30, she was almost too excited to contain herself.

I think the kids enjoyed their presents from Santa and from Mom and Dad. There was lots and lots of smiling! Enjoy the pictures.

Okay, no smiling on this next one, but I needed to include a picture of Rylee. Isn't the hat cute?


Santa left some clues leading the children to this gift in the basement.
Mary would have been completely satisfied with a stocking full of Hershey Kisses. Once she found the chocolate, she could not have cared less about the rest of the gifts.

It's finally Christmas Eve

Our children have been counting down for a long time for this day to come. We had lots of fun. Here is what we did. We made an assembly line to finally get some Christmas cards out. Daddy licked the envelopes, Ella stamped them and Tanner did the address labels. I had not put the stockings on the mantle. One, because I wanted to decorate it how I wanted to and also because I thought those heavy stocking holders would just be begging for Mary to pull them down on her head.

So part of our day was getting out the stockings and putting them on the mantle.

I think they had been up about 5 minutes when one was pulled down but the victim wasn't Mary, it was Sarah.

We decorated sugar cookies for our eagerly awaited nighttime visitor.

At grandma's house, we had our own little Christmas pageant. The wise men brought baby Jesus a really lovely wooden box full of poker chips!

And we came home and opened our new jammies!

The kids, especially Tanner, were SO excited about Christmas, but all fell asleep really fast. It was a fun, fun day.