Christmas Eve Dinner

When I was 11 my family lived in Suadi Arabia for a year and a half. My step-dad actually lived there with his kids for 8 years. While being there we picked up some awesome yummy traditions in food. I can't remember exactly when we started making our Christmas Eve dinner a middle eastern dinner but I absolutely love this tradition and have even done it with my own little fam when we had Christmas by ourselves.
The menu always has hummus, tabouli, mujadara, and pita bread. Most of the times there is fish and something else yummy.
Here is the table all set up with yummyness. Little Man was a big helper with Grandma making dinner.

Little Miss loves her some hummus. She eats hummus on a weekly basis....daily if I had it stocked enough. Here she is with her pita and hummus.

Opps caught her with her mouth open.

Here is the crew enjoying the yummy food.

My favorite this year was the Tabouli that my older brother made and the Spanakopita my mom got at some store. You can see both of them on my plate with the always yummy mujadara.

Sariah telling Grandma Ladybug she did a great job with dinner.

Exchanging some love.

Little Miss giving me some loves after dinner.

Then she got out the pom poms.

Little Man got all involved too. Maybe I have 2 cheerleaders in my family?

Cute brother Paul, I can't believe he is a Senior this year.

Little Miss with her cheese stick hanging out with a cousin after dinner.

Seriously how did my baby brothers get so big. James is a Junior this year. Sheesh. Little Miss is so sassy in this pic. Even though she ate a plate of food for dinner she always has room for a cheese stick.

Pics with Santa and Cousins

We left AZ on the 23rd getting to UT in the wee hours of the 24th. When we woke up that morning it felt like Christmas all over. There was snow everywhere and it was freezing cold. Plus my Mom's house was filled with Christmas decorations. There is no place like my Mom's for Christmas. So many good memories.
The first thing my Mom asked me was if we had gotten pics of the munchkins with Santa. She remembered that last year I had wanted to do it and totally forgot while I was in Utah. She reminded me and we went out with some of the other cousins who hadn't gotten their pics taken with the Big Man.

Tallie's little man was excited to see Santa but a little shy at first.

At first he just sat there in somewhat of a shock.

Then he started talking when Tallie put him on her lap.

My brother Luke captured this picture with my camera and I love it!

I felt bad that none of my pictures with Ian and Sarah's cute little guy came out.

Santa and him were always on the move.

The 2 pics I got of my kiddos are only better because they aren't fuzzy but I didn't get them both smiling at all. Plus Little Man was totally pissed off that I made him wear a long sleeve shirt in the freezing cold weather. He was Mr. Attitude all day. What's a Mom to do?

At least Santa kept smiling. Such a great Santa he was.

Then we had all the cousins plus my brother Luke sit for a picture. I don't think I ever got them all looking at the camera at once. Sariah really was trying to figure out whose the man with the beard.

Sean was curious too.

Did you notice that Luke has the same face in every picture?

Santa pictures might not have been super successful this year but at least they got done.

Curly Hair for Christmas Sunday

The Sunday before Christmas I dressed the kiddos up in somewhat matching outfits...as matching as you can get with an 8 year old boy and a 19 month old girl.
Little Miss has poker straight hair and I wanted to see what her hair would do if I had her sleep in sponge curlers the night before church. To my excitement it worked and she looked sooo adorable.

Here she is with her little sassy face and the curlers in her hair. There was no taking of pictures while attempting to get this curlers into her hair because all of my energy had to be spent on getting her to sit still and accomplishing it as quick as possible. Checking herself out in the mirror, 8 curlers in total.

Such a cute face.

She successfully slept with them in, none fell out. Here she is showing her Daddy her pretty hair.

A quick little photo right before we go to church.

If only she didn't know how much her brother liked to tease her, she might have sit still longer.

Trying to capture another smile from this little gal...to no avail.

Checking out the Christmas tree together.

I am not the best photographer in the world but I think my kids are cute in every picture I take. By the way, little man is a great brother with his sister.

She wants to do everything he does.

Snuggling up with Santa, I love his face.

Little Man is so handsome.

After church little miss was tired and she climbed up on the stairs and did this.

You might think she is asleep but she is not....just pretending.

I did nothing to position her in these pictures...she did it all on her own. Oh and did I tell you that her lovely dress was $6 at a place called Last Chance. Love her dress!

Chocolate Goodness

I love anything chocolate. Seriously I think I might have a major addiction to chocolate. Is it a bad thing that my daughter also loves chocolaty things too?
Here is Little Man and Little Miss as they enjoyed some yummy cookies. Getting every last drop licked off her hands

I am ready to get out of my seat Mom. We can't break her of the standing in my high chair habit. Yes we buckle her in her seat but she knows how to unbuckle it. Any suggestions?

Yes I kept taking pictures even though she was standing.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

A couple weeks before Christmas at the Gifford house we were able to all get together to decorate the tree. Here are some pictures of the tree decorating event.

This one of my little man is just wonderful. It captures the magic of the moment for me. He is such a wonderful little guy and so handsome!3 of the 5 kids in the house decorated and Patty handed out the decorations.

Cute little Miss so wanted to be involved with the ornaments, can you tell in her excitement?

Self-portrait of me and my Sexy Man.

Papa Moore enjoying some of the yummy cookies.

Mama Moore and Dad looking on with happiness.

A little smooching...

Brynn was too old or should I say too teenager to decorate this year so she just watched and messed around with Dad.

You can see that Sariah got to play with some of the ornaments even though she didn't get to touch the tree.

Even though this picture was totally posed it was a fun one with all the kiddos.

After the tree was decorated the girls each played a few Christmas songs they were working on for their lessons. Great ending to a fun night.

I wasn't kidding!

Some of you may have thought I was kidding when I stated that I wouldn't be posting for a few weeks, boy howdy it wasn't a joke. I will admit that I even thought I wouldn't last a whole week without some sort of post but life sure got a bit crazy there for a second and we are just now getting back into some sort of routine.
Crazy for me would be driving 10 hours to my family's in Utah for the Christmas weekend with 2 kids who can both get very cranky. (especially when one of them is a 19month old who was teething and had a cold) We had a whole bunch of fun and loads of pictures to be posted but there is all kind of crazy when you get all of my siblings together. When we got home from Utah we had to find a place to move into since our house still hasn't closed and we had met the mutually agreed upon self-imposed deadline to be out of my Dad's house. Seriously 7 months at my Dad's house was way too long for everyone involved. Great thing is that we all survived and still love each other. Then there was the crazy fiasco with our 2nd car that I will not go into lets just say that it was less then convenient but a blessing in disguise. Once we moved out of Dad's and into our place I was without internet until 2 nights ago. That in a nut shell is what has been going on with our lives.
I am still baffled at why our house hasn't closed. The real estate world here in AZ is just horrible....we found a house that we love back at the end of October and it still hasn't closed. To many people involved in short sales makes them not short at all. We have looked at a lot of other houses besides this short sale one and none of those offers have been accepted. Is that because we are suppose to get this house that is taking forever or is it because we haven't found the right house? Agggh! This seriously is so frustrating. I think I might just try some more houses this next week. Who knows? Patience is a virtue that is seldom possessed but often required.
My munchkins are doing great.
Little Man has been enjoying wrestling. He started about 2 months ago with his Dad's encouragement and his Mom's massive amount of skepticism. Who puts an 8 year old in wrestling? Who? My husband. My skeptical thoughts were as follows, Little man is tiny and can get crushed. He has no older brothers who pick on him to make him tougher. He is my cuddly guy, loves hugs and kisses. You can believe me that I was shocked that he came home loving wrestling. Little Man loves wrestling and his Dad takes him to practice 4 nights a week. He is learning all sorts of tricks and moves...which he practices with his Dad and not his mom or baby sister.
Little Miss just keeps getting more vocal and persistent in whatever she sets her mind to do. Our days are filled with books, puzzles, Elmo, singing, dancing, blocks, tea parties, and whatever else comes to mind. She keeps me busy and entertained often. I love my days with her.

Well there you go a post full of ranting and what not. I will hopefully have more entertaining posts in the next few days filled with pictures and such. I just had to get the past few weeks documented in some form.
Lots of love to you.