Christmas!!

So, Christmas has come and gone, I'm sad about it, but we had such a great time! This past Sunday we went to Chad's parents house and had our annual get together. We drew names back in October and everyone opened their gifts. I love doing that, its so fun seeing what everyone gets each other. Christmas eve, we went to my parents house and had a party, we opened our pajamas and had a little Christmas program. Momma was getting pretty annoyed b/c all the boys were singing the Christmas songs so horrible (on purpose). It was funny though. We went home that night put the kids to bed and started wrapping presents. We had already wrapped most of the kids presents but we had to wrap presents for my family (which took forever). And Chad had to put an electric train together. We rearranged all the furniture and put the Christmas tree in the middle of the room and then set up the electric train to go around the Christmas Tree. It was pretty cute.
We stayed up until Midnight and then woke up at 6 am the next morning. The kids LOVED the Train!! Especially Owen. He would get upset everytime we turned it off. The whole, 3 gifts thing, worked out really well!! It was not at all overwhelming and they loved all of their gifts. Hallie's favorite was the little people's princess castle we got her. Owen really just liked the electric train oh, and his stocking candy, he freaked out about that! haha! Chad got me those red shoes I wanted! :)After our Christmas we went to my family's home and opened gifts. It was so fun seeing what everyone got. I was so excited b/c Momma & Daddy got me the cutest black and white coat..oh I love it!! and they got Chad a multi-game table. I just loved watching everyone open the gifts we got them. After that we went home and had to get ready for our party. The missionaries came, Jason and Rebekah Sacran, My family, My grandma, Uncle Jackie and Shannon. It was a full house, but it was definitely entertaining. Today Chad's parents came to Smyrna and brought us some gifts. Some of the Highlights: Chad and I got a grill and a new bedspread! So CUTE!!Hallie got her "tinkerbell Kitchen" and Owen got a little tykes roller coaster! So fun. We enjoyed spending the day with them playing games and talking. Thank you to everyone for the gifts we recieved! I just feel so blessed. I think about all the little children in the world who don't get to have a Christmas and I just feel so grateful for everything we have. We have such a great extended family. My kids are so blessed b/c they have grandparents on both sides who love them and are strong in the gospel. I love this season of giving. We had so much fun giving to others this year and teaching Hallie and Owen how to give and Serve. I just wish we could have done more. Anyways, hope you all had a great Christmas!! p.s. unfortunantly our Camera is broken so, we won't have pictures up for a while. Good news though, we are getting the internet on Tuesday!! Yeah!! Can't wait!

Question?

What do all you Mothers out there do during the day with your kids? I feel like I'm just trying to get through the day, make it go by faster. Do ya'll have a set schedule for them? I mean what do you do to entertain them? Teach them? I feel like I need to be doing more with my kids, any ideas?

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

So this year it was so fun decorating the Christmas Tree because Hallie understood what was going on. She absolutely loved it. Owen did too, he loved taking the ornaments out of the box and hiding them. Hallie enjoyed putting the star on the tree although, she sat on it right before we were about to put it on, and broke it, so we had to glue it with a hot glue gun..haha..I so need to get a new star! Anyways, I LOVE Christmas, it is My favorite time of the year! I'm just so sad that my babies are growing up, it does make it more fun though. Hallie Can't wait for Santa to come, and she knows that we celebrate Christmas because of the Saviors Birth. I try very hard to make sure she knows that's the main reason for Christmas. This year we are only giving 3 gifts each, to symbolize the 3 gifts from the wise men. Its been nice, b/c I would've bought way more then what we did. They do have some real nice stocking gifts though. Haha. Anyways, Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope that yours is a very good one, and I hope we all remember the real reason for Christmas, the Birth of our, Savior, Jesus Christ!

Family Pictures (kind of)

So, for Thanksgiving all of my family was in town, so my Mom wanted to do family Portraits b/c it will be a while for the whole family to be together again. Well, time ran out, we weren't able to go get our pictures taken. But we all had our black, red and white clothes, so my mom made us all put them on and take a picture, it took so long and it was hot and we all hated it but at least we got the picture! This was on Thanksgiving, we should've been out playing football in the backyard. haha. Here it is!



Starting from top: Cameron, Spencer, Dallas, Legrand, Hunter, Bonny, Owen, Hallie, Chad Second Row: Brittany, Cade, Daddy, Momma, Camilla Third Row: Seren, Leah, Hannah


Here are all the brothers:


Here are all the sisters: (this was the only one on my camera that everyone was looking)


Here are the Proud Grandparents with their Grandbabies!


Here's us!


The Long Family