Christmas (Yes I know it's January! Shut up!)

Here's some pictures from Christmas, that I've been meaning to post since December.

Here's Abby showing off some of her loot.

Thomas got Tom Saywer from Grandma & Grandpa Hahn (sorry for the mistake!), they got it for him when they went through Hannibal, MO (Mark Twain's hometown) a couple of years ago. Though I think Harry Potter has been capturing his attention.

Molly got a lot of "Oody-Buzz" swag. Here she is with her Toy Story chair and Non-Toy Story robot dog. While she likes the dog that barks and moves, 'Eppie (her stuffed Leopard) is still her favorite.

Molly and Woody or "Oody"

Abby made her own wrapping paper for our present at school. The wrapping paper was almost as much fun as the actual present.

Molly got a shopping cart which she loved. She used it to push all her swag around the house. I wonder if this means she'll grow up to enjoy shopping or if she'll end up pushing a shopping cart of cans around....

Uncle Zeke (I'm just hoping that this was a Zeke alone project and not Juliana's idea!) sent us his traditional Christmas crimes against nature.

Thomas wasn't so sure of his monkey with a dwarf head.

Though Abby seems to like her bear-monkey

I'm really happy with my...what ever this thing is.

This is the one and only time that Molly hugged her baby-alligator. She named this creature "kinda-ucky" and it took almost 2 weeks before she'd allow this thing into her room. I've even threatened to put "kinda-ucky" in her bed if she gives me trouble at bed time. So far the threat has been enough!

Family picture time!!

After many, many trial runs, we finally got a good family picture for this year! We decided to have our annual photo shoot on Thomas' baptism day because everyone looked nice and we were not rushing to church! A big thank you to Grandpa Christensen for being patient enough to take all of the pictures and to Grandma Christensen for helping the kids stay focused!After we finally got a good picture we told the kids we could do a crazy one, so I thought I would share that one, too!

And since all of the Grandparents were here at our house for the first time since Thomas' baby blessing, we took a photo of all of us together! This time we only took a few, but we still decided to do a silly one again!

Here it is! Enjoy!! We really had a great day and are so grateful that all 4 of Thomas' Grandparents could travel so far to be here with us on his special day!

Thomas' Baptism

Thomas' baptism went great on Saturday. The program was great and he was successfully baptized on the first try, but just barely! When he went under the water his foot floated to the top but it went back down before his head came back out of the water. Here is a picture of Toby and Thomas before the baptism.And here is a picture of our whole family before the baptism. The girls were very excited to see their big brother get baptized!!

Abby's Eye

The other day, we got a call from the school nurse at the kid's school. She told us that Abby was in a hurry in the computer lab and was rushing around and bonked heads with another kid. She told us that Abby had "received" a small scratch above her eye from when her glasses hit her face. We really liked the use of the word received, like it was a gift or something...

When Abby got home we got to see her small scratch above her eye...














Abby is doing fine, but between her eye and Molly's hula-hoop injury I keep expecting to hear from Child Protective Services.

Thomas' Birthday

Thomas' birthday party was today and earlier this week I made the mistake of letting him pass out his own invitaitons at school. I have no way of knowing who he gave them to or if he was even brave enough to hand them out at all. Anyway Isaac, the only boy in his Primary class, was the only one to come. But Thomas had a great time with him anyway. The first thing we did was make chocolate covered pretzels in Christmas shaped molds. They all had fun doing the project and since Isaac wast he only friend he got to take enough home for his whole family!Here is a picture of all the kids eating their cake and ice cream.Here is Molly's face after enjoying her cake! Thomas had fun opening presents, this one is a Nerf gun from Molly, so she ran over to give him a hug!

Here is the Transformer that Thomas got from his Grandma and Grandpa Christensen. It is so cool, it turns from a robot into a toaster.

Star Wars TIE fighter Lego set from Mom and Dad.

Here is the video of the Happy Birthday song. Happy 8th Birthday, Thomas!!!

Snow in Houston

Today we got snow in Houston. This event happens about once every four years, and this is the earliest snow on record. Here's the front of the house. It's not cold enough for the snow to stick to the road and cement, but they still closed schools early. In Canada this would have been a nice Spring day, people would have been outside in shorts and tee shirts.

We saw one jolly old man who was out enjoying the snow...

Thomas, Abby and Molly loved jumping on the trampoline with snow on it. Molly wasn't so sure about all the snow...I guess her American half was dominate today.

Trying to make "snow angels" on the trampoline.

Amy got into a snow ball fight with the kids, I think she lost.

And here she is paying the kids back.

Molly's Face

The other day we went to Texas Roadhouse Restaurant as part of another fund raiser for the kids' school (I guess they don't have enough smart screens...). While we were there, they had a hulu hoop contest for all the kids. Every kid who participated would "win". Molly wanted to go watch Thomas and Abby, so we let all three of them go. Suddenly we hear a screaming child running through the restaurant...

Molly is running toward us being followed by a couple of servers who are trying to help her calm down. She got too close to one of the kids who was hula hooping and got smacked in the eye!
Here's her face 2 days after getting hit, you can see a little cut on her right eyelid (left in the picture).

These 2 pictures are from the same day. Her eye is swollen, it almost looks like she was in a fist fight!