Christmas Eve

Our church had a Christmas Eve program tonight in which the kids acted out the Christmas story while Pastor Brian read it. 

Gracie as Mary, and Grace as one of the angels

Tristan played the part of a shepherd 

All the angels awaiting their big moment 

The angel Gabriel telling Mary of her great blessing. 

The shepherds, watching their flocks by night. 

Visiting Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.

The cast

I just couldn't resist posting these. 

Who ever said a yawn wasn't contagious?? I'm yawning now just looking at the pictures!

After we got home we had Mom snap a couple of pictures while we were all "dressed up".

Then it was time to put out cookies and milk for Santa.

David's cousin, Josh, is here with us too.

Funny how he's trailed us at our last two duty stations.  He just missed David by about a month in Arizona, and now he's about an hour or so north of us for a year.  It's nice to be able to have family over, especially when you're half a world away from the majority of them!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Snow!!

We woke up this morning to snow!  And quite a bit of it.

When I checked my e-mail, I had a challenge from our good friends, the Staffords, to a snow ball fight.  How could we refuse?  So Mom and I bundled the 2 big kids up and headed down stairs. 

There we not only found the Staffords, but the Jacquots as well. 

Grandma couldn't bend over to pick up the snow so she kept asking the kids to hand her snow to make snowballs out of!  I'm gonna have to remember that one... 

Tristan, Brody, and Michael.  That just had TROUBLE written all over it!

I was messing around with my settings, so this one is a bit over-exposed, but I liked it anyway. 

The thing that stinks about Korea snow is that it is so dry - you can't make anything out of it...

So, you may as well bury your head in it.

We had so much fun playing in the snow!  I love living on post and having a dozen friends at our disposal at any given moment.  It makes snow so much more fun!

Christmas Baking

Another thing that the holiday steering committee thought would be a nice gesture was to provide all the single soldiers in the Battalion a goodie bag full of home baked goods.  It sounded like a wonderful idea to me, because I knew my mom would be here, and I know how much she loves to bake with the kids.  That meant that we could make a bunch of different kinds of cookies and I wouldn't have to have but a dozen or so of each kind in the house.

Peppermint Candy Cane Cookies

While these three worked on the candy canes, I was making oatmeal-honey cookies. 

The kids really enjoyed decorating the sugar cookies this year - and they didn't make a huge mess!  

I really didn't want to give any of these away.

We are going to have a couple of the soldiers who have duty that night deliver bags of goodies to over 150 soldiers in the barracks.  Hopefully they will like what "Santa" hung on their doors when they get up Christmas morning.

Battalion Christmas Party

Tonight was our Battalion Christmas Party which I had helped plan.  But tonight was also the night that Mom came in, and someone had to pick her up from the airport.  Unfortunately that someone got off to a late start to go to the airport, and then in coming home from the airport took a wrong turn because she was too busy yapping to pay attention to the GPS.  And that's a really bad thing here in Korea... one wrong turn can take you hours longer on the road - it's not like in the States where if you get off at the wrong exit you just get back on the interstate - nooooo, you have to go on 5 different roads, and hope you get back on the road you were travelling on before.  Anyway, it wasn't that bad, thank goodness!  It did add some extra travel time, but we made it to the party just in time to see Santa and to scoop some leftovers onto our plates.

Telling Santa she wants American Girl doll stuff. 

Telling Santa he wants a Star Wars lunch box, and a skateboard. 

Thankfully she wasn't telling Santa anything - it may be next year before she yells and screams at him...

From what I heard, the party was a huge success and everyone had a great time.  Another thing that I'm gonna be responsible for next year... I've already asked Tamara for all her notes!  I'm sorry we had to miss the majority of the party, but I'm sure glad to have my momma here for Christmas!!

Date Night

We have a group of four families that do a babysitting co-op each month.  One weekend a month 3 sets of parents get to go out and enjoy some couple time while the 4th set of parents gets to feed and watch all the kiddos.  Well, tonight was David's and my night to have all the rugrats at our house.  We'll just say that the thought of having 9 kids between the ages of 2 and 8 running around the house (7 of them boys) was not very appealing to me, but I figured that was the price I had to pay to get a date with my hubby 3 out of 4 months...

Grace, Lily, Joeseph, and Brody 

Tristan, Zane, Kayden, Andrew, and Michael

We fed 'em all cheeseburgers, mac and cheese, and baked beans. 

Cleaning up after dinner 

Sweet Lily cleaning up the baked beans. 

Brody and Lily building something on the workbench 

Zane and Joe with Legos 

Everyone else watchin' Kayden play the DS.

I must say that all my anxiety about having that many kids (boys) in my house for 6 hours was a waste of my time.  It was a fantastic night, and all the kids were on their best behavior!

Christmas Tree Lane

Throughout this holiday season, I was a part of the steering committee for several Battalion events.  First was a bake sale and officer vs. enlisted football game around Thanksgiving, and then we rolled full swing into the Christmas events, beginning with Christmas Tree Lane. 

Christmas Tree Lane is an annual tree decorating contest that the Garrison hosts, and many different organizations from around the post participate, all hoping for the grand prize of $500 of funds for their organization.  Today was the day to get the tree up, so I bundled Naomi up and we headed over to Transformation Park to do what we could to help get our tree up and decorated.

Some of the soldiers building up our "snow covered hill". 

This little princess zonked out on me. 

The finished product.

"Tracking Santa One Post at a Time"

 The fine ladies that I've been working with. 

All lit up - well, the battery powered lights that is.  They hadn't flipped the switch on the tree lights yet. 

Our tracking map that David made.

The lights are at several different Army posts around the world. 

The big tree.

They had workers up inside this tree hanging lights with really long poles.  It's a really big tree. 

Several trees along Christmas Tree Lane. 

Oooh, shiny. 

That's better. 

Our 3 precious gifts. 

One of my favorite pictures of all time I think.

These kids are pretty fond of their daddy.

It was a fun day, and wouldn't you know it - the 532nd MI Battalion won 1st prize!!!  I guess I've got my work cut out for me next year since it seems it's all going to fall on my shoulders as all of the ladies that I'm on the steering committee with are moving sometime in 2012.  So if any of you have a fabulous idea for a Christmas tree for a Military Intelligence unit, let me know!