OUR CHRISTMAS...in a nutshell, a very small one...

 OUR TREE!!!I LOVE it....it smelled good the ENTIRE month of December...and was SO full....it took me almost a full week to finish decorating it. I would keep changing my mind about what I wanted, or how much of one color or whatever...so it took ages to actually finish it. Not to mention the hours it took to get it to stand up semi-straight, thanks to a boatload of fishing line, ha ha.

This may have been my FAVE tree yet....I haven't the heart to take it down, because its so cute...but very dead. So it needs to be done! Maybe this week, if I keep feeling better.

Here is a great close up of a few of my FAVE decorations: 

Since we don't have a mantle, I got the GENIUS idea to hang them over the window, it worked out pretty well, I think.!

It looks much better when its lit up, but the close up pictures didn't work out so well

Our Christmas consisted of 18 (I think?) people all stuck in one house...ha ha...needless to say it was FULL of FUN, food, presents, and always at least a little side dish of DRAMA, ha ha. It was a wonderful time though, I love visiting and eating and playing board games, in fact, I think those are my 3 favorite things to do, besides sleeping, but that never happens anyways.

The kids LOVED being with family, A has a little man-crush on his uncle, well, more like a HUGE one, ha ha. He wouldn't let Uncle J out of his sight the whole time...I feel like a barely saw A the whole time! He was stinkin' hilarious while opening gifts too....he's just so picky, and has a great memory. Like when opening his new Toy Story 3 bike he said "But remember I asked santa for a Spiderman one! Not a toy story one!" ha ha....or "mom I didn't get anything I wanted from santa...all I wanted was a transformers costume" lol...after he opened 6 gifts that we're on his LIST to santa....maybe next year we'll just stick to getting him one thing, lol.

 R was super happy to play with ALL of the toys his little cousins got, and NONE of his, lol...he loved the little horsey that baby B got....he rode on it all day, it was pretty cute. Daddy loved all of his presents, which made me happy. I pride myself in being a good gift-giver, I really try and think of things that people would really enjoy, and I love to watch them open something they really wanted. Daddy also opened his birthday presents, because it was easier that way....oh, and we're still waiting to open all of the Haitsma family gifts, as some are still coming in the mail. Thats the fun with having family spread all over the globe....Christmas lasts a whole month!!!

Over the holidays we also enjoyed our 5TH WEDDING anniversary. It was wonderful. I have to say that I feel more than blessed to have married such a wonderful man. He is funny, smart, driven, ridiculously handsome...and he loves me. So he'd pretty much perfect I think, ha ha. The last 5 years have been wonderful and I'm looking forward to what is in store for us in the upcoming years....LOVE you babe!!

On a side note, we spent our anniversary night up with reuben, getting NO sleep at all...literally none...by far one of the top 3 worst nights in our marriage history. Fun, fun! ha ha...

I'll have to talk about my new years next post, because this is getting way too long, ha ha....so I'll just end with  a funny story from primary today. A new mom was introducing her son to the junior primary classes, and explaining to them that he has autism. She was talking about the similarities and differences between them and him, and she mentioned that one was talking. "Like your younger brothers and sisters at home, you know, they might not talk yet either. Thats just like A, he is just learning to talk." One child, M, blurts out "OH! My brother has autism, he doesn't talk either!" which starts a wild rampage of all children saying " oh ya, so does mine!" or "we have a baby in our house, she doesn't talk, she must have autism too!"....it was SO CUTE and hilarious!! They just associated not speaking with autism....kids say the darndest things!