Christmas Morning 2009

A Proud Pa Pa Carl What is my dad doing at our house on Christmas morning? Remember we live in Idaho and all of my family lives in Texas except for Heather. Well, on Christmas Eve after our Ralphs family party at about 10:00 p.m. my dad calls and said, "Misty did you get a package from us today?" and I said "No" and then he responded by saying, "Well, go look outside for it maybe UPS put it beside your house or at your back door" so I opened the door to see a huge package with a red bow on top sitting in my driveway. I was a bit perplexed because there was no way I could have missed something that size earlier in the day. I then saw that the package was moving, so I called Darin to the door thinking it was a prank. Darin said, "There is something alive in there!" because we could see that it was moving. I thought it might be an animal so I through my phone at it hoping it would run off. At that time we hear "Ouch! and my brother Harrison jumped out of the package and my parents jumped out from behind our big pine trees." They gave themselves to us as a gift this year. WHAT A SURPRISE!! I am so glad that my house was clean and that I had a place for them to sleep. No one wants visitors to come to their house unannounced if they are unprepared. They brought several grocery sacks full of food, so that I didn't have to worry about running to the store (45 minutes away) to feed them. Needless to say, everyone was excited and we stayed up until midnight on Christmas Eve wired from the excitement. I was happy Heather and Shane were at my house to be apart of the surprise too. We had 10 people at our house on Christmas Morning and had to open gifts in shifts because it was taking so long. We go one at a time opening presents, so we opened half of them then ate breakfast, then opened the other half after breakfast.

Elizabeth was not acting like her cheerful, spunky, little self on Christmas Morning. I knew something was wrong with her when she didn't even care about playing with the School Bus that sang "The Wheels on the Bus" her favorite song. She ran a fever all day on Christmas. The next day we took her to the doctor and they tested her for Strep. She had a bad case of Strep Throat and they gave her antibiotic injections right in the doctors office so that she would start feeling better.

I love this picture of Emily. Her face just says, "Christmas" to me. She is so excited about all of the toys around.

I couldn't get a good shot of Abigail on Christmas morning because she was moving at the speed of light from gift to gift. She got this doll house for Christmas that her barbies can actually stand up in. She also is a big fan of "As seen on TV" toys, so she got a Pillow Pet, Bendarooz, and a kids size Snuggie from Santa Claus. She must have been a really good girl in 2009.

Cousins on Christmas Eve

We had Darin's Family over on Christmas Eve for a little dinner and party. Abigail had fun with all of her little cousins. There were seven kids under the age of five the youngest being the only boy. We decided not to act out the nativity story this year and just read it out of the scriptures instead because of the ages of all of the little kids. We would have had a bunch of Marys and Angels and no Kings, Shepherds, or Joseph.


The kids ate at their own festive table.

All of the cousins in front of the Christmas Tree.

They all got to open their Christmas Pajamas before they left and put them on to listen to "The Night Before Christmas" before everyone went home.

Christmas with Heather & Shane

On Christmas day, Heather and Shane decided to make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. The finished product fit their personalities perfectly.


This is Heather's Peace, Love, and Happiness 70's Shack - She spent about 45 minutes building it from start to finish.

This is Shane's Church, House, Castle
(I don't really know what it was, but he spent 4 hours measuring and cutting each piece, so that it would be very precise.)

Heather and Shane in their matching Christmas Pajamas on Christmas Eve. HOW CUTE!!
Their p.j's said "Naughty lil' Elf" Hmmmmm

What We've Been Up To Lately

Man this time of year gets crazy. As prepared as I try to be, I still seem to be running around like a crazy woman sometimes. I wanted to post this stuff before Christmas because I am sure I will have alot to post after Christmas.

Emily recently figured out how to crawl out of her crib, so she has been impossible to get to sleep latelly. I was greatful she fell asleep in this chair watching Elmo until Darin decided to move her to her bed and she woke up. Note to self, never touch a sleeping Emily.

We attempted to decorate our Christmas tree. I was looking throught the pictures and saw that Abigail got her hands on the camera and she took this picture of the tree. I think the tree has about 10 ornaments left on it now. Every time an ornament comes off the tree, I just pack it away for the year that my kids can look and not touch.

It has been a cold and dry winter, which means alot of static electricity. Elizabeth seems to be a carrier of static because her hair frequently looks like this. Yes, she is still wearing her Halloween P.J.'s. Halloween must be her favorite holiday because everytime she sees something that is orange and black she says "pumpkin!"

We went to our ward Christmas dinner. I was pretty proud of these coordinating outfits. The girls were so cute, but of course I didn't get a good picture of them because no one would sit still long enough.

Abigail did her very first Christmas concert at her school and Santa came to the school to see the kids after the concert was over.

Abigail's dance recital was on December 19th. She did a Jazz routine to Cheetalicious Christmas

and a ballet number to Angels We have Heard on High

Her cousin Ariana takes dance from the same studio. They had fun getting ready together.

Gingerbread House

Cousins Isabella and Madeline are here for the Christmas Holiday and we had them over to play and make a gingerbread house. Six girls under the age of five plus a gingerbread house, frosting, and candy equals a big mess. Oh look, Elizabeth is wearing Halloween p.j.'s still.

Putting Christ in Christmas

Yesterday, at church we had a really good lesson in Relief Society about keeping Christ in Christmas. After all, that is what Christmas is all about. I liked a quote that the teacher gave she said, "sometimes we get caught up in the thick of thin things." She was referring to all of the shopping, Christmas cards, wrapping presents, etc. We need to focus on the beautiful gift that we were all given on that holy night, our Beautiful Savior Jesus Christ.

She also gave us this acronym for the word CHRISTMAS. I loved it.

Christ
Holy One
Redeemer
Immanuel
Son of God
Teacher
Messiah
All Mighty
Savior

Santa & Snow

On Saturday, we went to the Rockland Park to see Santa. It snowed that morning, so it was COLD!! We bundled up in our snow suits and drank hot chocolate while we waited in line. Luckily, the line wasn't too bad because not too many people were brave enough to get out in the cold to give Santa their wish lists. Last year we waited in line for 30-45 minutes. This year was only a 10 minute wait.

Daddy and Emily enjoyed hot chocolate to keep them warm.

Abigail and cousin Ariana sat on Santa's lap together. Ariana rattled off her wish list as if she had practiced all morning and Abigail was so excited to see Santa she forgot to speak. For those of you that know Abigail, she is not normally at a loss for words.

Emily only stayed on Santa's lap long enough to take the picture and then she looked at his face and decided she wanted down.

Elizabeth was frozen in line.

Who Wants A Christmas Card?

I will be sending out Christmas cards some time next week (at least that is the goal). If you would like one, please make sure that I have your address. You can leave it in the comment section of this post if you don't mind giving the whole world your address, or you can email it to me at mistyralphs@dcdi.net. Merry Christmas to all!!!

Sing Sing Sing

Elizabeth LOVES to sing these days. This video doesn't even measure up to most of her performances, but I thought it was cute anyway. I love the fact that I can actually tell what song she is singing when she bursts into song. Please excuse my voice in the background. I was trying to get her to perform for the camera. Sorry, I am so loud. I sang as softly as I could.

Happy Thanksgiving

Darin's parents recently moved to Pocatello (about 45 minutes from us) so we went to their house for Thanksgiving. I was so busy cooking and the kids were so busy playing that I didn't get many pictures, but here are the ones that I did get.
Emily is caught in the act of stealing vegetables from the vegetable tray.

The kids made these fruit turkeys for a healthy snack to help pass the time while they were waiting for lunch to be ready.

A Ralphs family traditon. The kids all stick black olives on their fingers and eat them.
Abigail and Ariana loved doing this.

Elizabeth is catching on. It took 1/2 an hour for her to get the olives on her fingers. We were pretty lucky to have her find something that occupied her for that long. Next time I need her to sit still for a while I just might have to break out the black olives.

Double Disaster

Today I gave the girls baths after Abigail got home from Kindergarten. I then got the girls dressed and sent them on their merry way to play with each other. I was rotating the laundry when I heard Elizabeth crying. I then went to the back bedroom to locate Elizabeth and that's when the smell hit me. Why was I smelling peanut butter? I found Emily who had cornered Elizabeth and she was painting Elizabeth with peanut butter. I said "No, No Emily" and she turned around and said, "Mess?" I said, "Yes, big mess!" So much for clean babies! For those of you that don't know, Abigail is highly allergic to peanuts, so I had to quarantine her to the upstairs while I cleaned up the mess and bathed the twins for a second time in two hours. After I cleaned the mess, I went to investigate how Emily got the peanut butter. She had pushed a chair up to the counter, climbed on the counter top and got the peanut butter off of the second to highest shelf in the cupboard. I am not sure what was running through her head when she did this I guess she was thinking, "Hummm, what should I do today. I know! I think I will style my sister's hair with peanut butter! What a great idea!" If I could only get into the heads of my toddler twins, my life would be much easier.


Elizabeth's new hairstyle

The Culprit caught peanut-handed Emily Celia Ralphs

Thanks Pa Pa

Abigail was so excited to win her Looney Tunes shirt. Pa Pa Carl sponsored her school by ordering some magazines and Abigail in turn won a T-Shirt. She felt pretty special when she got it at school and when she got home she immediately changed into it.

The Next Survivor Series

I am sure some of you have heard this because it is one of those "forward emails" going around, but I thought it was pretty funny, so I decided to post it on my blog. It is definately worth the read.

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes. There is no fast food. Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time--no Emailing. Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the A & E. He must also make biscuits or cakes for a social function. Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times. The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.

The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewellery,wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed. During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting. They will need to read a book to the kids each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them,brush their teeth and comb their hair by 8:00 am.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labour, each child's favourite colour, middle name, favourite snack, favourite song, favourite drink, favourite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

All the above must be completed whilst working in either full time (preferably) or part time employment to assist in the financial input for the family. The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice. If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right To be called ‘MOM’!

Misty's Note: I think this would be really funny to watch. I think they should add in the requirements that the dad has to stay calm, cool, and collected at all times. I guess according to this list, I'm still trying to earn the right to be called "mom." Pretty Funny though.

Extreme Makeover Car Edidion

So, 2009 has brought along alot of adversity for us. I am not going to bore all of our blog readers with the telling everyone about all of the trials that we have gone through this year, but I can definitely say that 2009 has been the most challenging year for our family since Darin and I have been married. One of those challenges has been with our family mode of transportation. We started out the year with our Ford Excursion, which was a great car except for the gas mileage. When Darin lost his job, we decided to sell the car for what we owed on the loan. We were very lucky that we found a person to take it. We then bought a Saturn (for one day). We got the car home and it had some major problems, so luckily the dealership took it back because they had misrepresented some things when it came to the sale of the car. That could have turned into a court battle, so we are lucky it didn't. We then purchased the 1986 Station Wagon that is pictured from Darin's Uncle for $200.00. We had no car and needed one desperately, so this is what we resorted to. After we got our Tax Return, we did a little car shopping and decided to purchase a 1999 Suburban with our Tax return money because we felt like we couldn't handle a car payment in our current financial situation. We felt really good about our purchase, the Suburban ran well, was clean, etc. Well, we drove it for four months and it started giving us LOTS of problems. After taking it to three different mechanics and having Shane (Heather's husband) look at it and spending way too much money on a car that old, we still don't know what is wrong with the Suburban except for sometimes it starts and sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it drives and sometimes it doesn't. We were at our wits end with our Car Troubles, so we did some more research and decided that we needed to purchase a used but new to us Toyota Sienna Minivan. Yesterday, we drove down to Utah (they had better prices) and bit the bullet and purchased a minivan with our savings. I think it will be a good car for us and it better last a really long time. At least I don't have people staring at me as I drive down the road now (not that I cared too much when we were driving the station wagon). So here it is in all it's glory. I never thought that I would ever drive a mini van, but I think it fits our family perfect. I would also like to recommend Consumer Reports when it comes to buying almost anything. They gave the ratings for any and all cars made in the past 10 years and the Sienna was #1 for minivans.

Halloween 2009

We started out the day with a special Halloween lunch.

We got dressed for trick-or-treating. Elizabeth - Pumpkin, Emily - Kitty Cat

Before we went trick-or-treating we had to dance to Michael Jackson's thriller. Abigail made a pretty scary witch.

Our first stop. I am so glad it is safe to trick-or-treat in the town we live in. Abigail got to her kindergarten teacher's house and said, "trick-or-treat. I have to go potty!" I felt totally comfortable letting her go inside to use the restroom. We didn't trick-or-treat long because it was cold and windy, but I think it was a sufficient amount of time for three little ones.