Christmas Morning

I love how expressive my kids are. They are so fun to photograph. I think it's because...

1. They are GORGEOUS!  

2. They are so used to mom's camera in their faces they don't even acknowledge it anymore, in fact they   

    may be under the assumption that it's attached to me in some way.

3. Well, I'll just let these snaps speak for themselves, enjoy...

Yeah baby! Easy Bake Oven... HOLLA!

OK... how stoked is he! LEGO'S. I was stoked too. Secretly this was a gift for me too

XBOX 360!!

We were pretty dog gone proud of our first motorbike we constructed

And this was the scene in my family room for the remainder of winter break

Christmas 2010

Here's a few snaps from Christmas Eve at my Aunt's House

Baby Madison and Bailee grinnin at each other

Oooh... can't beat the Bokeh from my 50mm 

Entertaining Baby Maddy... I'm not sure who was more entertained

Playing barbies with Uncle Chris

Christmas Day 2009

Nerf...thanks for the memories.

This Christmas morning was brought to you by the makers of Starbuck's Coffee

Christmas day in the Burtnett house was a good one. Woke up around 7am grabbed some coffee and stumbled upstairs to watch our kiddo's open up their gifts. The Kimmel family came over later that day for Christmas dinner, some Titan football and a raging game of dart tag. Ann and I got pinned down in the bathroom while Bailee and Inessa tried unsuccessfully to distract our enemies. Good times.

Merry Christmas

Kolby's surprise. He's one happy boy!

From Me to You

Merry Christmas from all of us. Here's some cookies I made for all of you. Enjoy!

Stress

About 36 hours ago I was peaceful and blissful. I was discussing with my friend Ann how stressful the holidays can be for "some" people and how ironic that is. It is, after all, supposed to be a time to reflect on the year and Christ's birth, spend some quality time with the fam and just relax and enjoy the pretty sparkly lights and eat some medicinal pie...right? I was sitting back revelling in the fact that I had a quiet Christmas planned this year and laughing at all the poor shlubs who were wearing themselves out shopping and cooking and entertaining.

I'm not laughing anymore! At about 11pm last night it all began to sink in. By 6am this morning I had formed a list of things to do that would make Santa tired. How did this happen?!! Steve and I were up until midnight discussing all the details of this Christmas. Literally, almost every minute is scheduled out. At one point we both stopped and looked at each other and decided that next year we are outta here! We are hightailing it outta town. We are literally going to RUN away from Christmas next year.

Isn't it so stupid? Did you know that Christmas is when heart attacks and suicide rates are at their highest? Why? I don't think this is what God had in mind. How do we as Christian's refocus and quiet ourselves? How do we avoid the chaos? I'm all for decorating(clearly), baking, gifting, etc but how do we avoid all the other "stuff"? Maybe by next year I'll have the answers to those questions and I can have the peaceful Christmas I long for.

Well, I gotta go...fast!

Christmas Parade

Today was the Christmas Parade. The Kimmel's and us went down and found a nice cozy spot right in front of Starbucks (I'm a genius I know). Steve was riding in the new engine this year that was carrying the man himself, Santa! We opted out of riding in the truck so we could collect as much candy as much as possible. This year Darth Vader and the cast of Star Wars were there. When the boys spotted them in the distance you would have thought that some major rockstar was headed our way. It was so fun. Cold, but fun.

My Christmas Tree

I love my christmas tree this year. This is my fancy living room tree. It makes me so happy just to sit and look at it. I have a family tree upstairs in the family room and it's loaded with all kinds of hand crafted ornaments that my children made over the years and some sentimental ones that I've collected. But my downstairs tree is so "grown-up" with all it's silver and aqua blue ornaments. I thought I'd show you all, mostly because I wanted an excuse to take some pics with my new camera.