Bart & Rachel Wiltbank Family

Sunday, December 28, 2008

To start off the Christmas season, Stephenie Haycock, Valerie Price and I made tamale. We made over 400 of those little suckers! I guess we figured that wasn't enough of the mass cooking projects so we decided to do Chocolates too. We made so many dozens we couldn't even count. It was a lot of fun visiting, eating and listing to Christmas music. Our daughters joined in, whether they wanted to or not. They all were equally embarrassed by their mothers when we started to show them how to disco dance and do the 'Hustle'. That was after about 8 hours of working with tamales and we were completely exhausted and out of our minds!

This isn't Lucy's Chocolate factory!

Monday, December 1, 2008

Our little Tradition

Ever since we shared our first Christmas together, it seems like Bart and I started these little traditions. Kind of quirky but they have come to mean a lot to us and our kids. We started our first Christmas with putting all the Christmas lights on the floor, usually the end of November and we would dance to Christmas music. All of our kids loved doing this especially when they were toddlers. It seemed to get a little bigger each year and now has evolved into my family coming over and being made to dance...willingly, RIGHT? This year they came over on Thanksgiving night and we made popcorn balls and danced with sticky little hands.
The first year we had Landon, I thought I would make homemade ornaments for each year. I made a little family of bears. The next year the heads were broken off. Well Macie came along and her first ornament was a baby wrapped up in a pink blanket. I made it out of salt dough. I was going to put little black beads in for the eyes. I made holes and never got around to putting the beads in so we pull out this "eyeless" baby every year. I told Macie that maybe this was the year I would put the eyes in. She said "No you can't do that, I want to show my kids and have them ask me why the baby doesn't have eyes, and I'll tell them it never did." Can you believe that? The following year I cut these cute little wooden ornaments out and painstakingly painted for a week on these dumb...or I mean wonderful hand made creations. So much for homemade, the year after that I went and bought them at the store. Every year when we take them out or put them away, it involves some kind of super gluing so when I buy the ornaments I also purchase super glue. I usually keep the broken ones out, to fix, before storing. They get fixed in July. The kids have ended up with more than one for each year cuz it's so hard to pick just one when there are so many cute ones to choose from. I also have bought expensive Hallmark ones but they cost so much it limits the presents under the tree. So I usually buy them for "Special times", like once in their life time. Jaxten just can't seem to get why everyone else has more than him. He ends up in tears.
We have so many of these little treasures that they now have their very own tree. Yes, we have 2 trees in our small house. One to look pretty and the family ornament one. I do enjoy looking at all the different ornaments. They usually have a theme each year.
I thought it would be such a neat thing for the kids to take with them for their own Christmases. They probably will marry someone that will say "You're not putting those ugly ornaments on my tree!" Just my luck! I know Macie will want hers. She asked me "Mom, you'll still buy us ornaments after we don't live at home, won't you?" I said "No dear, I won't buy them, they will be hand made." NOT!