A Great Day...

I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas! Fletcher spent the night with us on Christmas Eve and all of us woke up under the same roof! How great is that? Some friends brought us Christmas dinner so I didn't have to cook! That was pretty great as well! They brought more yummy food than we could eat! Craig's parents and his sister's family came over to spend the day with us! Santa brought Kayleigh Guitar Hero 3 and it proved to be the highlight of the day with everyone joining in on the fun! Maddie got the wooden dollhouse she wanted and she spent quite a while playing with it in her room. Fletcher received some books and a portable DVD player. He's never watched TV before but one of his friends, Andrew has a little DVD player and he watches home videos, isn't that a great idea! I thought it might be fun to have Kayleigh and Maddie make some videos for Fletcher. I'll let you know how that works out! We truly had a wonderful time being together. Fletcher did really well and slept most of the night. Craig and I were exhausted though! It is a lot of work taking care of him. We brought home 20 different bottles of medicine and 3 different kinds of breathing treatments! Craig spent about 2 hours getting all of the medicine ready. WOW! I have posted a few pictures, the first one is of the kids in their Christmas pj's, Fletcher was not wanting his picture taken and this is the best one out of three. Oh well! The second picture is our brother in law Rodney and Craig taking their turn at Guitar Hero! It was hilarious watching these two tall, big men play this game! Look how little the guitars look! All in all it was a fabulous day. I now have a birthday party to plan! Fletcher will be three on Sunday, so we are having a party at TCC. I'll fill you in on that one later!

Maddie, Fletcher & Kayleigh Christmas Eve 2007

Silly boys!

Annual Milgrim Family Christmas Party

Last night my side of the family, the Milgrim's, had our family Christmas party. We have 23 grandchildren so many years ago they started drawing names just like we did as children. As our families have grown, instead of making each kid wait until the person who drew their name arrived at my parent’s house on Christmas day, we started having a Christmas party. We invited Santa and he would bring the gifts and pass them out to each child. This was also an opportunity to have your picture taken with Santa. It is always lots of fun to get together with my family. We love each other and we love to make each other laugh, a lot!

My niece, Amber has taken on the role of event planner and does such a great job. For this party she planned games and the kids decorated sugar cookies. She also put together little goodie boxes for each family! Amber is very sweet and thoughtful and we’re so thankful that she’s willing to plan these wonderful parties for us! Last year Amber had the fabulous idea of bringing the party to TCC so Fletcher could be apart of the fun! Well, yesterday afternoon it started to snow, right after it had been sleeting. So, the road conditions weren’t the best but everyone made it to the party! I really appreciated everyone traveling to TCC even though the roads we bad! They’re the best! Fletcher attended the party for about two hours and did really well. He enjoyed watching all the kids play. I think he had a great time with all of his cousins, aunts and uncles and of course Grandma Jill!

Amber, event planner extraordinaire!

Garrett, Kyle & Kaleb

Ryan, Craig & Fletcher

The gang waiting for Santa!

Kayleigh

Marcos, Sylvia, Cynthia & Carmen with Santa!

Kayleigh, Maddie, Fletcher & Santa!

Merry Christmas!

Well, here's the ONE picture where Fletcher smiled! He was quite a toot through the whole picture taking process! There is also a color version which we used for our Christmas cards. I liked the black and white and Craig and the girls liked the color version, so they out numbered me this time! But, this is MY blog so I will share the black and white one with you all! :)



Here is a picture of the way Fletcher acted through the whole process. This one being the worst, look at him, he's so mad he's trying to hit me! Like I said he was being a toot!

Maddie's Christmas program

This morning Maddie and all her friends at church put on their annual Christmas program. Maddie had about four lines and remembered each one and said them when she was supposed too! We were really proud of her! Maddie played a girl named Maria and her first line was 'Hola, Pablo!' It was pretty hysterical! She wore a pink fleece poncho (with lots of static electricity!) I think the poncho was her favorite part of the whole process! The director of the play very graciously let Maddie have the poncho, she wanted to sleep in it today during her nap!

Twelve Days of Christmas...

Okay, so it's time for a more upbeat post! Christmas is just around the corner and we are getting ready. I finished my shopping today! Boy does that feel great! Just a few more packages to wrap and stockings to stuff and we'll be all ready. Kayleigh's grandparents and her Aunt Jackie put together Twelve Days of Christmas for us. We started opening presents on December 13th and we will get to open one gift each night until Christmas Eve. Can you imagine the thought and preparation that went into making this happen for our family? Monna, Pops and Aunt Jackie are so thoughtful and we're so grateful to them for helping us make time each evening to spend with each other!

I have several blog friends who have posted pictures of their Christmas trees so I thought I'd like to do the same thing. Last year I found a seven and a half foot pre-lit tree on clearance for forty bucks! It is gorgeous. It was fast and easy to put up, too! Growing up my family always had a 'real' tree. After Craig and I were married we purchased a fake tree, much to my chagrin. But I quickly fell in love with that tree when I didn't have to water it, vacuum dead needles, and received NO bloody scratches upon taking it down! I'll never go back to the real thing! I have slowly converted a few of my sisters to go the 'fake' route also. I believe they're convinced!

We are planning to bring Fletcher home on Christmas Eve for an overnight stay. We're very excited to have him for a whole night. I can't think of anything I'd love more than to have all three of my children waking up in our home on Christmas morning!