The Christmas Story

They look ready to sit and listen to the story!

The olders trying to make it pretty.

And a little one playing down set hike with Joseph!

Peace on Earth!

After dinner we read the Christmas story from the bible, while letting the kids act it out w/ our nativity set. While I had visions of this being such a sweet, religious family tradition, it was more like, well, not like that! Instead of hark the herald we heard hey, its my turn, or throwing the stars of the show like Baby Jesus, or well, I am sure you can imagine when have 2 3 year olds involved what it might be like. Which does not sit well with the olders who take this stuff seriously. But hey, we tried and hopefully next year certain children will get that throwing Mary & Joseph is not really a nice thing to do. hehe!

Giving Gifts

Sawyer is so much fun to buy for, he always gets SO excited!
Malaine has had her eye on this doll for a long time, good pick Sawyer!

Makenna very excited about her jewelry chosen by Mavery. (or mom!)

These 2 are hilarious! So close and so sweet!

Mavery got a pair of dress up shoes from Sage & I hope I can get the video up of her walking in them with her mini skirt on. It is the most hilarious site!

Sage is so intent when looking at things, really studies it. Makenna found Mermaid Potato Head!

They all loved Malaines gift to Sawyer!

When you have as many kids as we do, this is an easy tradition! We let the kids draw a name of a sibling secretly, earlier this month. Then we visit the local dollar store one at a time and they choose something for that sibling. They put so much thought into finding the perfect gift (choices are limited at this store, and I am amazed how they think) wrapping it up, keeping it a secret etc.. I tried to take Sage shopping for Mavery which did not work out so well since Sage wanted it all for HER. Overall I was proud of all of them at how thankful and sweet they were to each other.

And Finally, Dessert!

I asked Sage if she liked her pie and this is what I got
That means it is yum!

Mavery decided a fork was just not getting it in fast enough, and she was teaching her big sister bad things as you can see!

Making sure to get every tiny bit of it! Notice the half buttoned up shirt. This added to the mini skirt and high heels earlier. She looked like a Happy, oh nevermind, we ARE G rated here! ;-)

So it was another fun dinner, alot of work and it took me forever to clean it all up, but worth it! Now, on to the real fun!

A visit with Santa

Sage has told us over and over, she is not going to see Santa. So when we went to a light display and Santa was there, she spent part of the line crying she was not going to see him. Then she saw he was passing out candy canes if you went up. So that was enough motivation for her, she would see anyone for candy. It was quite comical, one of those, "I don't want to see Santa, Santa has candy canes? Ok". Not sure how Mavery would do, and as you can see, she was not going to let Mark put her down. But we were just happy that she allowed him to stand close. She says ho ho ho anytime she sees a santa. When asked what they wanted for Christmas, Sage was first to yell out a candy cane. The other kids all froze up and the pressure was to much, so they all repeated candy canes. Looks like Santa has a light load for our house this year! Oh and pink boots, Sage is insisting that Santa is bringing her pink boots. He was a cute jolly Santa!

I am not a typical sugar cookie making mom. So much work, so much mess. How about just chocolate chip or slice and bake? But after our Christmas play where we had the best cookies ever made by a lady in our church, who passed out the recipe, the kids insisted. So we made them and were pretty excited that they turned out as tasty as they did! And yes it was messy, but worth it. We did this during nap time though for the little ones, I am not that brave. (or crazy) We actually made 2 batches. The first ones last week were gone quickly. I missed getting a picture of Sawyer & Malaine, they are usually done pretty quickly. Makenna, our little artist, spent alot of time on details!

Sawyers belt changes color!

We are happy that Sawyer has now earned his orange belt in karate. And happy that they don't make mom dye the belt this time! Sawyer has taken karate like he does everything. A whatever type of attitude. If I get a new belt great, if I stay the same, great. If mom accidentally turns my outfit slightly pink, whatever. I am thankful he has stayed with it and hope that his orange belt will motivate him. We are proud of you Sawyer! Black belt here we come! Ok, how about we just settle for green! ;-)

Oh Christmas Cards Oh Christmas Cards..

I have finally mailed out my cards, and still have a ton left because I ordered them in bulk because it was cheaper through the printer I used. So, if you want to exchange cards, I would love to! I will even throw in our adoption card that my brother in law made along with our long winded boring family Christmas letter! ;-) I love getting cards! Even if they might be late at this point, our family is planning to do a prayer basket of our Christmas cards for the next year, so we would love to include you in that! Just email me shannonlaxton@gmail.com

Hope every ones house is as full of sugar and excitement as ours is!

I love you to the Moon

Having fun in their birthday gifts from Monte!

Mavery LOVES raspberries.She and Sage can do this forever!

My turn, haha, that tickles!

Cute girls in cute outfits, thanks Shannon!

There are times I worry about the little girls. Mavery is CRAZY about Sage. Sage on the other hand, well, how do I say it. Lets say she tolerates Mavery, but there are times you can tell she gives her this look like, why are you here and when are you leaving? But right when I start to worry, they do something so stinken cute that I can hardly stand it and I KNOW that they are growing closer and closer every day. I myself never had a sister, I am so thankful that I get to watch these relationships between all my girls.

As we were coming home in the car last week I hear this..

Sage: Mavery, I love you to the moon and back!

Mavery: I uv u Sagey to moon!

How sweet is that!

They are sure to give each other hugs and kisses before bedtime and while it is usually Mavery who is the most excited to get up and go get Sage, Sage is returning the excitement now. They light up when they see each other and always know where the other is. If one gets a piece of candy, she is sure to get one for the other.

One day they were doing flips off the couch, Mavery following Sage of course. Mavery was going and Sage was behind her and pulled her pants right off of her. Mavery thought this was HILARIOUS! They both got the giggles and suddenly took off running into our room and Sage tossed the pants into Maverys crib, which had us all rolling in laughter. We have all laughed so much in the last 2 months, life is fun!

Of course, life is trying to. Trying to go anywhere has me sweating. You get a coat on #1, move on to #2. By the time you are done catching that one, wrestling into her coat and ready to go, I look around and all I see is a coat. An empty coat, with out child #1 in it and she is nowhere to be seen. The one who understands english well, does not listen well. The one who listens fair, only speaks english fair. And that is only the youngest 2. Thankfully the older 3 are easier. Well sometimes that is! ;0) We have decided going anywhere and leaving anywhere is the hardest part of having 2 this age. There are many hard things, but that is when we get the most stressed. Believe me though, we get stressed, ALOT. Someone said today, just think, in 10 years it will be so much easier. 10 YEARS! I was counting on 10 more months it would be easier! I am trying to convince Mark we need a trip to Disney in the future. Tonight as we were trying to get out of church he looked at me and said there is NO WAY I am taking these 2 to Disney with in the next few years unless alot changes! hehe!

Our family was able to take part in the Christmas musical at our church this weekend. I am hoping we can get a video clip of it to show you. All day Sage has asked, when do I get to go back up on the stage? As we walked off the stage tonight, Sage is saying, I want to do that again, mom, again! And all the way home that is what we heard. When do I get to go on stage again? So it seems we may have quite the performer on our hands. As if that would surprise anyone that knows her!

Maverys Appointment is Scheduled

Cross posting from Maverys blog. If you want to see pictures, you have to go there because I am to lazy to upload on both!
I spoke with St Louis Childrens Hospital today and we have Maverys heart catheterization scheduled. It will be on Monday January 5th. We are to arrive at 7am and the procedure will begin at 8:30. I was told to prepare to be there for an overnight stay. Ugh. We will spend the day there on the 2nd for pre testing. More xrays, ultrasounds, etc. They said it will take awhile because they do not have good records of her previous surgery.
The good thing, we get a chinese translator. I am not sure how helpful it will be, but we, and the hospital, think it can not hurt to try. It is a service they provide there, so they suggested we use it. To bad they don't offer free parents spa services once they take your children away from you, I most certainly would take advantage of that! Or could they just drug me when they drug Mavery and wake me up with her? That would work to.
I am honestly at a loss for words today. I know, shocking. I just don't like the words overnight stay. It is supposed to be no big deal. No big deal is going in early and being home by lunchtime. Sigh...

Malaine has been having fun at school. She had to decorate a gingerbread man and take it in. We of course made a girl and I think she turned out pretty cute!

She also had her Christmas program on Friday. She was very sweet and cute. Much cuter than the 2 little ones sitting with me that I had to keep entertained through it. I was reminded of why I barely leave the house! ;-) Actually they did not do that bad, thanks to a stockpile of suckers from Grammy.

This weekend we all get to be involved in the Christmas Program at our church. Lets hope the children cooperate. I have my doubts about certain ones. hehe!

Check out Maverys hair on her blog, so funny!

Picture Fun

Over Thanksgiving Marks brother took some pictures for us to use for Christmas cards. Along with Sage & Maverys 3 year old photo shoot. Getting 5 children to cooperate is always a challenge, but thankfully Brett is patient, and fast! I can't wait to post the cards he made for me, but want to get them out in the mail before I show them here. ;0)

Princess Party Birthday Bash

We sure had fun on Saturday as we celebrated our two littlest princesses. It was a Royal Ball for sure! ;-)

I think the cake turned out adorable, I had found directions online to make one but decided me attempting to make a cake and get a party ready for 100 guests was out of the question. I ordered the candles online after seeing them in many China pictures, but not able to find them while there. It was a hit and we will never forget the smoke alarm going off while we sang Happy Birthday!

We had a true princess there, which the girls enjoyed her "sparkly" face painting! I tried hard to get Esther to come and be Princess Mulan but she could not get away. The kids made a crown & candy necklaces and were all just cute in their princess costumes. My mom made Sage & Maverys dresses which were so pretty and princessy!

Makenna and Malaine were thrilled that Megan and Shannon took them to Libby Lu that morning to use their birthday gift cards. They came back with bags and bags of things as they are going out of business, just an FYI. They were all dressed up and ready to party upon their return.

Megan & her sisters helped make lots of signs and helped my mom and I in decorating, which was a huge help and I really appreciate it!

We feasted on Royal Club Sandwiches, Palace Pups(lil smokies) chips and court jesters dip, and Marvelous Mac & Cheese! Oh and we can't forget the pink princess punch. Or the chocolate dipped fortune cookies.

There are lots more pictures on my flickr account, which you can get to through Maverys blog. One of these days I am going to add a badge on this blog along with cleaning up the sidebars. One of these days...

Sage & Mavery had a ball and have had fun playing with all their new toys. It was funny while opening the MOUNTAIN of presents, Mavery was SO excited about the clothes! She would grab on to each outfit and yell MINE! I think she is enjoying all this girly girl stuff in place of the boy clothes! They were very excited to open NEW phones. You know, the china phones. How my friend has been able to find them has amazed me! And they are also enjoying playing in their Rose Petal Cottage.

Nothing we ever do is small, Mark always complains that he married into the Big Fat Greek Wedding Family with our celebrations. But hey, you only come home from china ONCE and only turn 3 with your new sister for the first time once so it was a BIG reason to celebrate in a BIG Way!

But I am glad it is over and glad we do not have any more kids birthdays in this house for a very long time! ;0)