Christmas Morning - Part 2

We had a great Christmas this year.

Emma enjoyed the wrapping paper, boxes and tags on all her gifts.

Shane and I built a super-sized train table for Jake this year. He LOVED it so much that he wasn't too interested in opening the rest of his gifts.

Sara couldn't decide what she wanted for Christmas so Shane and I told Santa to bring her a MP3 player. It was the best gift she never asked for.

Jared loves shooting his airsoft guns and asked for a new gun and a pumpkin to shoot. He got a pellet gun and since Santa was out of pumpkins he got a watermelon instead.

Christmas Morning - Part 1

All dressed up and ready for church

Christmas Surprises

Surprise!!!! Baby Brunson #4 is on the way. I'm pregnant, due June 24, 2011.

Christmas

We had a nice quiet Christmas this year. The kids were so excited and couldn't wait to open their gifts!

Our kids love to look thu the "toy books" that come in the mail and circle all the things they want for Christmas. This year on the cover of the Target Toy Book there was a girl wearing her mom's high heeled shoes. Serenity looked and looked through the book to find the shoes. That's what she wanted for Christmas. (we found a pair at the DI) so shiny and beautiful!

Gingerbread House Contest

The Ludlow's stopped by our house over the weekend. We had a gingerbread making contest while they were here. There was a silent vote and Serenity won.
Serenity

Jared

Robert

Elizabeth

Christmas Lights and Candy Canes

One of our new Christmas traditions is going to Logan's Candies and watching them make candy canes. They have the best tasting candy canes, so we always end up getting some for our stockings. This year my parents, Mark & Robert (my brothers), Elizabeth (my sister) and Zack & Shaunna (my brother & sister-in-law) came along with us. We were so excited to have family spending the Christmas holiday with us.

Another tradition is going to see the Christmas lights on Thoroughbred in Rancho Cucamonga.

Disneyland

Thursday night we took the kids to Disneyland... it didn't turn out to be the adventure we hoped for. We got a late start, we hit traffic, the park was crowded, then we went on the Matterhorn and Serenity got "dizzy". Shane and I thought she was joking around when she got off the ride and couldn't walk straight and said, "I'm dizzy". A few minutes later she threw-up down Shane's back! So we called it a night and went home.

Trying to Find a Tree

After helping grandma cut down her Christmas tree in Utah the kids could hardly wait for Shane to get back on Saturday so we could go cut down our own. We headed over to the tree farm on Saturday afternoon and sadly to our surprise, in Southern California the Christmas tree farms only grow Cyprus trees (whose branches they trim into the shape of Christmas trees). Not exactly what we had in mind. It's just not Christmas at our house without a Noble Fir, so we headed over to the local hardware store to pick out a pre-cut tree shipped from Oregon (our usual pick). Change of plans again ....we ended up just buying a fake tree instead. I guess I'm just going to have to buy a pine-scented candle this year instead!

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Here are the kids at the tree farm, pretending to ski.

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Here's the new "real-looking" fake tree.

A Dark and Windy Christmas

It seemed more like a spooky Halloween night, than Christmas morning at our house. A huge windstorm blew in early Christmas morning and took out our power at about 6:00am. Jared was up about 7:00 and anxious to open presents. We tried to get him to wait until there was enough light to see what we were opening, but he just couldn't resist.

Making Gingerbread Houses

What do you get when you give 20 second graders graham crackers, frosting and lots and lots of candy? 20 deliciously messy kids with belly aches. Here are some pics from Jared's second grade gingerbread house party.

Getting Ready for Christmas

We're very excited that Christmas is almost here. We've been keeping busy and doing some fun things this Christmas season. Jared had fun going to the elderly home with the cub scouts last week. They all read Christmas stories to the residents and passed out gingerbread cookies that Jared and I made earlier that week. A few nights before that we drove up to Crestline and watched the Geminids meteor shower. We bundled up in our sleeping bags and still froze. We only stayed out for an hour, Jared saw 14 meteors (shooting stars) before he got too cold and fell asleep. Shane and I saw at least twice that. Last night we went to Logan's Candies and watched them make handmade candy canes. We all thought it was great and the free sample was yummy!

Jared Decorated our Tree all by Himself!