Merry Christmas to all . . .

Our family Christmas was exciting. We eagerly awaited our last gift from our Secret Santa (we got a bucket meal from KFC) Thanks to the generosity of so many we have a full refridgerator.

Santa actually got everything wrapped and Mom got everything made before Christmas Eve so Dad and I retired early. Saree had other plans for us, however. She has a little cold and at night will often cough a little. This night she coughed for what seemed like ever and then had to get in bed between Dad and I. The only one that got any sleep was Jaycie.

We woke up to quite a bit of new snow and it continued to snow off and on throughout the day. We then had a great Christmas dinner. I had asked for, and received, an air popcorn popper and we popped some corn and watched a movie, sort of. Jaycie loved her gifts so much that she just wanted to continue changing in and out of her new princess dresses, shoes, necklaces, and tiaras. They both like to color, paint, and stamp and I find myself constantly putting it all away.

We plan on going swimming today. I'm not sure I really want to but the girls seem to be really enthusiastic about it, and Jim just wants to get out of the house. I just want to curl up with a book for a while.

I hope everyone's Christmas was as wonderful as ours was. Love to all.

The Hillsteads

Popcorn Popping . . .

Today was the Christmas program, the one I had to play the flute in. Everything went well, I did make a couple of small mistakes, but I don't think anyone noticed. Saree looked so cute in her fancy little dress, I'm bummed that I didn't get pictures of Jaycie in hers before it got destroyed. I'm just going to let you all know now - NEVER buy a dress with tulle on it for a 4 year old. It won't survive the first wearing. We did find something else for her to wear that was "Christmassy" though.

We're still getting presents from our Secret Santa. Last night they brought 1 qt of chocolate milk and 1 qt of egg nog - ock milk - as Jaycie calls it. We're eagerly awaiting the next drop off which should happen any time now. As we are waiting Jaycie and Saree are playing with play-do and Jaycie is singing Popcorn Popping on the Ackipot Tree. I had to laugh.

We got three invitations for Christmas this year. We will be spending Christmas Eve with the Pardington family and Christmas day with the Lenier family. Some may know their daughter (she knows Dad and Shane) anyway.

We feel really blessed to have so many people that are taking an interest in us and in our welfare. And I'm glad that we have been making so many friends.

Merry Christmas to you all. We love you and miss you.

Jim, Regan, Jaycie, and Saree

Christmas cookies

We started making Christmas cookies the other day. I started with the peanut butter cup cookies, we made those too soon though cuz we ate them all. Now we have the pretzel treats (so easy) they taste like chocolate covered pretzels without the mess. The girls like to help :). Jaycie's idea of help with the peanut butter cup cookies was to lick all the chocolate off of about 12 of the cookies. I let them unwrap all of the kisses for the cookies and the pretzels. They did pretty good. I still had to really watch them though. Saree seemed to think she should be able to eat one or two for every one that got put in the bowl.

This Christmas season has seen us at the receiving end of a lot of kindness. We have a Secret Santa, that has been fun. The girls race to the door to check if Santa has come several times a day. (If the cat is ever out of the bag we're going to have a little chat about the 4 WHISTLES though). We also had someone give us a tree - I had mentioned we had decided against one this year for various reasons. Sure enough one was dropped off. Jim then went into work and checked in his in box to find a card with $100 dollars in it. It's been very humbling, the Lord does answer prayers, it's just hard when you know that there are people in town that have a whole lot less than we do. We feel kind of bad thinking that someone else might not get anything at all when we are being given so much.

Jim and I both have 2 weeks off now. I'm not sure what our plans are for activities, but I know we aren't going to just stay home (unless we get more snow). It snowed here the last couple of days. The first day saw about 8 inches - snow day at the school. I found it somewhat humorous considering that school hardly ever got called for that paltry amount in Montana. It does look like a white Christmas this year though.

Next week brings my first Mammogram (can't tell you how not excited I am about that one). I also will be having a complete blood work up. So I'm sure I'm going to hear that I have high cholesterol (thanks Mom & Dad).

Jim's Contribution

I thought I'd better get on this blog and add a few things for the guys. The pictures of the kids are good and everything, but some guy stuff is good once in awhile. We went for a drive today (Sunday 12-7-08) and saw this nice buck laying down about 20 feet from the fence line. Of course Regan is the only one that can shoot it. And of course it's with her camera.

Regan and I went to a Christmas dinner on Saturday night. We got one of my students to babysit for us. When we got home at about 9:45 both girls were zonked out on the couch and this is how we found them.