The Christmas Story

Happy ending to our Christmas Story! A surprise Christmas gift from Nana & Papa-- Chris was able to fly up to Northern CA to spend Christmas with the rest of the family! (It was a difficult flight Christmas Eve, with bad weather everywhere, delaying planes right and left. He arrived at my sister's house at about 1am that night-- well, actually Christmas morning. I told the boys that Santa flew daddy in on his sleigh!) But it was worth it for us all to be together!

We spent the first half of Christmas week with Aunt Syl and Uncle Ted, in Auburn. And from Christmas Eve to when we left on the 27th, we spent at my sister and her family's house in Rocklin. It was a whirlwind of a week, but it was great fun. The boys were SO good on the drive up and back-- thank goodness for portable DVD players! And, we had just about no traffic at all-- not even through LA really.

We got to go hiking (once the rains cleared); shopping; played with the pets; all of the 7 kids got to play together on Christmas Day; eating and more eating. I think the boys had enough sugar to store up for the next year!

And then, back to work for both Chris and me on Monday the 29th. His new job is going well so far. A much slower pace than what he was used to; much cleaner; and an overall nice change for him. I think he's liking it so far.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Clean-up Time

After a long hard day, it was clean up time! The older ones had fun playing in the tub with Auntie Kristi as their personal stylist. The younger ones got all cuddled in their jammies after their bath. And then, it was tattoo time!

Animal Lovers

Sophie and "Tinker," the new pup, really enjoyed all the company in town. We even went for a walk and ran into a nice horse to pet.

The busy, hussle, bussle of the holidays!

Mery Christmas everyone!

BOYS!

The boys sure had fun together!

Good Times!

Family!

What did Santa Bring?

Santa filled the stockings to the brim! And left 4 neatly piled goods for the four Derby/Tibbetts kids under the tree (around the room). Baby dolls, scooters, guitars, car tracks, puzzles, books, games, and LOTS more! It was a blast and a whirlwind of wrapping paper and camera flashes! We had a nice bagel breakfast and enjoyed each others company.

What Else Did Santa Bring?

All kinds of fun stuff!

A little Outdoor Fun

Santa ALSO bought the boys an automatic pitching machine. We all had great fun with that! Tustin liked to run the machine. Rose like to help collect the balls to put them back in the machine, but every time she bent down to pick another up, she dropped a few others! Jack hit a couple of sluggers all by himself!

Snow Day

On Friday, the 26th, we drove up the road to play in the snow. We went sledding in a perfect little spot with no one around us. Of course, being from Sunny SD, we didn't have the appropriate snow gear, so every 15 minutes the boys would start to get fussy about cold feet, wet/cold mittens, etc. So, we'd sit in the car for a few minutes and get warmed up, and get the mittens dried out!

The Whole Family

Great Big Muscles!

Proud Mommy!

Keegan was SO excited to bring something home to me from preschool on Monday. He wrote his name ALL BY HIMSELF (so he claims, this one looks a little bit neater than the ones he has done for me in the past); and he cut out a T-Rex for me, all by himself, which I certainly believe that one!

The GRINCH!

All dressed up, with somewhere to go! Whoville and Mount Crumpet to be exact. Mommy and Daddy took Keegan to see the Old Globe's rendition of The Grinch last weekend. Keegan really loved it! (We all did, it was great!) He has never seen a play before, and didn't really know what to expect. When we were in our seats waiting, he kept asking, "Is the movie screen behind that big curtain?" And then once he got the hang of it, and there were live people up there, after each scene, he said, sadly, "Is it over??" It was a nice Saturday afternoon.