Holidays 2008

This holiday season was a little bit more different than most I'm sure. Dad deployed in July meaning we had the holidays without him. Spencer was in Arizona and Cody was spending Christmas with his recently made fiance. About a week before Christmas mom decided she would send Steph home to Arizona so she could get away from the hustle and bustle of Germany, to enjoy some sun and fun and also to get her permit so hopefully she can one day get her license.

In years past we always make it a habit to set up the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving; that's my job. I put up the tree and the lights, after that I'm done. It's the younger kids' job to put the ornaments and other decorations up. Needless to say, I'm sure, but that usually means not a whole lot gets done. This year we were actually smart and invited the elders over to have 'dinner'... as long as they'd help decorate the tree.

This was probably the best our tree has looked in a while.

Germany was 'fortunate' enough to get snow this year and it was acutally around the time of Turkey day that our first really big one happened. The way the boys play in the snow you would think they are from the desert and have NEVER seen snow before... oh wait...

Poor Alex, he just was not all that happy. But I think Sim got the worst of it. He came in one night with snow IN his ear. Oh thank heavens for older brothers.

That's right, even Mo had fun with the winter weather. He enjoyed watching A Christmas Story this year; he got so caught up on the "I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU" part that he just HAD to try it. Shortly after he did this I read about a boy in Illinois who did the same thing and actually had the paramedics come to help. Though we didn't have to go that far with Mo, he did manage to rip part of his tongue off. I didn't get any of him out there with his tongue stuck to it, but oh, that would have been CLASSIC!!!

With Steph gone to the states it was just the 3 little boys, myself and the mom for Christmas and new years. Not bad I'd say. Germany is awesome this time of year. Fireworks are sooooooo much fun but I will also note dangerous. You are not allowed to set any off until midnight but all afternoon we could hear noise makers going off. Simeon just wanted to join in and about 1900 he dropped a 'frog' off the top floor balcony into our patio and just watched it jump around makin all sorts of noise. Poor thing could NOT wait. That's a picture of a frog in mid-pop.

Mo really loves the fireworks and we tend to go all out for them. Had more bottle rockets than we really wanted. It was a bit chilly out. Colder than year's past but it was still good. We made it through all the bottle rockets, roman candles, fountains and for the most part sparklers.

Oh it was a good holiday season for the most part. My heart ached missing a few loved ones but in all it was a good season.