Christmas 2008

This Christmas has been very different than Christmases in the past. It was our first Christmas alone. Out here all by ourselves. Usually we go to about 4 houses on Christmas Day visiting family and eating food and opening gifts. It's crazy, busy, and fun, but we are exhausted at the end of the day! (As well as the kids who miss their naps!) We knew this Christmas would be a bit more relaxed and less scheduled.

Mallory was the first one up. She got up at 5:50am. The kids have been sleeping in until about 8 or 8:30am so I really didn't expect our day to start so soon! I tried to get her to go back to sleep until Chase and Clark woke up, but she wouldn't have it! It was fun to see her eyes filled with the anticipation of finding gifts from Santa downstairs! To let the boys sleep a little longer I had her "help" me put makeup on and do my hair. The distraction only lasted so long and we made enough noise that the boys woke up. Our tradition is that we all go see what Santa brought together, as a family. The kids were so excited!

Chase did end up getting his goat. Chase wants to be a farmer when he grows up. Well, technically he wants to be a "cow-milker". But he would love to be a farmer and take care of animals. I think that might have something to do with why he wanted a goat so bad!
And Miss Mallory has been OBSESSED with Rudolph this year. I don't know what got her started on Rudolph, but that's all she talks about. She can sing the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer song almost word for word. So she was ecstatic when she saw Rudolph sitting next to her stocking. He even sings his own theme song if you squeeze his ear. We can't wait till Rudolph runs out of batteries. If we have to hear that song one more time. . . . . .
Clark didn't really have any requests for Santa this year. He loves toys that light up and sing songs so Santa brought him a fun little Leap Frog table. Clark was really more interested in the candy that Santa stuffed in every one's stockings. He definitely has a sweet tooth! I actually posted a cute video of him teasing Craig with some M&M's that Santa left. It's 2 posts below if you want to check it out :)


We got Chase and Mallory those bouncy balls with the handles on top that you bounce around the house on. I loved these things as a kid! I gave them a proper demonstration on how to bounce around. It was a workout! I was out of breathe after bouncing back and forth across the house a few times. Wow, I'm out of shape! Chase picked up on it right away and loves it, but Mallory is a little too short for her ball. She's going to need to grow a few inches to bounce on hers!


Another hit was the umbrellas that Santa brought the kids. It rains here at least 3 days a week. When it rains - it rains all day! A nice, steady rain. So umbrellas are actually a necessity here. The kids have been begging for their own umbrellas lately. So we let "Santa" take the glory for fulfilling that item on their wish list! Here's Mallory with her Ariel umbrella:
Who's cuter? Mallory or Craig?
We went to the movies and saw Bolt in 3-D. Chase loved it! Mallory cried all the way through it. I guess all the stuff jumping out at her was a little scary. She would shrink down onto the floor of the movie theater and put her hands over her ears and cry! She didn't like it very much. We didn't have any family's house to go to so we came home and took naps and played games with the kids. The missionaries came over in the evening for pie and ice cream. And we've just tucked the kiddies into bed. We missed being with our families. We got to talk to every one on the phone, but it's not the same as being there. Nevertheless, it's been a fun and exciting day with the kids. I'm a little bit sad though. The days leading up to Christmas seem to be more fun than Christmas Day itself. I love the anticipation and having something to look forward to! I guess what we have to look forward to now is making our list of New Year's resolutions. . . . . oh boy, oh boy. . . .

Christmas Outfits

So every year we get our kids a formal outfit for Christmas. It was a family tradition for me growing up. It's good to get extra dressy every now and then! Here are the kiddos in their outfits:

CHASE
I can't hardly get this kid to smile nicely for a picture! Doesn't smiling look painful for him?!

MALLORY
I couldn't pass this dress up! It was a smokin' deal on sale too!

CLARK
Couldn't get him to hold still for a picture. So I had to snap the picture with him walking around.

The Little Teaser

Clark was obsessed with the Christmas candy that Santa left in our stockings! He started to feed it to Craig and then he would put it in his own mouth. He was so cute! Sorry the video is sideways. I couldn't figure out how to tip it the other way.

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a very merry Christmas!

Much Love,
The Kurtzeborn Family

Dear Santa. . . . .

Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is a goat.

When I tucked Chase into bed the night that we saw Santa I asked him what he talked to Santa about.

Chase: I told Santa I wanted a goat for Christmas.

Me (very puzzled): A goat? I thought you wanted Star Wars stuff for Christmas.

Chase: No Mom. I just want a goat.

Me: Where are we going to put a goat? We don't have a backyard anymore.

Chase (eyes glowing and face lit up): Right here in my bedroom!

Me (trying to figure a way out of this): Oh, you want him in your bedroom. He might be too big for your bedroom. I don't know if he'll fit. What are you going to do when your goat has to go to the bathroom?

Chase (eyes rolling and very exasperatedly): Not a REAL goat Mom. Just a toy goat.

Me (very relieved): Oh! Just a toy goat! That sounds great! Santa would love to bring you a toy goat!

Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and princess stuff.


Dear Santa,
For Christmas I desire nothing more than to be off your lap!

Trimming the Tree

For family night this week we ended up decorating the tree. Half of me loves putting up the tree and the other half hates it. Love it because it's fun to look at and it helps the excitement of the Christmas season begin when you pull out all the ornaments and the lights. The part of me that hates it always says, "How many ornaments are we going to break THIS year?" I lost track of how many ornaments got broken last Christmas season there were so many. And it wasn't Chase's fault. Chase insists that it was Superman that broke our ornaments. His large Superman action figure "flew" into the Christmas tree I don't know how many times sending glass shards of ornaments flying in every direction. Bad Superman. He saves people. He should know better than to fly into people's Christmas trees. And then there was the dinosaur. Again - it wasn't Chase's fault. That plastic toy dinosaur just "stomp, stomped down our stairs and jumped into our Christmas tree!" How rude.

So the tree has been up for two days now and so far we have 1 broken ornament. It was Craig's favorite. A Star Wars Starfighter Jet with R2D2 on the wing. When you push the button on it it makes Star Wars shooting noises. A pretty cool ornament. You'll never guess who broke it? Well, it wasn't Chase.
But if you ask Chase he'll tell you, "The jet just fell down off the Christmas tree and the wings broke off and went like this (he takes his two index fingers holding them close together and as he describes what happened to the wings when the jet "fell" from the tree, his fingers get farther and farther apart from each other in an outward motion.) Wow! Our Starfighter Jet took some fall!! If you ask Chase WHY the Starfighter Jet "fell" off the Christmas tree he will tell you that Clark (our little 13-month old) SHOOK our (7 and a half foot tall) Christmas tree causing the jet to fall from it's branch. Silly Clark. . . . .Christmas trees aren't for shaking!

Not to mention Clark is afraid of the Christmas tree. We were putting the tree up and he crawled underneath it and started screaming! I think the needles were poking him in the face. He freaked out and hasn't gone near it since. Which is a good thing. I really thought we were going to have some major problems with him wanting to play with the tree/ornaments/lights. Hopefully he stays afraid of it. We'll see if he gets more and more brave the longer it's up. I just hope we don't have anymore "shaking" incidences. . . . . :)

So getting out the tree and decorations was fun. We turned on some Christmas music and pulled all the boxes out. As always, the kids had a blast playing in the boxes!

Clark had fun taking the ornaments out:
Chase and Mallory hung them on the tree:
And Mallory got the honors of putting the angel on top this year:
We have loved having a fireplace here! Craig was excited that we have a mantle to hang stockings from. It's something he had as a child. Chase picked out the stocking holders. It makes a Christmas train. I LOVE the stockings! I got them on clearance last year at Target. They're velvet and the initial is in rhinestones. They have little tassels coming out the top too.
We've enjoyed the start of our Christmas season. And for once. . . . . it actually FEELS like Christmas! Baby, it's cold outside!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year! We got to sleep in a little bit and then we got up to cook breakfast. The missionaries came over to eat with us. They come over almost every week for dinner so we have gotten to know them very well. They already had a dinner appointment for Thanksgiving dinner so we invited them over for breakfast. Our afternoon was very relaxing and we all took naps while our bird was cooking. The turkey turned out ok. It was a little on the dry side. But it was our first try at cooking one of these things. I'm sure we'll get better as the years go on and we practice and try new cooking techniques each year. We put fresh sprigs of rosemary under the breast skin while it cooked and the taste was amazing! I think we'll definitely repeat the rosemary. Everything else turned out great! Here's Craig carving our bird:
The kids all enjoyed different parts of the dinner. Chase ate a TON of rolls and little else. The only thing we could get Mallory to eat was turkey. And Clark absolutely loved the stuffing! I tried feeding it to him from a spoon at first and he seemed to like it, but he got really upset. So we just dumped it in front of him on the table and he started shoveling it into his mouth by the handful. We started laughing - he was eating it so fast! This picture looks like he's in a state of euphoria eating his stuffing! Ever since we started feeding him solid foods as a baby Clark has had a thing against anything green. He would not eat the peas or the green beans or the garden vegetables. If it was green he wouldn't eat it! Even as a four month old baby it was like he "knew" it was green. And he refused to swallow it! Every so often we still offer him those green veggies to see if he'll acquire a taste for them. As of Thanksgiving day - still no change. We put the green beans in front of him and he wouldn't touch them. He started screaming and crying the second we put them down on the table in front of him. Apparently he's terrified of them too now. He was trying to climb out of his booster chair to get away from them. Notice the look of disgust on his face: (Click on it to make it bigger for the full effect. We snapped the camera at just the right time to capture his true feelings of all things green.) It really was funny. You would have thought those greens beans were trying to attack him by the way he started acting. We ended up moving them away and gave him more stuffing - which put him back in a state of happiness. We had some friends in the ward come over for pie and ice cream in the evening and we called it a day! We missed being with family, but we still enjoyed each other's company and the company of friends. We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!