"Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree"

We have exactly 4 Christmas Trees in our house this year. Requested by two certain someone's, yes. Ridiculous, yes. Worth it, most definitely! Two of the trees are small and were given to the boys by my mom. Our tree from last year...

was very nice (I know it is a little hard to see in this picture.) It had blue ornaments and a large silver bow. Somehow this very simple, very easy to decorate Christmas Tree morphed into a very complex and difficult to decorate masterpiece...ha!

Backstory: Cooper and I were at Hobby Lobby shopping in the ribbon aisle, when he spotted blue and gold peacock feather ribbon. Now it is no secret that Cooper has an obsession with peacocks and when he saw the ribbon he was of course, very excited. It was very cute peacock feather ribbon and the roll was sitting right beside some cute blue ribbon with gold edging, so I was sold. I so wish that we could just pick it up and put it in the basement the way it is because there is absolutely no way that I will be able to recreate it next year!

We also have a more traditional tree where we hang all of our family ornaments in the living room. We decided to do this last year after we purchased a new tree, so that we would have more room to put all of the presents.

Our third tree is our favorite and our biggest discussion piece for obvious reasons (especially when our MIZZOU friends come over tomorrow for New Years Eve!) Much to my surprise, I found these ornaments at Hobby Lobby here in STL and of course I had to buy them! Hardly ever do you find such a rarity here! We could not quite figure out what we were going to use as a tree topper and it looked kind of funny without one. So, Connor had the idea to take the keychain off of his backpack and put it on the top of the tree. I think it worked pretty well!

Our fourth tree was also one that my mom gave the boys last year. This one is super special because the boys decorated it all by themselves!

Santa Sightings

The boys were able to see Santa a few times this year and it never ceases to amaze me how many different gifts they can come up with to tell Santa that they want. This year was particularly interesting for Cooper, as he was very adamant about getting a snowmobile. No matter how many times we explained to him that snowmobiles in Missouri were not very practical, he kept asking for one. I know exactly where this request came from and I can thank Costco for that. From about Thanksgiving on, Costco has had a kid-sized snowmobile hanging from their ceiling. Each time we visited the store, when then snowmobile came into view, he would get starry eyed. Of course all I could think of was the line from A Christmas Story, "You'll shoot your eye out." Which to me, was a simile for what could happen to a 3-year-old on a snowmobile, kid-sized or not!

On Christmas morning after all the presents were opened, he was acting sad, so I asked him what was wrong. He replied, "Santa didn't get me a snowmobile." My heart sank as I felt terrible that he did not get what he truly wanted and then Connor chimed in, "He didn't get you a snowmobile, but he got you some cool games, let's go play with them," Connor my savior! Since then, I have not heard hide nor hair about a snowmobile. I guess he has forgotten about it, thank goodness!

We also did Breakfast with Santa at Connor's school again this year. The boys always look forward to eating donuts with Santa! I can guarantee that I know the exact words that were coming out of Coop's mouth in this pic:

Cooper: "I want a snowmobile."

Santa: "In Missouri?!"

Cousins!

Once again I have managed to back myself into a blog corner. I believe this is partially due to the EXTREME hustle and bustle of holiday preparation that took place this year; and also due to my dear husband, which I will explain later. I have to say, I think this year's Christmas crowd was way over the top. I could hardly believe how empty stores were of Christmas decor when I started shopping for it 3 weeks before Christmas. I guess I better start in October next year!

Quite a bit has been going on in the Gillam household as of late so I have decided that I will create a series of blogs in no particular order, to capture the pure essence of Christmas and such, Gillam style! Due to my pure lack of ability to post pictures (story to come later) I opted out of posting without them as I have a feeling pictures of the boys are way more exciting then my ramblings!

Anyhoo, I hope Christmas was merry for everyone and that Santa was good to you!

I am going all the way back to Thanksgiving for the start of my blogging charade simply because I think it deserves a mention. All I can says is cousins, cousins, cousins! For the first time since the littlest ones were born, we managed to get all of the "next generation" of great-grandkids together for a day packed full of movie watching, ball kicking, game playing, and surprisingly getting along fun! This was a pretty big feat considering the geographical odds of this being possible and the age range of the cousins.

The youngest two, they are so super cute!

This is probably the best picture I have of them. Plus it shows their true colors ;-)

Truthfully this is one of the better ones even though Wyatt is silly-smiling and Thomas looks like he is tired of all of the picture taking we were forcing them to do!

In order of appearance from L-R (not in age order because Cooper decided to be difficult):

Cooper (3), Natalie (2), Caridee (3), Wyatt (5), Thomas (5), Camryn (6), Connor (7), and Andrew (8).

It is funny to think that if this picture were taken a mere 6 months later we would have (2) 3-year olds, (1) 4-year old, (1) 5-year old, (1) 6-year old, (1) 7-year old, and (1) 8-year old. What a great stair-step picture that would be!

A Very Kansas Christmas

This year we will have participated in 4 Christmas' by the time the holidays are over. Whew, fun but exhausting! The first being the weekend before Christmas in Kansas. We decided to stay home this year for Christmas Day because traveling with a multitude of presents there, and then making sure every piece of every toy/game is accounted for to take home is honestly a nightmare. Also, our vehicular is much smaller then previous holidays so there really was not enough room for the ridiculous amount of presents that the boys get. Not to mention, trying to explain why Santa still goes to our house to fill our stockings when we are obviously not there, is not much fun!

Even though we were only in Kansas for 3 days, they were jam-packed and fun-filled. Anything that has to do with 4 children ages 7, 6, & 3 is sure to be an adventure!

Ornery; there is no better word to describe these four!

Cami showing off her new shoes.

Danielle is probably going to kill me for posting this pic, but I couldn't resist. Matt surprised her with an iPhone so she could put her dinosaur of a Blackberry to rest. As you can see, she was pretty excited!