Happy New Year from the Longs!

Christmas 2010

Christmas this year was by far the best Christmas ever.

Below are some random, completely out of order pictures...

Enjoy!

Raigen AND Rilyn both in my bed Christmas eve night... waiting on Santa!

Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve morning. Normally we let the girls open up presents from Mom and Dad on Christmas Eve night, but since I knew we'd be at Lubby's we went ahead and let them open them on Christmas Eve morning so they'd have all day to play.:)

Later Christmas Eve day...

Martha's beautiful table decor! :)...who knew!

If you know Lubby, you know that any kid that comes to her house gets stripped down.

I have know idea why.

Apparently Raigen was 'so hot'. Therefore, my baby was shirtless!

I asked Laney and Rilyn to get together to take a picture.

Laney immediately turned around to pull her pants down. LOL

???

My sweetie :)

Now, here we go...

Kiley and Rilyn

This semester Troy is taking 5 additional classes....

And you people wonder why.....

SANTA!!!!

This year my brother dressed as Santa and delivered the presents on Christmas Eve night.

Rilyn was so excited when she 'caught' Santa.

Naughty, naughty Santa!!

Rilyn 'catching' Santa....

Christmas morning at Mimi's....

Bailey and Rilyn

All 4 of the girls!

Lesson Learned...

Lesson Learned: Do NOT expect TOO much from your husband.

Don't expect him to have the kids feed and in bed. And for heavens sake, don't expect him to have them bathed AND in their PJ's either!

And don't you dare expect any housework done!

Lesson learned.

Last night Jan had her annual Ornament Exchanging Party.

I cooked dinner for Josh and the girls before I left.

I returned home at about 10:45.

Neither child had a bath, neither were even in their PJ's, and every dish that they used was still there waiting for me in the sink.

AND this is what our 3 year olds room looked like....

While taking a picture of Rilyn's room had I not tripped, dropped my camera and stumped my toe I would of taken a picture of the kitchen too!

Yes, lesson learned.

Lizzy...

Here are some updated pictures of our Lizzy girl!

Isn't she the cutest!

Pictures with Santa!!

This morning we took the girls to Busters to have breakfast with Santa.

I am proud to say that this years picture with Santa went a lot better than last years!...LOL

Rilyn isn't terrified of Santa anymore, yay!!

Now Raigen, on the other hand, wasn't terrified but still wanted to gt the heck out of his lap!

Welcoming the newest member of the Long family....

Santa came a little early to the Long house!

Lizzy, our new puppy!

She is 1/2 chocolate lab 1/2 weimaraner.

I surprised Josh and the girls with Lizzy today thanks to Leanna! :)

And they all fell in love with her!

TV Dinners....

Last night I made grilled chicken, rice, and corn. Rilyn didn't want it.

"You hungry?" I asked her. "I don't want that!" She exclaimed.

So then I offered her a TV dinner. It was one of those kid TV dinners that come with chicken nuggets, macaroni, and pudding.

She excepted.

I went and put some laundry up and came back into the kitchen to find her mixing EVERYTHING together, pudding and all.

"Look mom, I'm making a new recipe. Its going to be SO yummy!" She said excitingly.

"Yea, I bet..."

I don't really care how she eats her food, as long as she eats.

"Taste it mom!" she begged.

I was speechless....

"Come on... you better hurrrrrrrrry before I eat it!" She warned, smiling at me with the cutest smile you have ever seen, while holding that tempting spoon up FULL of food.

..........

Yea, I'm pretty much one of those Moms that cant tell their kids no.

And 'yum'... is pretty much the only word I could get out with out throwing up.

Reindeer sandwiches!

I combined a recipe from the recipe book Rilyn made me in gymnastics with some inspiration from Shannan and Leanna's reindeer cookies!

They were super cute and delicious! And Rilyn really enjoyed making them! She even had to make Mimi and Papoo one and we had to take it over to them. :)

We made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and cut the crust off. Then I cut the sandwich in half, diagonally. I then inserted 2 broken pretzels for the antlers. We use a cherry, cut in half, for the nose. The eyes were hard.... I would have like to use raisins, but since we didn't have any I ended up just dotting the eyes with chocolate syrup. lol

Baby Jake!

Jake is getting so cute and giggly! AND he was much more easier to take pictures of than Raigen!

This morning his mommy let him be late to 'school' so we could take some pictures of him, these were my favs....

Christmas Pictures...

My attempt to get the girls pictures in front of the tree...

And this is the best I could get.

Sigh......

Neither were in a picture taking mood.

Can you tell??

Our little Christmas theif!

While I was sitting in the living room watching TV Raigen, once again, attempted to open a Christmas present.

This kid is unstoppable. LOL

First, she grabbed the gift!
With no luck, she attempted to open it....


When her hands failed.. it headed straight for the mouth!

Victory!!

A Christmas Miracle...

First, let me start from the very beginning.


Josh is horrible at buying gifts. I love the guy, but its true.





We started dating in January of 2004, my birthday is in March. I wasn't expecting alot for my birthday, we had just starting dating.

On my birthday we met up to go out. He was going to take me to humble to the mall to see a movie and to dinner. When we met up, he was holding a balled up wal-mart bag. He quickly handed it to me and said "Happy Birthday!!" As I opened it, he began to explain to me that his sister was having a garage sale that day and he got this for me.

I laughed and knew he had to be joking.






He wasn't.






I saw the box and it had a picture of a neon heart light that you plug into the wall and I just knew that my 'real' gift was inside.







It wasn't.





Really?... Is this happening?... I thought.






Believe it or not I stayed with the man. lol... and his gift giving skills have not improved. Every year he constantly is giving me a list of what he wants for his birthday or for Christmas but forgetting to ask me what I want...






So every year I buy me own gifts. I actually prefer it. I get what I want and I don't have to worry about him spending $200.00 on something Ill never use.

But guess what??..

SURPRISE!!!

This year HE bought my gift!

Terrified, I hacked into his email and pulled the order up and surprisingly its exactly what I told him I wanted!!

Its a freakin' Christmas miracle!