Episode VI - Return of the Sweetie

Early in her life, Mallory earned the nickname Sweetie. She ALWAYS said "please" and "thank you" and was just generally an adorably sweet little girl. But then, some time last year, things changed. The "please" and "thank you" disappeared. She was meaner and more ornery. Even though we still called her Sweetie, she was no longer living up to her name. It could have been the introduction of Nash into the family, taking away some of her attention and her status as baby of the family. It could have just been the influence of her older, drama queen wicked stepsisters (OK, they're real sisters, not stepsisters, but it sounds better).

But then, out of the blue, our precious little Sweetie returned. I'm not quite sure when it happened - seems like a couple of months ago. It didn't dawn on us immediately but one day it hit us - she was back. The "please" and "thank you" reappeared. The meanness disappeared. And not only was she back, she was sweetier than ever. She constantly says things like, "Dad, I like you," or "Mom, I love you." And she's dishing out kisses like crazy. She'll kiss your arm or leg if she can't reach your cheek. It's almost out of hand, but we'll definitely take this new old Sweetie over the impostor we had for a while there.

Christmas Night with the Copes

Christmas night everyone went to my parents' house to hang out and eat finger foods. I love having this kind of stuff and everything was really good. Then after a while Brett brought out our Rock Band game and it turned out to be a big hit with most everyone. And a first for many, including myself (well a 2nd). We all had a great time hanging out and enjoying each others company.

Janet really concentrating on the drums.

We weren't very good.

Todd was our singer. He was probably the best out of us all.

Dustin had to help Jennifer because she couldn't figure it out.

This was probably the best group out of everyone. They all knew what they were doing and were good at it.

Christmas Day with the Rogers

After opening all our gifts and cleaning up at home, Brett's family all came over to our house so we could call Robi to talk to him for Christmas. It was good talking to him and we are all very excited for him to be home in less than 3 months.

Afterward, everyone headed over to Kellen and Lacey's house to have a brunch. We had breakfast casserole, fruit with dip, homemade pastries, cinnamon rolls, and smoothies. It was all very delicious! We then gathered together and opened all our gifts. The kids got a lot of great things from everyone and they of course loved everything. Joel and LeeAnn gave all their children money for food storage (only) and some chocolate milk mix to give us a start with the food storage.

Then we cleaned up and of course played Rock Band, and then watched Kellen and Lacey play their own little Rock Band with their real drums and guitar. We had a great time.

Nash taking a bath in the sink after making a huge mess of himself from eating.

Spencer had my name and he gave me a make up brush set (Brett had to pitch in some money too). I have wanted one for quite a while.

Nash had a great time crawling around just being cute and playing with all the paper.

All of the kids gave Joel a couple of pairs of Wranglers and some thick snow gloves to feed the animals with in the cold winter mornings. We gave LeeAnn a food processor that she really wanted.

LeeAnn made all the grandkids their own aprons to keep at her house to use while eating or cooking with Grandma.

Grandpa and Grandma Parry came to eat and watch us open our gifts.

Kellen and Lacey singing and playing their own music.

Christmas Morning

Every year for Christmas we make our kids wait until we wake up before they can go into the living room to see what Santa brought them. Santa does not wrap the gifts that he brings so we always like to be there when they first see everything they got from Santa. My dad always made us wait too and it was the excitement of waiting (and teasing of course from my dad) that was so fun. Whytli decided the night before that she would take my cell phone into her room and call Brett's cell phone in the morning and let us know they are awake to see if they can come upstairs yet. They were up by 7:00 am.

They were very pleased to see that Santa had eaten all their cookies and chocolate milk and that Santa's reindeer had eaten their oats. Eddie, our elf, also left them a special letter and let them know that he had to go back to the North Pole with Santa and hoped to see them next year.

The kids had made me and Brett a bunch of gifts (from home and at school) to open and decided that they wanted us to open all our gifts first. They were all really cute gifts including a CD of Adelie singing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. They also gave us 2 gold dollar coins with a note that said they just wanted to give us a little something to use since we spent so much money to buy them special gifts. It was really cute and we told them we would make sure to use it to go on a date.

In no special order these are some of the pictures of our morning.

This is them waiting at the top of the stairs for us to let them go into the living room. Brett was taking his time getting the camera ready.

Mallory got 4 new Disney Princess dress-ups that she loved. She loves to play dress-ups all the time.

These are some of our gifts the kids made for us.

I finally made Brett his missionary scrapbook that he has asked for for the last 10 years. I'm not really into scrap booking so that is why it took so long.

The girls opening a movie that was for all of them.

Brett opening one of Nash's gifts. He wasn't too interested in opening his own gifts so Brett and I did it for him.

Whytli got a book that I made for her all about her special baptism day.

Adelie really wanted a Hannah Montana sleeping bag.

Mallory opening her box set with a bunch of princess games in it.

Whytli and Adelie got a lot of Hannah Montana stuff.

They also got a box set of the Harry Potter books and 4 new Junie B. Jones books. They asked Santa for these in hopes that their dad will read them the Harry Potter books.

We loved getting all the fun little gifts that they made for us. It was so cute watching them watch us open them. They were so excited and proud of everything. We absolutely loved it.

I also made them a book all about sisters - full of pictures of them.

This was one of the gifts Santa brought Nash and the ONLY gift he cared about. He got this first and sat here the entire time (about 45 minutes) while everyone opened their gift. He was just relaxing in his chair, kicking his feet.

His dad insisted he had to get some manly toys so that we don't have so much princess girly stuff in our house. He thinks we need to start making this house more manly. Nash only played with these for a minute and then it was off to his chair.

Christmas Eve at Home

After we got home from my parents' party, we let the kids open their traditional gift Christmas Eve gift, which is pajamas that they get to wear that night. They always look forward to this and get so excited even when they know what it is.

I had to buy these pajamas for Mallory because they said, "Sweetness." They were the perfect pajamas for her. This is her modeling her pajamas and shaking her booty.

The kids in their new pajamas. Nash doesn't really care to pose for this picture.