A Christmas Story

Once upon a time John and LuAnn had 8 kids. They were crazy, but good kids and they always, ALWAYS loved Christmas.

(Just missing the oldest and the youngest this year)

Those crazy but good kids had even more crazy but still good kids by the truckloads who also loved Christmas especially the getting together to cause mischeif part of Christmas

This is only a small sampling of the grandkids ranging in ages between 32-13

Those grandkids got smart real fast, and for the vast majority of them, they all found more sensible spouses that were never ever crazy but they still loved Christmas

well some of them were somewhat sensible and a little less crazy.

Then those grandkids got really really crazy and had even crazier kids that loved Christmas but even more loved causing chaos and running around in crazy circles at all times everywhere they went and Great Grandma and Great Grandpa loved them even more for it.

But they're all so stinkin cute I guess that it just makes sense to love them all.

ps this is not all the great grandkids loads of them were missing! Talk about a posterity!


We had a blast at the annual Carter Christmas Party. I am seriously amazed that everyone can still get together every year for this the majority of the grandkids are very much grown-up with families of their own yet they all still get together to see everyone the Saturday before Christmas. It's nothing too complicated (well except for Uncle Reese's rules on how to pass white elephant gifts.) But we all laugh and enjoy each other's company.

The white elephant gift splendor.

Grandmas and Grandpas lovin' on their kids.

Adults laughing and chatting together about Christmases past.


Grandpa always gives out shiny new dollar bills to the Grandkids.

Will inspecting his shiny new dollar wondering what it would taste like.

So that is just one Saturday activity from our Christmas splendor. We had just weeks full of tradtions and fun making. Next on the agenda of blog posting ...........................................................

Christmas Cookie Making!

Christmas Recap at a glance

So I know I'm a slackin on my new years hope of blogging more but as an great excuse everyone and I mean EVERYONE has been sick in our house for what seems like F...O...R...E...V...E...R starting the night of Christmas Eve so I've spent a lot of time pretending to be Dr. Quinn Medicine woman . So you're getting the lazy version of our Christmas: (I promise I'll get more creative with these posts as days go by)


One: We are so super blessed as parents, I remember as a kid not being able to sleep through Christmas Eve night and being up at 4 in the morning until the year that my parents made the rule that we had to wait till 6 so we would wake up at 5:30 and wait till our alarm clocks all said 6 and we were out those doors so fast. Anyhow back to us being blessed as parents our kids woke up right on time at 8:30 a.m. I was up at 7:30 hardly containing my eagerness for them to wake up and see what Santa had brought them. Anyhow then as a family we say a prayer upstairs and then make the kids wait at the top of the stairs till we go down as parents first. Which just happens to make for cute photo moments like this with all of their little santa hats on. Ummm yes they are adorable.

Lizzie wanted a wii so bad this Christmas and I kept telling her that I grew up without a nintendo and had a perfectly happy childhood. Anyhow it took her nearly 10 minutes to figure out that she got her wish of a wii even after she read the card that santa had left reminding her to share the wii. Even then she really had some serious toy envy with Abby and that barbie guitar.

Lizzie did have some serious fun documenting all of Christmas with her new tinkerbell camera.

Will was easily entertained with his two cars and this awesome cars bike.

Abby loved her princess bike as well. (Disclaimer for adult eyes only: So these bikes came by the wonderful Black Friday deals so the week of Christmas every night I asked Jeremy to put the bikes together so we didn't have to do it Christmas Eve night. Well we constantly got distracted and wouldn't you know Christmas Eve night who would be sick? Why it's our local engineer and put thingies together man Jeremy. So he had to sit there in a sick coma like state and watch me put the bikes together. I'm happy to say that they still haven't fallen apart but I was really kicking myself about not being a little more demanding about putting the bikes together quicker. Adult Reading time over) So Will and Abby have been racing their bikes down our super long hallway ever since (Honestly I can't wait till spring and we can get those bikes out of the house.)

Abby can now play a hundered different versions of Girls just wanna have fun....i used to like the song.

Yes I can see it in her eyes toy envy. Luckily the girls are pretty good about sharing.

Abby gave Lizzie this cute build a bear ballerina bunny. We had fun sewing it together and it now is one of Lizzie's favorite sleeping buddies.

Abby had three wishes for Christmas, A princess bike, a unicorn and a rainbow. Lizzie found this cute unicorn and was happy to be able to scratch that one off of Abby's list.

Will is seriously so easy to buy for essentially if it has wheels or buttons he's happy so he was in heaven with this Cars Cell phone. He has honestly spent more time on his phone than I do on my own.


So I snagged these super cute sweaters for a super good deal and when I started wrapping them for my kids I thought they are so going to hate these as gifts. As soon as Will opened the present he stripped down and put on the sweater. He soon realized he didn't have pants so he went and got his pants and also pants for the girls so they could all be dressed for the day.
This was my shot at Abby's rainbow. And she loved it!



Adorable little kids. Happy Christmas. Can't wait for next year.