Christmas times FOUR

Alright, here we go with Christmas time. Here's the kids christmas picture in front of the tree, very traditional annual pose for them. I could have probably had Ryan put on a clean shirt though, oopsie.
We have FOUR, yes count them FOUR Christmases. Here's how it goes.

Christmas #1, this was on December 20th - we call it Thanksmas. We got this idea from Aunt Carol and her gang on the east coast. Since we want to celebrate the holidays with our good friends, but we each have our own families to see, we started a Thanksmas tradition last year. This year we held our Second Annual Thanksmas with the Sinnott's and Winget's. Everyone had a great time and great food.

Here is Josh and Chris........
and here is me and hubby.....................

there's the boys...........Josh...Steve...and Alan.........................

now it's Jen and Steve...............................

my darling daughter...............Lauren............growing up way tooooo fast

everyone gathered around the dinner table. The little kids sat at their own table around the corner behind Allison in the foyer.................

the Sinnott boys............Collin and Evan..........

the Winget kids less 1.................Dylan, Allison and Lia........

my two.............Ryan and Lauren...........

That's Christmas #1 all wrapped up..............


Onto Christmas #2

This would be Christmas Eve at our house with my family..........Jim, Jackie, Udo, Kelly, Toni, Alysha, Gram, Jack, Heather and the four of us.......

From left to right we have Jack, Alan, Kelly, Udo and Alysha

Here are the kids with Opi, their grandpa...my stepdad....

Christmas #2 over and done.......

Here comes Christmas #3, the best one in my book since it's just the four of us at home opening gobs of presents from Santa and hanging out in our PJ's

The kids start the morning by making us breakfast in bed to wake us up. They made english muffins, cut up apple, coffee for Alan and OJ for me. Yummy, yummy in the tummy

Then it's onto presents, presents and more presents.......

Ryan looks like he did ok.......

This is the framed golf score card that Deacon Jones signed for Alan. More info on that one in the November happenings post below.

Lauren opening her Nintendo DS.....

here's me with 4 Brighton boxes, yup four of them. Alan got me gift certificates to Brighton so I could go have some fun in the store. He knows how much I love their stuff. He gave me one box and I had to look around the house for the other 3, they were hidden in plain sight but it was so very wonderful of him to do this. What a great guy he is. I went shopping at Brighton after Christmas, they actually had a few items on sale (that never happens there) and I got a necklace, bracelet and a wonderful black purse. I can't believe I found a purse that I could get and not have a complete heart attack over the price. The necklace wasn't on sale but the other two things were. Yeah for me..........

Look Santa brought us the Wii...................including the Wii Fit...

and we be Wii-ing................go Alan.....

go Ryan......

and last but definitely not least is Christmas #4

This is the Carpenter family Christmas. We went to Leslie's house on the 25th in the afternoon to celebrate with Alan's folks and family.

We got a Tripoley card game for the family to play. The Carpenter's have always been big on card games and this was one that the Sinnott's showed us. It's lots of fun to play and the kids can play it too, less the poker hand anyway......

look at these two, are they into Christmas or what????????????? I had to do a double take when I first saw Ernie with that hat.......

Thank you all for sharing my family and friends with me. Hugs to all, Kim

Oh So Late on my happenings ---- here's some late November news

Amazingly enough, Lauren went to yet another Jonas Brothers concert. This was her fourth in 2008. Her friend Jamie invited her to go to the Hollywood Palladium to see the Teen Pop sensations yet one more time for 2008. She's already hinting that they are going to tour again in 2009 but I'm not looking for another $300 plus concert. Can you blaim me, I've done 3 of these with her and was very happy to sit this one out.

Alan went golfing with his buddy in Anaheim hills and ended up paired up with Deacon Jones. He was in the football hall of fame in the 80's. He was so thrilled and had one of his best rounds of golf ever. Deacon signed his score card and took pictures with guys so for christmas I framed the score card and picture for him.
Very Cool.................

Then of course we had Turkey Day. We hosted and had Alan's side of the family over along with our good friends the Sinnott's. Here is Alan's turkey which tasted amazing. Thanks Jen for taking all the pictures as I fell down on the picture taking job.

We all had a great time and sat around after dinner playing cards. We haven't done that in forever.

Here is Lauren and Evan

and Ryan with Collin

This is Lauren and Jamie, the same Jamie that took Lauren to the Jonas concert. Through her dad's girlfriends best friends connection (complicated huh?) the girls were able to participate in a recording for the Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Movie that is coming out in Feb or March. Unfortunately the Jonas Brothers were not there but the girls had a blast, plus they got paid $135 for a couple of hours of time. I'm sure they would have been happy to be the ones paying for the chance to do this. We can't wait for the movie and soundtrack to come out so we can listen to see if there is anyway to pick them out of the background vocals.

This was just a silly pictures we took while at Red Robin restaurant in the mall during a shopping trip. We went to have dinner there and this GIANT bird was there. Lauren is taking after her Omi (my mom) and had her camera in her purse so we could take a picture.

Last but not least, here are the kids at halloween. Lauren was Marilynn Monroe and Ryan was a ninja. We went trick or treating with the Sinnott boys and Lauren's friend Stephanie who was a red crayola crayon. They all looked great and got lots of candy.

Hope everyone is well. Love to all, Kim