How the Shirley's do Christmas

 Christmas 2012

Our Bethlehem Supper on Christmas Eve was shared with the Elders and Sister Missionaries serving in our ward along with another wonderful family who all graciously endured our simple yet special tradition.
I could kick myself I didn't photograph any people but that just means I was spending too
much time enjoying the moment, which isn't a bad thing.
Just picture lots of happy guests smiling with full tummies and feeling the Christmas spirit.

Christmas Jammies!

Creed was pretty content with his pile of goodies especially his Hedwig Owl from Santa

Mack our reader mostly got books, but couldn't have been happier.
The entire set of Harry Potter books was an unexpected miracle for him
 (MOM caved, surprise surprise)
 and he is already starting #6.
I however, am still on #3.

I love that I still know my boys and what makes them happy, {for now} and Cal is no exception

these super hero masks from their cousins were a big hit. It took all of a mili-second for  them to claim the one they wanted and know exactly which pose to strike.

Macks Harry Potter lego sets were pretty unchallenging and set up quickly, but he didn't care it just meant he could get back to reading.
                                  

                                     

                                              Over the years Cam and I have noticed how excessive and out of control 

                                                Christmas shopping for our kids can become and we figured this year 

                                                               being that we are slightly limited in what we can get 

                                                    was the perfect year to start our scale back process  a "little."

                                                   I say a "little" because they still got more then plenty but 

                                                                                     we are taking baby steps. 

                                                                                      Its a hard habit to break.Our first experiment was to have each brother give one gift to the other two, instead of individually.

and then they were supposed to make something handmade for each other in place of the store bought gift.

Well...

that went over like a ton of bricks. 

For days I heard cries from Callan, about how he doesn't know how to make anything he 

was too little, Mack sort of pretended he never heard me talking and then justified his actions by

reminding me about him buying his brothers toys

 from the school flee market with his hard earned money was the same as hand made. 

Since he earned the money with his hard working hands. 

hmmm....

Albeit thoughtful and sweet not quite what I had in mind--the master debater that one.

And bless his little heart Creed spent Christmas eve morning making a picture out of 

toothpicks and tin foil to represent Callans favorite bike. 

To which Callan opened it and threw it down and said 

this is useless!!  

{Stellar, eh?}

Cue once proud Creed shrieking like a violet and trying hard not to cry.

Merry Christmas everyone!? 

EPIC FAIL!

Luckily everyone has kind of blocked out those moments
And remembers a happy joyful Christmas.
Except for me of course. 
Oh the heartache sometimes of being the Mom.

Ski time

3 weeks.

That is the amount of time my kids had off for Christmas break.

3 weeks. 

That is a long time for me and 3 little boys to find things to do in the dead of winter

3 weeks.

Is just long enough for me to know my limits and officially throw in the towel

and look for reinforcements.

My reinforcements came in the form of friends

{as they most often do}

So I started looking into a plan. 

Some families from our ward knew of a great place

in Austria--that they have been to going to for years--for good 

family fun skiing. I being the not so shy or sly type for that matter

started asking questions and finagled an invitation to join them. 

I am kind of kind of lame sneaky that way. 

They on the other hand are gracious and kind and didn't make 

us feel like intruders or an after thought at all.

With days to spare I found what I hoped would be a great little lodge to stay in

which proved to be outstanding. 

The owner of the house was an amazing cook and our meals each night came

with great anticipation and ZERO complaining from my mini men. 

That is huge people!

I am embarrassed to say after years of living in snow climates 

we have never taken our kids skiing. 

Cam and I grew up skiing and even did

it quite a bit while dating, but as the story goes once you get married

and priorities change it was something we decided we didn't need 

to do anymore. What were we thinking?!

So we enrolled the kids in ski school and hoped for the best. 

I thought I would be lucky if I skied two days,

thinking for sure I have would have at least 1 child 

who wasn't digging the whole experience.

I never imagined that after 4 days we would have 

all of them begging for more. 

It was one of our best vacations yet! 

First day!
 Not sure what to expect but he is READY!

In case the skiing didn't work out, Callan was sure he could ninja chop the snow into submission.

This is what happens when your camera is cold and then suddenly warm--you get a nice dream like haze on your photos.
These are the adults of our 22 person group.

Ready for action!

I spent a lot of time just staring at the beauty around me.

Day 3 ready for some bigger hills

Cam and I didn't waste any time enjoying our kid free opportunity!

That pesky rope tow was such a challenge at times for the little folk

Sacia and I enjoyed a morning of girl ski time

Day 2 Mack graduated to the bigger class on the hill he couldn't have been more happy

At the top of the run where we were naive and thinking this was going to be awesome.
There was a toboggan hill AKA death hill that Cam and I thought we would try out.
I am pretty sure the bob sled or the luge are 10 X's safer then this run.

Things we learned from this terrifying experience;
1. Do not wear ski boots doing this you end up just carving snow and ice right into your face
2. If you sort of have bad knees, rest assured they will be destroyed by the end of it
3. Austrians take their sledding seriously. They were cruising down these hills and making turns going what seemed like 30mph while holding infants or small children on their laps.
This run took them 10 or so minutes to get down.
It took Cam and I almost 40!

lucky for me I was the one with the camera so I could document all of Cam's wipe outs.

at the end of the week they held races for all the age groups and although our kids couldn't even come close
to their Austrian and German classmates (who come out of the womb with a pair of skis)
they did pretty darn awesome and had us impressed.

The last day we busted Mack out of the school for the afternoon to come hang with us.
He did great and we all had a wonderful time.

And after Creeds race we grabbed him for a run and took him up on the mighty chair lift to see how well he was doing.
My boys had no fear with this activity and did fantastic.
Much to my dismay.

The award ceremony after the races.

the miracle workers or as most people refer to them  the ski school instructors!