christmas 2007

christmas morning started with us getting out of bed around 6:45am (well, not dave of course). as i was starting to get ready, hayden's door opened and he came out to open his stocking. santa left him a new thomas train (mighty mac), 3 new "little miss/mr." books, a new cd, a thomas and percy ornament for the tree and some candy. of course he was most excited about the new train, as if he doesn't have enough.
when he finished opening the gifts in his stocking he started running to the living room saying "and now the presents under the tree!!!" even though i'd been explaining to him that santa would leave him presents in his stocking at his house and then would go to put the presents under the tree at grandma's house. he wasn't too worried about it. he got himself dressed and then headed downstairs with mighty mac. as i was getting ready i heard him introducing all of his other trains to mighty mac.
dave finally got himself out of bed and i headed in to wake up talan and get him ready. once i had him dressed hayden opened his stocking for him. talan got an apple chime teething toy, some other little teething toy, a mini elmo see and say toy and the night before christmas book.
with everyone dressed and ready to go, we headed over to mom and dad's house at about 7:20am. on the way there hayden yelled from the back "oh my gosh! i forgot something! i forgot mighty mac!" that's ok hayden. "no. it's not ok." but after explaining that he'd be getting lots of other toys he dropped it.
everyone (mom, dad, jenn, don, rainah, jessica and justin) were all up and dressed by the time we got there. everyone was waiting for some delicious christmas breakfast. unfortunately, the carmel rolls mom makes every year were quite a bit different than usual. it seems that the makers of jello mismarked the box and lemon jello was put in a box that stated "butterscotch jello." this was a huge disappointment for all of us, but there was plenty of other food to get us through. plus....all of those presents just waiting to be opened!
it took as several hours to get through them all. talan had to head upstairs for a nap in the middle of all the action so we held some of his presents so he could watch them be opened a little later.
hayden would open a present, ask papa to use his scissors to open the package and then run to play with it until we summoned him to open another gift.
he got several new trains, a little einsteins "pat pat rocket" toy which took me MONTHS to finally get my hands on, books, new video games, cd's, a thomas train race track....the list goes on. santa left him the aqua dots that he wanted so badly, minus the beads that makes the aqua dots toy fun. there was a recall due to the beads having the date rape drug in them. several children went into a comatose state after ingesting them. i let santa know that i had no problem with that side affect. but he decided to take the beads out anyway and left him a note that he would mail them to him once the elves made new ones. hayden seemed ok with that which was a major relief.
once all of the presents were opened, hayden played with his pat pat rocket and the thomas train race track basically the entire day. it wasn't until later in the evening that he finally put them down to play with some of his new video games.
dinner was delicious, but was just another meal where hayden refused to eat. even after not being able to eat cookies on christmas eve. all he needed to do was eat 2 pieces of ham and he'd have unlimited access to the chocolate fountain later. he chose not to eat it until the chocolate fountain was being set up. but, he ate it.
dave set up our obsession "settlers of catan" and dave, myself, justin and jessica all played that while eating from the huge spread of cookies, appetizers, and chocolate fountain buffets....something i didn't get pictures of...i know, what was i thinking?! talan was put upstairs to sleep and hayden continued to play video games and board games until we left at around 10:30.
we loaded up the car and headed home knowing we also now needed to UNLOAD the car. it's quite an overwhelming thing. especially knowing that it all must be put away with the next day or 2 since we will be having people over for a birthday party just 5 days after christmas.
so at this point, the toys have been more or less put away and we are now preparing for a 5th birthday party. tomorrow i'll take hayden to have his 5 years pictures taken and try to get a few groceries and a few other things in need for the party. i'll have to bake the cakes that evening since we will then be headed to grand rapids for rainah's first birthday on saturday. we'll head home saturday evening and start to prepare for hayden's birthday on sunday.
new years eve?! yeah, we'll be sleeping.
hope you all had a wonderful christmas. i know we all did.


the stockings were hung by the hallway door with care. i tried to have talan's name put on his but marshall fields is gone now. know anybody that embroiders?!:
whatever could it be?!:
a trains! i don't have one of these!:
what else did santa leave me?:
seriously, guys. you just woke me up:
hmmm, what's in there?:
waking up a bit:
i like all the presents, but i'd really rather just have this cat leg:
the stash:

talan with the present hayden picked out for him all by himself. he loved it:
dave, talan and jessica:
rainah thinks everything is a phone. even a sock monkey slipper:
talan's last present before naptime:
ANOTHER train?!:
aquadots:
what do you mean i can't play with it?:
pat pat rocket. if he only knew how long it took me to get this thing. lucky for me it was one of his favorites:
mom finally getting a new printer:
they are making the same face but for different reasons. talan is so happy to have ahold of jessica's hair. jessica is not so happy about it:
that's better:
what hayden did all day:
justica. what wimps:
oh, this is a chocolate fountain?! ok, i guess i'll eat my ham now:
i hope justin didn't stick that finger in the chocolate fountain:

christmas eve

this evening we went to mom and dad's house to have our christmas eve lasagna dinner with mom, dad, jenn, don and rainah. jessica and justin were making their way back here from florida and should be at the airport as we speak. such a shame, too, cuz the new lasagna i made was a huge hit! oh well, there are always leftovers.
hayden refused to eat his lasagna which meant no christmas cookies for him. whoever heard of christmas eve with no cookies?! well, maybe one day he'll learn. but i doubt that.
mom tried reading the christmas story to all three grandkids. it worked for a few minutes and then chaos broke out and the only kid left sitting and paying any attention was talan. and that's probably because mom was holding him down. but it was still a great photo op.
we came back home and hayden put out cookies for santa (licking his fingers after putting the cookies down as that was the only taste of cookie he was getting tonite) and then opened up a christmas eve present that we had for him and talan. each got an ornament for the tree and a christmas book. hayden helped talan out since he was fast asleep in his car seat still.
now both children are in bed and waiting for santa to come. he'll be leaving presents for the boys here in their stockings and then he'll be leaving the rest of their presents under the tree at grandma's house. we'll be headed over around 8am to get the party started.
hope you all have a wonderful christmas!


merry christmas eve!!! from hayden and talan:
story time started out so well:
and it all went downhill from here:
rainah walking to hayden:
the cookies are ready for santa:
bowling!:
opening his new christmas book:
this is what talan did while hayden opened his present:
talan's new "first christmas" ornament:
talan's new christmas book:

howard/skiver christmas

saturday evening we headed to chadd, ashton, lorelei and melanie's house (c.a.l.m. that's the coolest) for "pretend christmas" as hayden kept calling it.
when we got out to fenton we all headed over to try out cici's pizza buffet. melanie and i were quite excited about it even though dave and chadd tried stealing our thunder by telling us it wasn't going to be that good. we all went on a vacation to myrtle beach when i was pregnant with hayden. we found a pizza buffet called the pizza stop that was amazing. all you can eat pizza, salad, pasta, sandwiches and drinks for like 4 or 5 bucks. we went twice. so we had to go and at least TRY cici's.
first of all, the guy at the cash register was totally annoying and every single one of us wanted to tell him to shut up. he talked way too long to tell us exactly what was up on the menu board. the next thing that bugged me was the fact that it's a buffet but they only have one pop machine. so that means there was always a line since only one person could get their drink at a time. that was lame. they also didn't have any labels on the pizza and with things like "macaroni and cheese" or "buffalo chicken" pizza, i really would have appreciated a sign.
but other than those few things, it wasn't too bad. i mean, it's cheap and it was all you can eat. and let me tell you, with a kid like hayden, you need to go to a place like that.
the cinnamon rolls were amazing. i would go and pay the $5 just to eat more of those.
so that was dinner.
we headed back to the c.a.l.m. household and let the boys play awhile while we fed talan who had been stuck in his car seat for about 2 1/2 hours. after awhile the boys came in and they opened presents. hayden got a responsibility magnet chart, a dot to dot book and a flex frisbee thing. talan got some rad guitar robeez shoes and a book.
we got ashton a new video game and a dan zanes cd and lorelei got an old school fisher price cash register and a pinball game. lorelei's gifts were the hit of the evening and the boys wouldn't even let the poor baby play with her own toys. i've known that this christmas was going to be trouble with hayden wanting to play with all the baby toys and last nite proved it even more.
after presents we had some peanut butter pie that melanie made, and was delicious by the way, we yelled at hayden for not listening and then we headed home as we had to be up way too early for hayden to sing this morning at church.
when we started loading the car we realized it was snowing and then heard it wasn't supposed to stop until about 7pm sunday nite. the roads got worse the closer we got to home, but it wasn't horrible. of course that could have been because i wasn't driving.
anyway. a wonder howard/skiver christmas was had by all and hayden didn't even get hurt this year! it was a christmas miracle.
thanks for the rad presents guys! hayden actually ran downstairs today to put all his toys away all by himself just so he could put the magnet on the board!

hayden and ashton sleeping:
present time:


lorelei's cash register but lorelei is nowhere to be found:
i had to yell "look it's a reindeer" to get him to look at me. then he was mad that he "missed it":
talan in his new super cool guitar robeez:
the boys were playing with lorelei's toys (see the background) so all lorelei could play with was a pull-up:

it's a ledco christmas

friday nite was the ledco company christmas party. we went to fox hills golf and country club in plymouth for dinner and dancing. when the party was over most people weren't quite ready to go home so we all headed over to bobby flowers house for a little after party of pool, ping pong and guitar hero. yes, i played guitar hero for the first time and am already addicted. does anyone want to get me an xbox 360 and then the guitar hero game and controller?!
here are some photo's from that evening.

the winners circle:
mike, mary anne, beth and daniel
winners circle #2. mike, usha, dave and daniel
winners circle #3. mike, brett and daniel:
beth. most deserving person of an award ever. seriously:
the frosty competition where mike and daniel were supposed to be made to look like a snowman. i think they looked more like mummy's with props:






sally and mallory. oh, and raul:
boys at the bar:
nic, bobby and dave:
robert. i love this picture:
dave and juan dancing the nite away:
jay. should have won the best dancer award:
scratch that. junior should have won that award:
dave and juan calling more out to the dance floor:
we don't do the hustle, but apparently others do:
trying to play pool at bobby's house:
my new addiction. guitar hero. i'll be over tomorrow, mallory:
bushra, jaime and allina:
nic and diesel:
shutting the party down. juan, nic and jim:

i was just told that i need to put ledco in all caps or else nic will have a fit. well guess who's blog this is?! and guess who never uses caps in her blogs?! not nic.

ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco ledco

was that enough for a heart attack?! oh, and by the way, you totally didn't take even close to 300 pictures.