Christmas

We had a great Christmas. Joseph was off the 23rd and the 24th so we were able to fit in quite a few Christmas activities. On the 23rd we went to a live Nativity put on by one of the local Baptist churches. Kimball loved seeing the animals, shepherds, angels, Wise Men, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. The baby was a real baby and was so happy just laying in the hay. Rebecah got cold and grumpy so we didn't stay very long.

Christmas Eve we had a traditional Johnson family dinner and then we had a short Christmas program. It was fun to sing Christmas songs as we read the Christmas story from the Bible. We also watched part of White Christmas and just before bed we left out cookies for Santa and read The Night Before Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Kimball loves the Grinch, we have read it so many times the past few weeks and it is cute to hear him quoting it.

Santa came as soon as Kimball was asleep so we could get a full night of sleep. We got up about 6:45 and the kids woke up shortly there after. We had a fun morning opening presents. We took a break during the present opening for breakfast...fruitcake and hot chocolate. Rebecah loved the fruitcake along with the rest of us. Now, no negative thoughts about fruitcake...it's quite tasty!

Some of the favorite gifts were a remote control car and a doll from a Grandma friend in Russellville in addition to laptop computer and doll house that Santa brought. Kimball likes Cita's toys in addition to his own so he is having a hard time realizing that not all fun toys belong to him. Cita is a good sport about Kimball taking her things. She is still at the age where she puts up with Kimball taking her toys...not for much longer I would imagine.

We had a nice relaxing day and enjoyed a nice quiet Christmas dinner. We were able to spread some Christmas cheer by singing to a man from church who was in the hospital.

Kimball's laptop is a Toy Story one and he told me that he is now more excited about the Toy Story movie than he is about the Cars movie so he is broadening his horizons.

With their presents from Santa



Sampling the paper before opening her present.


Cita with her new Care Bear


Kimball with his tool set.


Rebecah with her doll. She got SO excited when she saw it was a doll.


Pretty Blue Eyes


Working on their laptops together:



Kimball giving Rebecah a ride in his dump truck.

Counting the Days until Christmas

This year to help us count down to Christmas we did an activity out of the Friend magazine. We had a question each night that was answered by a reading scripture to help Kimball learn more about the Christmas story. He was so excited to glue our ornament on the tree each night.

Here is a picture of Kimball with our completed tree Christmas morning.

Decorating a Gingerbread House

One of the ladies that I visit teach gave us a gingerbread house kit for Christmas. It was my kind of thing since the house was already assembled. Kimball was SO excited to decorate the house but we wanted to wait until Joseph was home to decorate it with us.

Kimball enjoyed licking his fingers and sneaking candy when he thought I wasn't looking. Stale gum drops and hard ball candies aren't appetizing in my book, but more power to you, Kimball!

Here are some pictures from our decorating fun.
Just starting out.




In this picture, Kimball covered the entire window with candy so the people wouldn't be able to see out of the house.


Here are the 3 Wise Men with gifts in their hands.


Kimball's name in candy.

That sounds like Mater

We live in Arkansas and every now and then something will happen to remind us that Arkansas is part of the "upper" South and if you don't consider it the south it is rural with some country people. Thus said...I was driving in the van with the two kids and we had the radio on listening to Christmas songs. During one of the commercials Kimball all of a sudden said: "That sounds like Mater!" Sure enough, it was a local talking with a country-hick accent and he did sound like Mater from the Cars movie. I just had to laugh that Kimball could pick out the accent and relate it to something he knew.

Story time with Santa

Last Thursday evening we went to the library for a special story time with Santa Claus. Kimball was so excited about the special night that he talked about it all week. The previous week at story time we practiced playing and singing Jingle Bells with the handbells so Kimball was ready for Santa.

Kimball loved seeing Santa but when the time came to sit on his lap he was rather hesitant...not Cita though. She just kept staring at him and his beard. She actually left his lap with a fist full of beard she was trying to eat.

Kimball and Rebecah listening to Santa read a story.


Kimball ready to play Jingle Bells with his green handbell.


Picture with Santa

There were a lot of kids at the library that night. I'm glad our normal story time only has about 15 kids.

Found Some

So I thought we hadn't taken any pictures when we were visiting Joseph's family at Thanksgiving, but I found some from our time at the Mall.

Here are some pictures of Kimball sitting in various cars that we saw throughout the mall.



Here are some pictures of us on a car ride. The pictures are a little fuzzy because the cars whipped around the curve of the track so quickly. Kimball was a little alarmed to be thrown around each corner...I was too for that matter!

Almost there.

Rebecah is 11 months old today. This picture was taken two weeks ago, but she looks the same to me. She is still about 17 lbs and is always on the go. I noticed for the first time today that she is finally up on her hands and knees crawling. For the past 6 weeks or so she has just been going around like an inchworm on her belly. She sprouted her 8th tooth so we'll see how long our break is before she starts shooting out molars. I can't believe we'll be celebrating her birthday in a month!

She and Kimball have been having a lot of fun playing together and I'm surprised how rough she lets Kimball be before she has enough.

Thanksgiving Visit

This year for Thanksgiving we decided to spend the week in St. Louis with our family. We started our vacation with a trip to Memphis to attend the temple. While at the temple we saw Annette's sister, Sharon, and her family. It was good to see the Leighs because it had been a year and a half since we last saw them.



After Memphis it was on to St. Louis. We spent the first 3 days of our trip with my family and we had a lot of cousin time. My sister, Kristin, and her family are currently living with my mom so we were excited to see our boy cousins for a third time this year. Kimball loved having the boy playmates.



We had my sister step out of the kitchen, her favorite place to be, so she could snap some family pictures for us. Joseph was also able to get some really cute pictures of Cita as well.


On Tuesday we had Thanksgiving dinner with my family and the food was delish. We had all the usual Thanksgiving foods and 3 pies. We enjoyed seeing Laura and her family while we were there too. They say baby Amy shreaks, but I am still waiting to hear her in action.




Wednesday morning we headed up to the Coffey house to spend the last three days of our trip. We saw more family and had a great time and good food. Grandma kindly bought a new car toy for Kimball to play with and it was an instant hit. He wants one for our house now too.

After a tasty dinner on Thanksgiving Joseph and I went with Mandy and Jonathan to see Despicable Me. I had never heard of it but it had a really cute ending. My sister, Heather, worked at a movie theater when she was a teenager and I always thought it was strange when she said people would come to the movies on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I guess I'm now in the strange category since we went to the movies on Thanksgiving. It was kind of nice though to go watch a movie and then come home for pie.

While with the Coffeys we also took a tour of the Cathedral Basilica in downtown St. Louis. It was beautiful. It is well know for its mosaics and I now know why. We also went to the Mills Mall...for some fun. We planned on ice skating, but the free skating was almost over so we did some other fun rides instead. Here are some pictures of Kimball sitting in various cars that we saw throughout the mall.



Here are some pictures of us on a car ride. The pictures are a little fuzzy because the cars whipped around the curve of the track so quickly. Kimball was a little alarmed to be thrown around each corner...I was too for that matter!



My one regret about the visit with the Coffeys is that we didn't get more pictures. It never seemed to be a good time or baby Jo was sleeping or not feeling well. Next visit we'll have to get more pictures.

We had a great time but it is also nice to be back home and in our own beds again.

Wicked

Over the weekend Joseph and I went to Little Rock to see a performance of Wicked. I was so disappointed because I forgot our camera. I wanted a picture outside in front of the huge Wicked poster.

I was really excited to see Wicked because I have loved the music ever since I was introduced to it 6 1/2 years ago. The show was fabulous and I loved the excitement that came from the crowd and the atmosphere.

Seeing Wicked has resparked Joseph's excitement for Broadway type performances and he is looking into other shows that will be coming our way.

Kimball was very sad he couldn't go with us to see the Wicked Witch but we brought him back the playbill from the show and he was thrilled.

10 Months

Rebecah turned 10 months old last Sunday. It's hard to believe she is so old. She weighs almost 17 pounds, got three new teeth and learned how to army crawl this month. She is perfectly content to scoot around on her tummy and has no interest when we put her up on her knees. She just rolls back into a sitting position. She is a happy girl as long as I'm holding her or not going too far. She struggled with the time change but is slowly settling in to the new time.

A lot of people comment how much she looks like Kimball and people frequently mistake her for a boy even when she is wearing pink. Poor girl.

Showing off 5 of her 6 teeth.


Sitting on Kimball's bed. They play on his bed after his nap just about every day.


Ready for some action.

Fall Tree

I was bemoaning the fact that we will be gone over Thanksgiving and won't be able to set up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving when Joseph decided to come up with a great solution...a Fall tree.

We set up the Christmas tree and then went shopping for decorations. We found some Christmas ornaments 50% off that were a perfect brown color. I personally would never use them for Christmas because for some reason brown does not say "Christmas" to me. Anyway, we also got some silk leaves in fall colors and a few other decorations.

Kimball had a blast decorating the tree and Kimball happily clustered the decorations at the bottom where he could reach.

I think the end product turned out well. The leaves really help to add color to the tree.


Kimball with his tree.



Kimball and Rebecah with the tree. Rebecah had been crying so that's why her face is red. I had put her down so I could take the pictures, shame on me! Gotta love that separation stage.

Family Hike

As part of our Halloween festivities we went on a family hike at Petit Jean State Park. Our trail was only 1/4 of a mile but we had a nice time. There were big rocks to climb on and a little cave area to look around in. Here are some pictures from our fun day.