Seeing Santa and Jammie day

I took the kids to see Santa at the mall yesterday. I drove past two other malls to get the this specific mall because we love their Santa and have used him since we've lived in Texas. He is so nice and looks so much like the real deal. The whole day went beautifully and the kids had a grand ole time. I was so excited because I was able to get two really great shot of the kids with Santa, and I also bought 1 5x7 from the Santa people. We stopped and took some pictures in front of the huge tree in the mall, and there must have been some Christmas magic in the air because I swear I got at least 5 shots of BOTH kids looking and smiling at the camera... AT THE SAME TIME (magic, I'm telling you!). I even got some great shots of each of them individually.

What? I should share those pictures here with you? Oh, I would LOVE too. But I freakin deleted them all before I could download 'em to my computer. I'm not kidding. I'm sick over it. And to top it all off, the Santa picture I bought at the mall came out of the envelope with a big ole yellow mark right on Santa's face. Really. Sick. Although, if that's what ales me the most, I do feel blessed.

So here are a few from last week that I never did upload.

Even one from Jammie day at Dylan's school. It was this past Friday and he was SO stinkin excited to wear his jammies to school, that you would have thought we were going on vacation. Speeking of which, I have some packing to do.

Christmas Pageant 2010: A Journey to Bethlehem

My boy has always been a brilliant actor. He has been creating and preforming plays for years now. His stage is usually our living room, his bedroom, outside in the yard, or the playground and his audience is normally his family and friends. Last night though, my boy took his skills to a real stage. And he was... brilliant. Seriously, he was such a good little actor last night in the roll of The Inn Keeper.

Turns out I'm a totally stage mom right down to mouthing the words of his lines as he says them. Its cool though.

After his oscar-worthy preformance (Can you tell I'm one proud Momma?) he took the stage with the Children's Choir, and turns out his a double thread because he rocked that song! I mean he just tilted his little head back and sang his heart out. It was the cutest thing ever.

I mean, I will laugh everytime I think about this for the next few months... it was THAT cute and funny.

After the show everyone told Dylan how well he did. I know that when I was a kid I would get crazy shy when a grown up gave me a compliment, but my little guy is so cool and calm about it. He just gives a big smile and says "Thanks!"

This was Dyl's first big part in a program, and he could not have done any better. We are so proud of our little Star. We think London will follow right in her big brother's foot steps!

Dylan's School Christmas Party

School Christmas Program 2010

The kindergarten class put on their annual Christmas pageant on this morning, and lucky for me... I have a kindergartner, so I got to go! I love, love, love holiday programs, they just melt my heart. And my boy melts my heart. Put the together and I'm a puddle of gooshiness.

I was a big bummed when they came out because Dylan was in the back row and I couldn't get any good pictures of him, but I could see him just fine so I couldn't complain too much. He was a little rockstar on that back row! But then, to my delighted surprise the back row and front row flipped around so that my boy (and all the other cuties on his row) was on the front! And as much as he rocked it in the back, he BROUGHT it in the front row. I think he knew that people were watching him, now that he was front and center.

They sang Feliz Navidad and I can not even begin to tell you how darn cute he was. He was SO into the song, especially the line "from the bottom of my heart" when he would grab his little chest and furry his sweet little brows... puddle, I'm telling you. It was so stinkin cute and really so funny!

As so very cute as this program was, I can not wait until Sunday when he is in our church's Christmas program! More to come on that soon!

Christmasy Things

Like many others around the globe, Christmas is my very favorite time of the year. I love the warm-coziness that it brings, I love the happy memories that tag along, and I love the traditions new and old that belong to it. And lucky for me, the Christmas season is in full swing here at the Hilburn House.

We have watched a handful of Christmas films already, enjoyed plenty of cups of hot coco in our snowman mugs, decked the halls, and even had our first Christmas party this past weekend.

One tradition that we began this year was Elf on the Shelf. He magically arrived on our door step the night of Thanksgiving with a book that told us all about him. He watched the kids all day long and then flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa while they sleep at night. Every morning he is somewhere new and the kids love running to find him. We named our Elf Peppermint. He'll be coming back for years and years to come!

I have lots of fun Christmas activities planned for us, and we kicked them off on Monday night when we took the kids to see A Journey to Bethlehem, which is a live nativity scene that you walk through. It was very cool and I think it really brought to life the story of Jesus's birth for Dylan. I was a bit worried that London would get frightened by the Roman Soldiers, but she is one brave cookie, just like her brother, and she loved the whole thing.

We will go back next year for sure.

There are a ton of Christmas events and projects on the horizon for Dylan at his school. The first of many was his assignment to make a Christmas Stocking. They gave up a pattern and left to rest up to our imagination. Dylan's stocking is "Kindergarten" themed, and I thought it turned out very cute! I can't wait to walk Dylan into school later this week and see what everyone else came up with!

Tonight, Dylan has choir practice for the Christmas musical. With all this Christmas (how many times do you think that word has been typed by now!?) stuff going on right now, I feel like we might turn into Elf! And I love it. I think we would make cute little elf!

Thanksgiving 2010

I don't know what has come over me, but I have but only four pictures to share from out Thanksgiving this year. Usually I'm a crazy "momaratsy", taking pictures left and right, but this year... a dinky four. I barely remembered to get a family shot. Ugh. Oh well, I'll do better next year, promise.

Our thanksgiving was lovely, even if it was virtually pictureless. It was the same as it always is; big breakfast at home, watch the Macy's parade while we get ready, lunch at my brothers, flipping through blackfriday adds, and video games. Like they say, "If its not broken, don't fix it!" I love our Thanksgivings.

We ate leftovers for days and days. Well, I ate them for days and days. Daniel and the kids had them twice and then were done with them. Daniel is one-time-only-for-leftovers kind of guy, and it seems the kids take after him.

As always, my heart was full of happiness and thankfulness for all that we have.

Happy Holidays, ya'll!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a birthday message to my dad, thanking him for being pretty much the worlds best father to me. Its true that he is. But you know what they say, right? Behind every great man there is a great woman.

This was true for my family as I was growing up. My mother, she is an amazing woman.

She talks sometimes about how my dad was usually the one that played with me, how he was the one who brought me home fun surprises like a brown bag full of candy. She has even suggested that she is a little regretful that she didn't "play" more. And its true that it was my dad who was my biggest playmate. But do you know why? Because my mom was making sure our house was in perfect condition at all times. She was providing us with a beautiful and clean home to play in. My dad, he made milk shakes for me and my friends at sleep overs (which, as I said last time, were famous in my circle of friends), but my mom was the one who made sure the house was ready for company and that the groceries had been bought in order to make those wonderful shakes! And yes, I loved my bags of candy, but I also adored all the beautiful clothes, bows, jewelry and other fun girlie things my mom would bring me home. My dad was so much fun when I was a growing up, and he was able to be because my mom was holding down the home-front.

Don't let the home-front-taking-care-of thing fool you though, because Betty Hinson is still plenty of fun! I remember countless "shopping sprees" and mommy-daughter lunches. I remember lots and lots of baking in the kitchen. She would make big, beautiful pies and let me help with those but then she would give me the scraps of dough and extra filling to make my own pies. As I got a little older, she was not afraid to let me explore the excitements of baking on my own, at the cost of her beautifully cleaned kitchen being destroyed. She would just let me do my thing, helping if needed, and then come in and clean the big mess up. Sleepovers often including a bit of baking by my girlfriends and I, thanks to my mom.

Speaking of sleep overs, as I became a teenager my house became the spot for hanging out amongst my friends. Why? Because my mom was so cool and so darn chill! I remember once when a few of my girlfriends had spent the night with me and for whatever reason we started a whipped cream food fight. That mess was all over the kitchen and in the entrance way. When my mom came into the room to see what all the noise was I remember my one friend looking at me like "Dude. We are all about to die." My mom didn't even raise her voice though! She just asked what the heck!?, laughed at our silliness, and gave us some rags to clean it up. My friends told me what a cool mom I had, but I already knew. This is just one of hundreds of her "cool" moments. I think it ranked up there with the great ones though. Its in hall of fame with the all the many of Church Camp trips and the pranks she would wake me and my friends up in the middle of the night to play (a camp tradition that no kid should miss out on!) and her making pancakes for me and my teenage friends at ten o clock at night. Yep, I was lucky to grow up with pretty cool mom.

I didn't always think she was cool though. We had our moments. Every mother-daughter team does. Ugh. And we had one really rough patch. But you know, she loved me through. She love me hard and full heartily. I would sit at the top of the stairs and scream at her, in fact I would scream just about anywhere at her, and she would almost always just stay calm. She would tell me once things had cooled down a bit, although at this particular time in my life things were never completely "cool" between the two of us, and let me k

now that I had hurt her but that she loved me, and that she always would. She showed me that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to push her away. She showed me the power of a mother's love. And the good news? We did eventually pop out of the other side to a much happier place. I full heartily believe that this was only because of my mother. I've seen horror stories of how other teens have gone through this or maybe even worse with their mothers and they never are able to repair it. But my mom love me too much to let that happen to us, and for that I am forever grateful.

Once we did pop out of that ugly place, we began to build a beautiful friendship. She made it clear to me that she was still my mother but she also wanted to one day be my friend. Today she is my best friend. She is my loyal companion and my biggest cheerleader in life. There are so many things that I have now because of her. She and my father are completely responsible for me being able to be a mother to my beautiful little boy. Without their support, financially, physically, emotionally, I would have not been able to successfully do it, never. My mom allowed me,

Daniel, and Dylan to live at her house with zero charge while Daniel finished school. I think all the time about what it may have been like with out that. We hardly made a dime back in those days. I've no idea how we would have survived. Not just did she support our little family during the two years that it took Daniel to finish school, she supported our young and fragile marriage. She would keep the baby for us to go on dates, even after she had worked full time all week. And she kept him several nights a week so that Daniel and I could work part time jobs for a little money of our own, money that she never once asked us for a penny of. We were able to have boost up to the beautiful life that we have now because of my mom. Even now, she helps us out all the time. She watches our kiddos for us so that we can go on dates. She comes over and teaches me how to do this or that around the house. She supports our kids and is at any event they might have. She loves us and our kids whole heartily.

Mom, its because of you that I know how to love my children without waiver. Its because of you that my family is what it is today. You are so much responsible for many of my best traits and I love you for that. You are my best friend and I love you with all my heart.

Happy Birthday!