Wow, I completely forgot that I missed posting about Christmas! Its has become apparent that I am officially a mother of three..
Christmas Eve at Alis house. Potato Soup and Pajama time!
Sleepover at Grandma and grandpas! She is OUT! Santa time!
Christmas morning traditional Mount pose when seeing the tree for the first time
It is disgusting I know, but MAGICAL! I know that we go overboard (granted, this is our family and the Silvas), but there is just something about Christmas that makes me crazy about presents. It was such a highlight of my childhood, and I love passing on that tradition of "Magic" to my children. Every year I say I am going to cut it down the next year, and every year I end up with this...what is wrong with me? I don't care, the faces and screaches over each gift was so worth it. I love it!
The greatest part of Christmas with us Mounts, is Dylan. He is the validator of all validators. seriously, he yells and jumps around at EVERY SINGLE gift. It could be socks and he will be screaming. He is so grateful and happy!
Dylan, "your not mad at it". LOL. This was a lego sent from Grandma and Grandpa West. I think he LOVED it! :)
Syd's favorite Santa gift. She isn't a huge presents person, nor a huge toy person. But she does like to open stuff. I kind of just want to walk around the house and wrap things, wooden spoons, books, etc. She doesn't care much, but loves to open.
Santa hit the jackpot with this getup. Macey is the new blonde Merida. Love her!
Grandpa loves his girls.
FYI-if you noticed that Sydney had gained a few lbs you were not wrong. Stuffing her clothes with any and everything in sight is her new "thing".
"A boomerang!!!!!!!" his most wanted gift of the day.
For the BIG gifts, I actually MADE something. Something amazing! Something that I am actually very proud of. something that I will NEVER do again. It was so much more time consuming and difficult than I had imagined (though I said that about Syd's weight blanket didn't I?). Let face it, I am NOT a sew-er.
Anyway, Cameron has always had a hard time getting rid of his T-Shirts. You would think they had been with him since birth. Really, though he can't manage to get rid of them because they have so much "history" to them. So, over the years, I have saved many of them with this t-shirt blanket in mind. I even had a t-shirt that was worn during our proposal (the Y in will you marry me), and a couple of pre marriage shirts that his nephews and family members even wore at his volleyball games (puff painted:). I rock. I know.
Ali and Heidi made one for their boys as well as senior quilts to take with them to college. Fun idea huh? I think I might steal it.
So if you notice we actually tied this quilt with yarn. After all was said and done, I hated it. Elaine had plans to go to California a few weeks after Christmas and offered to take it with her to her sisters house who actually had a quilting machine. Rad huh! She worked so hard on it and man, I couldn't be more grateful. Look at the difference:
The finished product:
What you wouldn't know just by looking at this, is that all of the stitching is done free hand. So Elaine (and Jim) had to feed it through the machine and create the design themselves. Crazy huh? I love that Elaine and Jim all had such a huge part in this quilt. Its is so special and Cameron loved/loves it. Now we have a quilt made from my mom, and cams parents. Rockin! This was definitely a labor of love, but so worth it!
I think for Cameron's sake, I am going to list all of the shirts starting from the top left corner:
Jim Mounts Retirement Party (Change-o-Subject man), Mounts in Maui, Mama's Restaurant from Greece (our favorite mama in Santorini), Phat Farm 5 boroughs from Cams mission, UCLA practice shirt, Portuguese friends shirt that they gave us with a bunch of our friends faces on it, Hawaii (cams favorite practice shirt), UCLA spray painted shirt that aunt patty made for everyone to wear in the finals against BYU (Cams worst match ever...but it was a finals match), USA volleyball shirt from training at the Olympic training center, LA departments of rec that we worked at and LOVED, UCLA 16 jersey, Mission pyramid, Scotland the Brave, Lakers fab 4 2001, Jimmy eat World (we have seen 5 times in concert), UCLA Grad 2002, Puma, V.I.M. vest from mission, Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Portugal, Y from our proposal, Zelda (of course), UCLA practice shirt, Zion national park (our first anniversary trip), Star Wars, UCLA again, UCLA puff paint shirt that Conner, Olivia, and Jordan each had when they were around 2 and 6 years old, Mounts at Disney 2009, Extralife (Cams charity gamer organization), Touched for the very first time (Cams bachelor party apparel), Just Maui'd (honeymoon), Hard Rock Niagara, Dos Pueblos, Taco bell/zone 7 mission shirt.
Another big gift was a trampoline! A friend of ours who was moving offered it to us a week before Christmas. We just had to buy a new net for it. A Christmas miracle!! :) We were able to set it up and hide it behind the house for Christmas day. The kids are crazy for it and are on it everyday, no matter the weather.
I don't have any pictures of me, but Cameron bought me a real pearl necklace. I am not sure how he did it, but I love it. I never have been huge on expensive jewelry, but recently (with the passing of 3 grandparents on the Mount side), I have seen the value of having and collecting nice jewelry to hand down to family members. I have loved getting and wearing a few things from these women of whom I admired, and I hope to do the same for my kids/inlaws/and grandkids. The meaning and history of it all is so fun!
Grandma and Grandpa West sent a bunch of animal books and things that I grew up with. The kids went crazy for them. I honestly don't think there is anything that Sydney likes more than books, especially books about animals. Thanks guys!
