Merry Christmas!!!

What a wonderful Christmas we had this year! This year has been tough for a lot of families and the economy is rough, but santa was so good to our family and we have so much to be thankful for. We are so grateful for the support of our family and friends and all the love they show us!!

This year I focused on traditions with my kids. We followed many of our old Christmas traditions and made a few new ones this year. I am a sucker for family heir looms and this year my favorite Christmas gift was my Grandmothers nativity scene. I had read one of those "things about you" emails by my cousin in Texas and she mentioned having my grandma's nativity scene. I emailed her and asked her to send me a picture and she sent me the nativity scene. I was shocked to tears and so grateful. THANK YOU AMANDA!!!
As of today...the Chargers are in the playoffs....my hubby is beside himself happy. That is his Christmas miracle!
Andrew and Kiki were so excited for Christmas that they woke us up at 1:00am to open presents. I am not sure who went to see below the tree to see if Santa had come, but they were so excited that they could not go back to sleep. We told them we would get up at 6:00am and they played in Kiki's room until then. Alexis is getting to be a teenager and would have slept in much longer than 6:00 if we had let her...haha. The kids were all so tired on Christmas day!!! Kiki fell over on the couch asleep right before we were to leave for Poway to visit family there. It was hilarious.

We got the kids a Wii for Christmas. Christmas morning we sent them on a trail of clues to find the Wii. It was so fun to watch them run all over the house. The looks on their faces was priceless when they found what they were looking for. Our whole family loves the Wii. We have a great time with it.
I would just like to take a minute to thank each of you for loving our family and supporting us. We wish each of you only the best in the New Year!!!

Love the Hess'


Here are the kids looking at clues around the house for the "suprise gift" (Wii)
Andrew asked Santa for a Rip Stick!!!
Alexis asked Santa for a touch screen MP3 player!!!
Kiki asked Santa for a Wow Wee Lion cub
This year we drew names in our family and the kids got each other. Kiki got Andrew a set of army men and tanks...He loved it and played with it a ton that night!
Alexis and Kiki loved the gifts they got each other!
I made a traditional ham meal for my family. I have never cooked for that many people. It was so much fun!!!

Decorating our Christmas tree

The kids had a great time decorating the Christmas tree. Kiki drew the straw to put the Angel on top this year.









Rick and I laughed because what would we have done to get the big kids up there!!! Kiki is still so easy to lift that high!!!

Kiki's first school presentation!!!

Kiki did her first school presentation. She had to learn about family traditions. We picked our Irish heratige and she told of the candle in the window tradition. She made a posterboard and some Irish Soda Bread to share with her class. She did a GREAT job and learned a lot!!

Thanksgiving Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebrating with family in Poway. The kids baked a cake and pie to enjoy. We stuffed ourselves and enjoyed seeing all our family!!




Michael (our nephew) is always wonderful to teach Andrew new moves to use on his friends (and Dad!!)


Alexis is wonderful with the little kids (Reghan our neice is pictured here with her)...she is the only big girl at family functions and I think we all love having her there to help us out....she is always so loving with the little kids!!!

And the little ones do get really wild when they are together...It is amazing how much Kiki (curly hair) and Jadyn (our neice in the long black hair) look alike (haha...they are 8 weeks apart in age and look totally opposite!! We always joke they are the "twins") Reghan (our neice, loves to get wild with the girls now too!! She is getting so big!!!


Baby Layne (our youngest neice) is getting so big and we all were saying how much she looks like Andrew!!



Nick carved the turkey for us to all enjoy (and Paula cooked it!! Thanks Paula)





And we all ate a LOT of food!!



We ended the evening getting some great family pics!!!





PS...NATE WAS THERE TOO!!!

TWILIGHT

"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb"
"What a stupid lamb"
"What a sick, masochistic lion"

Big news in our house....The release of Twilight the movie. Alexis and I have read the books and LOVED them....we were so excited to see the movie...we loved it..a MUST see!!!

School Harvest Festival

We had such a great time at our school's first ever Harvest Festival. I helped with the Cake Walk this year (my first ever doing that) and loved it. I helped make 8 cakes to hand out and my mom helped with the most darling turkey cupcakes!!! The kids had such a great time and we loved every minute. They had games, arts and crafts, and relay races...Andrew loved the sponge race and I am pretty sure he was the wettest kids there!!!

Trick r Treating

We had such a fun time during Halloween this year.....We celebrated with our good friends, the Sanders. The kids got a BOAT LOAD of candy and were up until all hours of the night! We played a little Rock Band to close out the night. Kiki loves to sing "I think I am paranoid" by Garbage...it is so cute to see her sing along side her brother.

Pumpkin Carving

Family Genes

I recently got this picture from my Mother-in-Law. The picture is of my hubby at 7 years old. The other is Kiki at 4. It is just incredible how much Kiki looks like her daddy. Just wanted to share!!!

Our trip to the pumpkin patch

We had a great time at Riley's Farms in Oak Glen picking apples and pumpkins!!! The weather was WONDERFUL and the kids each got a fantastic pumpkin to carve!













Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Staci and our cousin Jake went too. We think this might have to be our annual tradition each year!

Andrew's 8th Birthday

Andrew had a GREAT 8Th birthday....we had most of his friends from baseball and they played HARD all day.


I think this was the highlight of the party...those boys loved the rooster pinata (thanks Christina)!!! Since they all are all star baseball players, they immediately took the head off and promptly after that smashed it into a million pieces. They loved it so much that most of the kids took parts of it home with them as souvenirs.

So it wouldn't be me if I didn't mess up a little at the party...I put 9 candles instead of 8...oh well, one to grow on!!!