Holiday Traditions

Do you have any holiday traditions? I know growing up we had traditions passed down through the generations. Like Santa always leaving Apples, Oranges and nuts in our stockings as well as unwrapped gifts under our tree. We always opened Courtney family gifts on Christmas eve and Miller family gifts on Christmas morning. Christmas is one of my most cherished holidays. Its about family, that's why I love it so much.

Since marrying Zeus, we have made our own traditions. The most loved tradition our family has is to go to a tree farm and cut our very own tree. Over the years it seems to have gotten harder to find one because we have four little opinions added to our opinions as well. The kids look forward to tree hunting every year. This year was perfect because the weather cooperated with us. It was a beautiful sunny day in the mid 60's. Can't ask for a much better autumn day for tree hunting.

This year we hunted for about an hour or so and the best part was the babies all worked together to cut the tree down themselves. Zeus said he likes not having to do the cutting any more. Little does he know this tradition will continue when we have four adults, hahahaha.

Anyways this tree is a beautiful 7 foot white pine that has a very large girth. She is gorgeous.

We had a good time and enjoyed our little precious family moments and tradition.

Christmas just got a little brighter

My kids were bummed that we would not be able to have any family here for Thanksgiving. Zero, was highly excited to my parents again. Little did she know they were not planning on coming.

So after the disappointment of Thanksgiving, they got this brilliant idea to write a poem and send it to my parents in hopes that they could convince to come out for Christmas. Zeus' parents just left last week so they have made their mark on St. Louis, but my parents have yet to make their way out here.

They promptly sent an email BEGGING them to come. The email comprised of Red and Green, huge, bold letters asking for their presence here in STL for Christmas. Quite clever of my daughter, I must say. The funny part of all this is I was completely in the dark about this email. Or this video.

So this is the poem being read by my children persuading their grandparents to come visit.



Zeus decides a picture is in order to sufficiently request a visit. Grammy and Grampy can't possibly say no to children without any shirts on in the freezing cold weather we are experiencing, or will they?

The kids then asked that their grandparents please answer them. This is what came back.

Then the kids were beyond excited that they had indeed sealed their Grandparents visit for Christmas. So what do they do? Oh yes, they write another diddy. This time a song. Who could say no to this precious angels?

Well, Grammy and Grampy had better prepare themselves this holiday season cause the St. Louis Haskins children are preparing with new songs, new choreography, plans, games, restaurants and all the many things they can fit into our schedule to share their new house, new city and new friends with their beloved Grandparents all the way from Ft. Worth, Texas. Giddy Up, cause Grammy and Grampy are coming to Town.

Halloween Fun

Halloween is always a fun event at our house. I have rules for the children though.
The children are not allowed to be anything that resembles scary, dead, demonic or negative beings.
For me the holiday is about creativity, togetherness, community and pure innocent fun.
As a family we always choose a theme for Halloween. Since Day one, there has been a theme. Every costume must be a part of the theme. Weird, yeah maybe. But it is effective.
This year took much longer to decide what we would do. We dabbled at ideas for months. I like to have costumes purchased by late August early September to beat the rush. This year we were a bit late due to many outside factors. Finally I gave the kids a deadline to decide, the morning of the deadline the children woke up and were preparing for school but were so excited to share that the night before they had finally decided on a theme. ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Fantastic. Perfect. Easy. I was elated.  So many characters to choose from that I knew I could find the costumes we needed. But this year was different, Daddy would be in town and the kids insisted that Mom and Dad dress up as well. I was a little hesitant but later decided we could pull it off.

The kids choose what they wanted to be but we had to tweak those ideas a bit, which they happily agreed. Daddy had to be persuaded, by a lot. Mommy had to do a few *cough* things to get him on board. Nevertheless, he agreed.

With a few minor set backs we dressed and headed out to trick or treat on base.

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Here is the result. I think it worked, and funny how the costumes fit personalities as well.
Zeus: Tweedle Dum (original)
Ziggy: Tweedle Dee (original)
Zero: Alice (original)
Omega: Ace of Clubs, who paints the roses red. (original)
Zulu: Mad Hatter (Tim Burton)
Twinkle (Me): Red Queen of Hearts (Tim Burton)
What do you think? We enjoyed it a lot.