I’m going to skip over the days between Sunday and Christmas. Just suffice it to say that Savannah shared her stomach bug with other family members, not as much last minute shopping got done as was planned (no Christmas candy in any one’s stocking, probably not really a bad thing when you get right down to it) and Mark spent his days off running errands rather than being able to relax 
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Despite passing around a stomach bug, Christmas morning came
and the children woke us up by singing and climbing onto our bed.
Colby (3) did a pretty decent impersonation 
and all the stockings were filled.
My parents, grandmother (not pictured) and brother (see stocking picture) were able to join in our festivities for the first time since Mark and I have been married.
The two little boys enjoyed a train set
while the two little girls were enthralled with a princess tent
and the others explored the world with a microscope.
The gift that got one of the biggest reactions from the children surprised me. When Matthew opened a Greek/English Interlinear New Testament it’s arrival was greeted with jumping, yelling, high five-ing and lots of hugging. It’s kinda fun having semi-geeky kids. 
We had a very eventful Christmas night, but I think I’m saving those stories for my next Not Me post.
By Tuesday, December 29 we were all feeling better and enjoyed the excitement of 
an oven fire 
and a trip to the zoo.
Nicholas (1) tried his hand at being a zoo keeper 
while Savannah (4) practiced veterinary medicine.
On Wednesday we headed to Gatlinburg to see the Christmas lights. This is something that we generally do between the 22nd and 24th when Gatlinburg is quite empty, going after Christmas we didn’t have that luxury.
The children met a movie star 
and Sadie (6) starred in a magic show.
Since our family does not get enough odd looks when we walk around in public *insert sarcasm font there* the kids decided to up the ante by getting goofy teeth from the magic show 
and walking all the way back to the car smiling at everyone we passed. I just wish I’d had the video camera to catch people’s reactions.
We always celebrate New Year’s Eve at home and all children age 5 and older get to stay up until midnight (well at least we wake them back up at midnight) and have special drinks (hot chocolate and eggnog) and snacks (shrimp, chips and dip, and fruitcake). Actually we cheat a bit on the 5 and older part. We have 3 children who have birthdays in January or February and those kids get to stay up when they are 4 because we are so close to their birthday. This year will be Savannah’s (4) first year and she has been talking about it non-stop.
Tomorrow we’ll have a fire, play games, read books, eat and watch football.
Blessings to you and your family in 2010!
So how do you celebrate the New Year? Do you stay up? Do your kids? Do you go out? Have people over?
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Wow- you’ve had an eventful week! And I thought having to perform the Heimlich on my 1 yr old Christmas morning was excitement! Other than that I’ve been reading, reading, and more reading. I’m sad that I won’t have time for much of that now until summer, but excited to get back into our Sonlight reading full-force. I think my parents, grandmother, and in-laws will come to our house New Years day. They all live in our neighborhood so no one travels far, but it will be fun to have them all here for a few hours. We do not let kids stay up New Years eve. Actually, we’ve never told them there’s anything special about it. We let the 3 older kids stay up on holidays until 10 or so anyway. Happy New Year to your family!
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 9:09 am
Performing the Heimlich on anyone is more excitement than I want to have. I assume everyone is all right??
I’m looking forward to getting back to a regular school routine also. With all of our new review items though, it will take us some time to figure how everything is going to fit.
Happy New Year!
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We celebrate New Year’s Eve by inviting family over and playing games together, eating snacks, and maybe watching a movie. Because we have little ones we usually only stay up until 10pm and celebrate it then.
Tonight it will be our family, my sister and her 4 little ones, and these snacks:
nachos
popcorn
muffins
fresh bread
We’ll try a big game of Harry Potter Uno together, and probably let the kids play You’re in the Movies (on the x-box), where they act out parts and it clips together bits to tell a story.
Should be fun!
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 9:10 am
That sounds like a lot of fun. I’m with you on the not staying up late. I usually nap on the couch and Mark wakes me in time to ring in the new year.
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We are planning to: make our own tostadas, pop popcorn and flavor it 3 different ways (with my new air-popper), look at our photos from 2009, and play board games. Each family member (except the baby) will get to pick a game and everyone will play. Nicholas (4) has already picked Hi Ho Cherry-O for his game. My husband and I joked that we’d pick Risk, and start our game first! Bwahahahaha! The little ones probably won’t make it until midnight, but the big ones are very excited about it. I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll all sleep late on Friday! Then, we’ll discuss some goals for each family member to shoot for in 2010. We don’t do ‘resolutions’ but we like to set goals. Each child must think of at least one goal they’d like to accomplish, but they may set as many as they want. I’ll try to have more than ‘losing weight’ as mine!
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 9:12 am
We’ve done the “everyone picks a game” before. The homemade tostadas sound wonderful. ( I rarely make it until midnight, but Mark always wakes me so I can celebrate with the kids.
)
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I love the kids smiling at the strangers with the silly teeth
As for Us… Im working today so I will *try* to stay up for New Years. We plan on making up Tacos with some salad though for dinner.
We will likely play some games on the WII as well.
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 9:13 am
I rarely STAY up for the New Year, but Mark makes sure that I am up to ring it in.
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Lol, I love that you stopped to take a picture of the oven fire instead of, you know, putting it out first.
Blog moments always come first, hehe.
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 9:14 am
As I was rushing to go get my camera I said, “Wait, don’t put that out yet. I need to get a picture.” Yep, that’s pretty pitiful.
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The oven fire picture looked familiar. Unfortunately it happens at least once a year around here. Too many cooks in the kitchen, but not enough on clean up duty!! We also have a pic with Herbie from our recent trip to your neck of the woods.
I had planned a bonfire for this evening, but it rained all day yesterday and through the night. My menu depended on the bonfire….we were going to roast hot dogs and have chili and all the trimmings. I may just broil them in the oven if dh can’t get a fire started (perhaps I need a firepit, instead of our always there brush pile?). We are having another family over tonight, but they will most likely leave by 10 then we will all go to bed. Dh is up at 4 everyday, so late nights don’t work too well.
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 9:17 am
This was our first oven fire. I put biscuits (with a lot of butter) on a flat tray. Butter dripping onto the burner = very pretty fire. The biscuits were fine, but the house smelled of grease fire for a while.
A bonfire sounds like a wonderful way to celebrate. I agree with your husband. I’m certainly not a night owl. However, my husband loves to be up late.
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When I see all your babies in the first pic I can’t imagine the happiness you have in your home. I only have two right now and the joy they bring me I cannot describe.
We’ll be spending the New Year with Nana sitting with the babies and enjoying a night at the movies with friends. I PROBABLY won’t be able to make it to midnight… but I’ll try.
And we have the Hebrew/Greek Interlinear and LOVE it. We have really been able to understand so much more by using it. Happy New Year!
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looks like lots of fun was had at the Olives’ – but you know, only a blogger would stop to take a picture of a fire in the oven – lol.
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 9:19 am
You are absolutely right about the fire in the oven picture. There is one advantage to blogging though, I have some great memories recorded.
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ohhh we are as boring as it comes girl. My husband and I have never celebrated New Years. Kids go to bed as normal, and so do hubby and I. But after reading yours and a few other blogs, and what they do to involve the kids and make it a fun family memory, I think we definitely will next year. Consider me *inspired*
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 9:20 am
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I love looking at pictures of your beautiful children!
I can’t believe you took a picture of that oven fire! Now that is some bloggy dedication!
(I didn’t recognize the movie star.)
We sometimes stay up for a New Year’s party, but mostly not. This year we didn’t.
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 9:23 am
Movie star? Herbie the car, certainly I’m not THAT much older than you. Say it isn’t true!
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I loved all the pictures and reading about your Christmas and New Year’s Eve plans!
We usually stay home for New Years and play games and eat snacks and then watch the ball drop and go to bed!
This year, we drove to my parent’s house in SC and they went to bed about 10 pm, and we all stayed up, watched some football, played some games, ate some food my mom left out for us, watched the ball drop, and went to bed!
I let all of my children stay up, but then again, I no longer have babies! My youngest is 5! and my oldest is 24! Hard to believe they are so old.
And hard to believe it is 2010! I still remember all the hype about 2000 — that New Year’s Eve was really fun! My husband threw the breakers right at midnight to scares us all when the “power went out due to Y2K!” LOL!
Happy New Years!
Elizabeth
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Yes, funny about Y2K. What a classic joke.
I remember 2000 roll in around the globe and thinking that our ball drop in NY has nothing on the fireworks over Sidney in Australia.
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We usually hang out with friends on NYE but this year our 2yr old has pnomunia so we are keep it low key for everyone.
Glad your oven fire wasn’t to bad. We had one a while back from grease that required a fire extinguisher and LOTS of cleaning!!!
I have a question about your train set. Is that the GeoTrax? IF so does the bridge stay together with the track and elevated or does it come apart easily. Our youngest loves trains but we don’t want to attach the wooden track to the table and the bridge falls over all the time and frustrates him greatly. We got the remote control GeoTrax for him and he loves it so we were thinking for later…..
Thanks
Tracie
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Oh, sorry to hear about your 2 yr old. What a big illness for such a little kid.
That is GeoTrax. Everything stays together well for our 1 and 3 year old (unless they’re trying to take it apart). GeoTrax has been a terrific hit in our house.
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Ahhh, so funny you taking a picture of your oven fire!!! We experienced that, too, but it was self inflicted… I didn’t clean the bottom of the oven when I SHOULD have!!! Once again, procrastination caught up with me
. For New Year’s we went to a friends house. There were a few families from church there. The kids played on the wii, and generally ran wild. We also played games, and all us “girls” did each others nails. My favorite part of the night was watching a three year old paint her mom’s fingernails. The “guys” let off fireworks at one point. We had tacos (everyone brought something for the “fixings”), hot chocolate, and coffee. Of course, we left at 10:30, when our little ones started having meltdowns from exhaustion… really, when a 5 year old is crying for some obscure reason that doesn’t make sense… it’s time to go. Chris and I stayed up until midnight only because Shoshannah was wide awake.
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Well this one was self inflicted too. I thought it was a good idea to put biscuits (made with lots of butter) on a flat baking stone rather than one with an elevated edge. Butter dripping onto heating elements make for a nice fire, but very little clean up was required.
Love doing manicures and pedicures. It’s a great way to spend time together.
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Looks like you had a very nice holiday in spite of the “bug” at your house. We never do much for new year’s eve. Ten years ago though my husband decided to fly the entire family to Hawaii to celebrate the milennium in a memorable way. We sat on the beach at Waikiki and rang in the new year, new century,etc. I haved loved the memories of that trip more than I can express.
This year we didn’t do anything but stay up and watch “John Adams” on DVD. Honestly, making it to midnight is a BIG accomplishment for me. We are all still exhausted from the month we spent caring for our two grandchildren while Amberlyn and Tom were in Ukraine adopting their new sister. What a fun and challenging task that was! Oh yes! and I make tiramisu to toast the new year in, with a little cognac…something my husband and I do every year.
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Congrats on your new grand daughter!
Great, now I’m totally craving tiramisu.
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So you truly are a blogger because you took a picture of the oven fire before you put it out hahahaha!!!
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Guilty as charged! It’s pitiful really.
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Oh, our oven caught on fire a couple of years ago. My husband just shut the door and we looked at each other going, “What do we do?”
So I called my mom. lol!!
She didn’t know what to do either. The flames started to get pretty big though, so my husband used the fire extinguisher.
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
January 7th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
I’m so thankful for moms to call.
Our fire just went out on it’s own. It was really caused from butter dripping down onto the burner, so there wasn’t much to burn.
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