Merry Christmas, better late than never

Busy is just not the word.......but let's start with wonderful. Our Christmas was very nice. It started w/ me waking up John @ 7:30 to let him know that Santa had come....this is a yearly routine, I am always the first one up, you would think Santa brought me something, so we proceeded to get up and of course, turn on the fueling device coffee pot...you don't even want to speak to John before his coffee, he's not very nice. I then went in and woke up Amelia, yes the one day she was actually still asleep at 7:30 am, figures huh. We then went in and proceeded to wake up Kaylie, this was fun....Amelia loves this task. She jumped out of bed and tried to run in the living room to see what Santa had brought and I said, whoa, hold on, do you have to go potty, she said no, I said well then you wait for us, we all go in together, a milisecond later she was doing the pee pee dance, so we waited for her to go potty. We then entered the living room where Daddy, video camera and camera where all waiting, and we investigated the piles. The were both so overwhelmed it was great. It must have taken Kaylie at least 10 to 15 minutes to notice her DS as I had to point it out to her. Amelia loved her asian doll and stroller and inch worm.

The loot before the raid

Oh my goodness!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look at all those presents

We then noticed a note from Santa, it said that he left a gift in the back yard and told the girls to ask for Daddy's help in putting it together, it should have said, Daddy, Uncle Mike and Pop's help, because that's where they sat for the next 3 days, in my back yard, putting together a swing set.

The final product, after 3 days....I have been told to contact the company and let them know that the instructions should say "total assembly required w/ two builders and one helper.

Fun on the new swing set.






Cheese Mommy


We then started to just look through everything and determine what was really there, and the phone started ringing, "when are you coming over"? This is our yearly routine, wake up, Santa, to my mom's where we will proceed to spend the rest of the morning into early afternoon opening the rest of the gifts from the family (have I mentioned before we have a BIG family). So that was what we did, headed over to mom's. We first give the kids all their presents because they are impatient and we had a special guest this year, Mike's daughter Stephanie is here, so it took even longer, and then the adults got to finally open some gifts. Around noon we took a break for breakfast, yes I typed that correctly seeing as how the only breakfast foods comsumed were while someone was handing out gifts and we all chowed on the cookies and baked bread that was on the counter. I had made a crock pot breakfast casserole, my mom made bacon, bagels, and hashbrowns, Amy made biscuits and gravy and scrambled eggs w/ cheese. Once we finished breakfast we put the babies down for a nap and proceeded to pass out he remainder of the gifts. By 2 pm we were finally done, and then it was time for the cooler scooters. So we blindfolded John and took him outside, Jamie and I and the kids got on the scooters and just rode them right past him, his expression was priceless. Needless to say he was very pleased. He got really spoiled this year, but I suppose once in a while he deserves it. We then hung out at mom's for the rest of the day and then home around 8pm.


There was a phone vibrating in this box, he figured it out right away.

Alex was so excited...............

Aaron opening a gift

Cheese, Auntie Lorie
John and Mike have the gag gift kind of relationship, John found this gift from Mike hilarious........

Kaylie loved her cupcake maker


Jordan loved his 3 pack of Play Station games

This is the present my Dad and I made for my mom I told you about a few weeks ago

Amelia loved her puppy purse Mommy, Daddy and Sissy got her

John anxiously awaiting his next gift, like he has a choice...hehe

OH MY!!!!!!!!! What are these??????

I suppose we should come back and let John try

John taking Stephanie for a ride

Mommy and Kaylie cruizin

Everyone checking out John's new ride

I actually took the day after Christmas off this year, so the kids could actually play w/ their toys....but Friday started very early, and we did not stop until around 8pm last night (Sunday). In the meantime, somehow, someway Pop lost his cell phone, so if anyone see's it, please let me know. We are totally convinced one of the babies was making some very important pretend phones calls on it, and it's in a very safe place....but let me tell you.....it's really safe, because we scoured our entire house, inside and out for approximately 2 hours or more and 6 people or more at one time or another, I even went home last night for one last ditch effort and cleaned out the toy boxes, that thing is no where to be found.

We are now dealing w/ Amelia, she is very sick and has a Dr's appt this afternoon...her tummy hurts and she points to her chest/neck area. She had a terrible cold, but it has escalated into something much more, today was a very rough morning and had I not had a deadline at work, I would be home w/ her. My poor baby, pray she feels better soon, as she is absolutely miserable.

We finally got a Dr's appt late this afternoon........turns out poor baby has a RAGING ear infection and pneumonia......



She is now on the nebulizer every 4 hours as needed, it's going to be a long few days, at least she sat still and did her treatment.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Prosperous, Safe and Happy New Year.........w/ Love the Morgens.

Happy Birthday Kaylie!!!!!!

6 years ago today, Kaylie was born in China only to be abandoned on the steps of a Women's and Childrens Hospital 3 days later......the best thing that ever happened to us!! We are truly blessed to have this precious gift in our lives.

Usually we take Kaylie to the movies as a special Birthday treat every year, but this year there were not any movies out we really wanted to see, so we decided to go bowling instead. We had a great time, John, Kaylie, Amelia, Auntie Jamie, Mike, Alex, Aaron and myself all went bowling Saturday night. It was the girls first time, and I think we will be going back.

Sunday we had our family celebration at my mom's house and Kaylie got to open all her presents. I highly recommend the Princess Projector if anyone has a 5 or 6 year old that likes to draw.



Today Kaylie had a good day, she was awakened by Mommy and Amelia singing Happy Birthday early this morning, Kaylie did not want to get out of bed, so Mommy picked up the recruit and placed her on Sissy's bed, yeah, fun was had by all. Not to mention Kaylie lost her second tooth last night, so the tooth fairy came too.

Kaylie w/ her little tooth pillow and the money from the tooth fairy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRINCESS, WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!! XOXOXOXOXO

I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas, I will post again after Christmas.

Probably had to be there, but I'll try

So when we were in Disney, we had a couple of those moments that you probably had to see to appreciate the humor, but I'll try.

When we were in Disney we got seperated at the end of the night, but Amy and I were going to head to the car w/ the babies, this was a story in itself. See when in Disney you have to either take the monorail or the ferry to get back to the tram to get to your car, ughh....so Amy and I are pushing the babies to the monorail, and let me tell you they gained probably about 30 lbs each or felt like they did when we were trucking our butt all the way up the monorail ramp, so we did it, made it to the top, huffing and puffing....we got in line and waited, and waited and waited. Eventually the workers up top said 'we don't know how long it's going to be', man...so back down the hill we went, and we decided to just take the ferry, well we couldn't find the darn entrance, so we eventually decided to just go around and up the other ramp to the other side for the monorail, at this point we looked up towards the park and our family was exiting and we told them to follow us, now it took about 10 minutes but we finally all made it back up the ramp. As soon as we got to the top of the ramp, the other monorail was running normally. So we get on the monorail and everyone is hysterically laughing, and Amy and I said, what are you laughing at. Well, when we got seperated I gave my mother my cell phone in case someone tried to find her, and she just put it in her back pocket. Well, my cellphone has a vibe then ring feature that I leave it on, I have often jumped out of my seat when my cell phone rang because the vibration is quite strong. So Jamie was trying to find my mother at the exit of the park and decided to call my cell phone, just then she spotted her across the way...well my phone had already started to ring in her back pocket, now mind you my mother doesn't have the best of hearing, but all of a sudden she jumped because my phone started vibrating, picture if you could someone trying to run away from their own behind, and she stood there for a minute w/ her hand in the air, wondering if she should touch it, because she had no idea what had just happened to her. At that point they were all hysterical laughing at her, now on the monorail hearing this story Amy and I and everyone else again was in tears just imaging this entire scene. In fact I am still laughing as I type this.

The other 'had to be there' story is about John, as I stated when we travel it is usually in groups of 14 or more, so we brought our air mattress and were in a one bedroom condo, well John and I slept on the air mattress in the living room, this required that we put the kitchen table and chairs on the lanai, well what is usually above a table, a chandelier. I was laying in bed, trying to keep repeating to myself to tell John to watch the chandelier, well you guessed it, I was too late. He went to do something next to the bed and kablam....head in chandelier, down on the floor he goes, and at this point I am laughing hysterically and then my sister Michele came out of her room and said 'what's wrong, what'd you do', cause let's just say those dirty words were exiting his mouth again, and she then stopped the chandelier from swinging through the air, she went in the bathroom w/ him and he had this huge 'target' as she called it right in the middle of his forhead. So this of course took a while to recover from. It was then the middle of the night and I don't recall why he got up again, but he did it again, smack kablam and down to the floor...I of course woke out of a sound sleep to laugh at him hysterically again. In the morning he got up early to go to the race track well he came over to the bed to kiss me goodbye and there he was hovering over the bed, and he swung his head around and just missed the chandelier once again, and said 'oh hell no' and he stared at the chandelier.

We often get a good few laughs at the expense of others, but after all it's family and if you can't laugh at their downfalls, who can you laugh at.

Decoration overload, nope just enough

Every year it is tradition to start on Thanksgiving Day decorating, we usually start w/ mom's house, then on Friday our house, then back to mom's house on Saturday and then back to our house on Sunday and this year Michele's house was in the mix, but John and Mike were smart and did hers the weekend before Thanksgiving. So my mom's house has quite a few outside and inside decorations, below are a few photos of mom's house and the front of our house, it wasn't until John finally finished our outside decorations this past Saturday that I realized, wow, we have a lot of decorations too. Enjoy

The penguins on Mom's lanai
Mom's lania, looking from the back yard

Mom's 14' + Christmas tree

Mom's front yard

Our front yard

Christmas Party

Grandma's little angels in front of her Christmas tree

Saturday night was our annual Christmas Party at my mom's house, all our family gets together and we all invite whoever we want. Not a real big turn out this year, but it gave me a chance to visit w/ Trish of Hannah, Taylor & Hailey and we had a really good time just hanging out. Our girls got along tremendously just running around and playing, after all it was Grandma's house so there were ride on toys. Then Santa came for a visit and gave all the kids toys. Amelia didn't want anything to do w/ Santa, but it was demanded she sit on his lap for her gift and she did, and she didn't even scream, but you could tell she was not happy. When Santa called Hannah's name her facial expression was priceless, unfortunately all the camera's were behind the kids to capture photos on Santa's lap, but I was standing in front of the kids next to Santa, and her mouth opened, like how does he know my name and it was just a big jaw dropping moment for her. Other than that, it was an uneventful fun event. Enjoy the photos.

All the kids waiting to hear their names

Jordan on Santa's lap

Aaron on Santa's lap

Alex reluctantly on Santa's lap

Emilee was so excited to see Santa, until she had to get close to him

I think Hannah was still in shock

She was gripping me so hard, I let her go and she didn't fall.....love the reindeer on her butt???

Amelia wanted no part of this, but she did it

Kaylie wasn't all that thrilled sitting on Santa's lap either, she knew it was our friend John, so then I had to have a little chat w/ her that Santa has to hire 'helpers' this time of year

Hailey was having no part of that man

Amelia loved her "puppy dog", but it's really a teddy bear

Hailey was a little shy at first, but warmed up after a while