Chirp...chirp...chirp...chirp...chirp...chirp

I swear there's a conspiracy going on.

Chirp...chirp...chirp is the sound our smoke detectors make in the MIDDLE of the NIGHT and only in the middle of the night when the batteries are dying.

               

Why do they go off at 2 am instead of 2 pm?

Why have 4 of them gone off in the past 3 weeks and only between the hours of 12 am and 5 am?

Why are they always in the most INCONVENIENT places?

Picture this:

-4 am chirp...chirp...chirp...chirp

-Matt and I lying in bed.  "NOT AGAIN!"  "Where is it coming from this time?" "I think it's the one on the other side of the wall." "The one we can't reach without a ladder?" "Yup!" "What are we going to do?" "I don't know?" (We don't own a ladder.)

-Matt leaves the room to make sure.

-5 minutes later he returns..."I think I'm gonna need your help so I don't kill myself."

-We walk out to the living room and I see Matt has taken one of our barstools, set it under the culprit, with 2 big pillows from our couch sitting on top of the stool.

-Me: "You really want to do this?  Matt: "What else are we going to do?"  Me: "I don't know!"

-So I grab the legs of the stool and hold on for dear life.

-He climbs up onto the stool and with such balance, grace, and some ballerina moves I've never before seen, gets up on his tip tip tippy toes and reaches for the alarm.  He can barely reach with the very tips of his fingers, but some how miraculously unscrews the thing and yanks it from the ceiling.

-TA DA!!!

I wish I had pictures.  It was quite a sight.  Now with 4 of our smoke alarms currently down, I hope we really don't have a fire before we get them functioning again.

M.I.A.

Yes, I know I have been missing in action for awhile.  I haven't blogged or even checked blogs since before Christmas.  Life has been a little hectic.  Sometimes I wonder why Christmas is my favorite time of year.  We are often so busy shopping, cleaning, baking (okay maybe not me), and decorating that we have little time to enjoy it and definitely little time for the "normal" stuff.  Anyway, I'll try to get you caught up with what's been going on around this Kelly household.

Christmas was magical as usual.  This year we got to fly to Arizona and spend Christmas at my parent's house.  We were there with my parents, my brother, and my Uncle Ryan and his family (they also live in AZ).  We also got to see my Grandpa, and my other aunts and uncles on my dad's side of the family.

We spent our time doing the usual Christmas traditions like: decorating gingerbread houses, decorating my parent's house for Christmas (since my mom wasn't there to decorate before hand), baking and cooking (yes, I helped) for our traditional Christmas Eve get together of Chili and Cheesy Potato soup, and just spending a lot of time with family and loved ones.  Here are some moments captured on film (or SD card).

We made fun reindeer sandwiches for the kids when we got together with some of my cousins to do gingerbread houses.  They turned out really cute.

Brayden really gets into the decorating.  Andrew really gets into eating all the candy he can.

 

Here are the final products...

This one was my cousin Collin's, he is 7 years old.  We lovingly referred to it as the frat house.

 

 

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

So after we had our traditional get together with family on Christmas Eve, we got the kids ready for bed and settled down to read from Luke 2 and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas in our Christmas pj's.

Then the kids went off to bed...Fast Forward to Christmas morning...

Our kids didn't even wake up until around 9:30, which was heavenly considering we are always up late the night before.

Here they are with their Santa gifts.  Brayden got his long awaited for Nintendo DS, and Andrew got his very own set of golf clubs with a putting green.  These pretty much sum up my boy's obsessions.

The boys also got a nice keyboard from Santa Grandma and Grandpa.  We are going to start piano lessons as soon as we can get the keyboard here from AZ.

Matt surprised me with my dream camera.  I actually cried real tears.  It was a total surprise.

Santa left the boys a note.

Then we went to my Uncle Ryan's for a delicious AND pretty Christmas feast complete with roast beast.

  

We played some Rock Band on their Wii which was sooo much fun.

 

The rest of the time in AZ...

The rest of our break we spent watching movies at home, going to movies like "The Tale of Desperaux", playing with our new toys, sitting in my parents spool (spa/pool), and just hanging out around the house. 

Since my parent's live on a golf course, Matt decided to take the boys to the driving range one day to try out Andrew's new clubs.  They had so much fun hitting the balls as far as they could and playing on a little putting green.  May we have 2 Tiger Woods on our hands?

There was also a lot of DS to be played by ALL!!!!!

 

I hope everyone's Christmas was magical.  We wish you all a Happy New Year!