christmas

Tuesday last week was the last day of school for the kids before Christmas break. I went in for the kid's parties and also to a Christmas sing-a-long the whole school had. As the students and parents walked into the gym the 3rd graders played songs they had been practicing on recorders. Wow, it sounded a lot better than when Isabella first brought that thing home several months ago. The 3rd graders all played together and did so well. Here is Isabella with her friend Jadyn.
After school was finished we were on with the start of the Christmas marathon. On Christmas Eve we were at my Aunt and Uncle's house for brunch, supper and a day of fun. After brunch my uncle brought out some antique wooden Lego's he had as a child. My children call him Grandpa because of the close relationship we have. It was so cool to see how into my children he has become. They played for hours with these wooden Lego's.

They also have a piano....So Jack pounded on that for a while, until mama requested peace and quiet.

After brunch, naps, laying around and relaxing, the games began. I love the tradition of playing cards with my family. We usually sit around for a couple hours learning and playing new card games. This is my cousin's wife, Jane.

Then came presents. Lots of presents. Presents in stockings, presents in boxes. Lots of fun.

Christmas day we spent at home. Just our little family of 6. Since the previous day we opened gifts youngest to oldest....on Christmas day we went oldest to youngest. Isabella wanted me to open my gift from her first. A gift she made in November, wrapped and had waiting under the tree for over a month. It was this soft, fuzzy scarf her grandma helped her make. It was so fun to see Isabella's joy in giving. One of the perks of your kids getting older.

Suzy opening her gift.

This year we got one gift for all the kids, but wrapped it up individually. We got them a Wii. Isabella & Jack were pretty floored by it.

For Christmas we did something a little different and new to us. We had fondue. I had it one time at a friends birthday party a couple of years ago, but have never made it. It was a lot of fun.

Here is the dessert portion of our dinner.

It was a little tricky with young kids. Jack and William both needed help...which was a little crazy. But Isabella and Donovan could do it all by themselves. :) If I have any requests for the recipes...I will post them. It was super good! But for now I need to run. We have another Christmas this afternoon.

Quote of the day:

Suzy is crying because she is hurt because she fell on some ice in the driveway flat on her back.

Jack wants her teddy bear she is holding while crying in pain.

Jack: "She is not thinking of her brothers. Why can't I have that bear?"

Donovan: "Really? You are asking for the poor girls bear who is hurt? What are you doing -trying to get the quote of the day?"

Clearly we are lacking in compassion. We still have MANY areas we are still working on in this family.

Christmas Party

Last Friday night our Sunday School class had a Christmas party. No kids, which meant un-interrupted conversations, no cutting up food for others, and only wiping your own bottom if need be. Since we've been attending Siloam, we've not been with our class without children, so this was pretty cool, to get to know others in a new way.

J.B. & Ben

Thank you to Ben & Jen for hosting the night of fun.

April & Matt---Charlotte & Dave

We each helped with bringing some of the meal. Jen planned a really great dinner of:

Meatloaf & Meatballs

Herbed Potatoes

Salads

Homemade Breads & Jelly

Cheesecake, Cookies, & Trifle

and Punch

Carla & Rose

Donovan, Stan & Laura, and me.

Each couple brought one gift, and after supper we did a trivia game. It was so fun! Each couple got 7 slips of papers with trivia answers on it. Carla read out Christmas trivia questions, and if you had one of the slips of paper with the answer you would get to pick a gift. Each time you had one of the answers on a slip of paper, if you already had a gift you could take someone else's gift or choose to keep your own. When all 7 slips you had were gone, no one could steal your gift. We played until all the gifts were gone. It was a lot of fun. Thanks Carla for planning such a creative game.

Brian & Brooke

Monica & Matt




Rose & Jon

Donovan and I

By the time we finished the game, had dessert & coffee it was 9:00! So Donovan made a call to his parents who were babysitting to ask..."Can the kids spend the night?" It was looking like it was going to be late night. They agreed and we stayed until after midnight. It's been a long time since we left the kids overnight. How fun to be so carefree. Thanks mom & dad for keeping the kids!
Thanks Jen for taking the pictures and emailing them to me....since my camera is being sent in for the 2nd time to be repaired. I'm seriously starting the shakes from not having a camera over the last 2 weeks. Thankfully I have good friends who let me borrow theirs. (Marlys & Jen)

Quote of the day:

Me: "William, stop picking your nose and eating your boogers."
William: "Why? They're good. And God made them."

all I want for Christmas is Glenn Beck.....

Well not me...but my husband.

A friend of mine, Kim & who is also a Glenn lover told me about an event happening that was going to be in local theaters. So for Donovan, Christmas came one week early, and he got his wish. We went to see Glenn Beck's "The Christmas Sweater" live via satellite. If you are like me and don't listen to Glenn Beck....here was a description of what we heard last night. Copied right from his web site. Thanks Glenn, you've been a lot of help.


Glenn Beck's The Christmas Sweater - LIVE
12/17/2008

Fathom and Mercury Radio Arts present Glenn Beck’s The Christmas Sweater LIVE from The Charleston Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, December 17th at 8:00pm.


The Christmas Sweater is a new Christmas Memory Play with Music, based on Glenn Beck's novel of the same name. It is an exciting and compelling piece of theatre, featuring national television/radio personality Glenn Beck, a 10-piece orchestra and a Broadway gospel singer. Filled with warmth and humor, The Christmas Sweater tells the story of real people as they come to terms with tragedy, family, redemption, love and the power of faith. The Christmas Sweater is, quite simply, a good story well told.


It was really good!!! I wasn't feeling the best all day, But since our tickets were non-refundable....I toughed it out. I felt so much better after getting ready and out, thankfully! And what worked best for me was getting to go out to dinner before going to the theater. Combine anything with going out to eat, and I'm there!

If your interested in seeing a clip here it is.

one expander and a side of braces to go please.

Today the long awaited had come. After many days of counting down to December 16th, 9:00 had finally come. Isabella has been so excited about.......

getting her braces on her bottom teeth & getting an expander put on her top jaw. I know crazy!

One of our children dropped our camera...so we had sent it to be repaired. I got it yesterday and now....we have lines and bad lighting on 1/2 of our pictures...what a bummer. So please pardon the quality of the above picture. But it shows a good picture (if you can look between the lines) of her expander. You can also click on the picture to make it larger. This is cemented in to her upper back molars and every night for 32 days I will turn a key that will widen her jaw. To make room for teeth that are growing on top of each other.

Here the orthodontist is putting the wires in her braces that will straighten the bottom teeth.

Isabella was so brave. She did so well, and got through the whole ordeal with no tears. I was so glad she could endure the pain so well. There were so many steps in prepping her teeth for all the metal to go in. First they cleaned her teeth with chopped up lava rock. It was gritty and nasty. After that they put some kind of acid to dry out the teeth and then came the glue. Lots of glue and lots of pressure to push everything into place. Gums bleeding and lots of saliva. She sat in that chair for over an hour with her mouth wide open. The orthodontist thanked her for being so patient and cooperating. Dr. Burns told her some adults don't do as well as she did. Wow, what a compliment. So we went for a soothing ice cream treat from Mc D's and then back to school. The over-achiever is working hard for perfect attendance. So since she was present for the first hour of school and went back to school, the few hours Isabella was gone will not count against her.

What a day. Glad it's done! Here she is with a mouth that is starting to get a little raw.

Quote of the day:

When I took Isabella back to school after her appointment, we stopped in the lunch room to say "Hi" to Jack. Who was sad when we had to leave.

At supper tonight:

Me: "Jack why did you have to cry when we left today?"

Jack: "Because I wanted you to stay the whole day."

Me: "Well what would I have done with Suzy and William if I stayed at school with you?"

Jack: "Stuff them in my locker."

And the winner is.....Sherri. I will get your treats in the mail tomorrow! :) Enjoy!

Don't mind taking your shoes off....come right in......

This blog I know about invited her readers to do a Christmas open house via their blog. My friend Rose did it and I think it's a great idea. Esp. fun if you like to get ideas from others and just plain like to be snoopy. In a good way of course. By no means is our home a Pottery Barn showroom...I'm just very simple in my decor. So without further disclaimers.....

Welcome to my open house...I baked some cookies and put some coffee on, So hope you have a good imagination......Because really I can't give them to you over the Internet. However I am doing a giveaway..so keep reading and there will be more details to follow.

Views from our front lawn. The snow was flying this morning...I was so happy that things may get covered up with a fresh blanket of snow. Hey, if it's going to be cold, it might as well white. And really don't you want a "White Christmas"?

Sorry for the tree in the way....I didn't think the husband would like it if I chopped it down for a blog picture.

Come on in.....

This is the foyer table, you would see when you first come in. Those are real gifts, if you were curious.

This is the gingerbread house our family made a couple of weeks ago. Every year it gets more and more fun to do projects like this. Isabella (8) & Jack (6) can actually sit for more than 3 minutes on a project and like to see it through to the end. FUN!! However little sticky hands Suzy (2) has been pulling candy off of the corner of Ginger's home...can you see where the indentations of the circles are on the frosting? Oh well.

Our tree of course....and mantle. I didn't realize until after I took the picture that there is a white wooden "W" sitting on the ledge of the mantle. That would be William's work....He likes to balance it on the edge of the woodwork. Just to have his mark on the living room I guess. This used to be in his room....however I guess he feels it adds a nice touch.

The mantle was always a dream of mine to decorate. I would see other mantles decorated in full, and think how fun it would be. However this year....I have grown bored with the normal things I put on it...and decided to scale it down. I went with some things I had in my Christmas storage. It's simplistic, but mostly I am happy with it. It would be a nice compliment to add lights....but that would require getting in the car and driving to town. And clearly I'm just to busy on the computer to do that kind of running around.

Here is the "W" decorator and sticky hands candy thief doing a side job modeling gig for me.

Excited to see the snow falling this morning.

Our nativity rests in our oldest child's bedroom, well because she asked. I like to mix things up around here you could say. What??? Don't you have your nativity in your bedroom????


Looking into Isabella's room you would see this...

And while some have Shepherd's keeping watch by night...we have horses. All the happy horses watching over Bethlehem.

Perhaps my favorite view of our Christmas decorations is in our kitchen. I absolutely love getting the mail everyday during December in hopes of getting a Christmas card from friends and family that I can add to our collection. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. Seeing pictures of families we don't see as often and some that we do see on a regular basis.

I simply tack up a long piece of thick gross grain ribbon and use mini clothes pins to attach the cards. The mini clothes pins I purchased from Walmart several years ago. I got this idea from Lorie Y. about 6 years ago, after visiting her home during the holidays. She is one of those girls that every time you leave her house you go home and try to duplicate what's she's created. She is inspiring.


So thanks for stopping by. I want to encourage your thoughts and comments...So just leave me a comment and I will randomly pick a winner to win some homemade Christmas cookies with some coffee. You don't have to be a blogger or google subscriber. You can comment under anonymous but you will have to leave your name and a way I can reach you if you win. If I know you in real life you can just leave your name.

Good luck!

P.S. Come on Elsie tell me your thoughts......Don't you want to try to win some cookies & coffee? :)

Quote of the day:

This is my 4 year old singing along with the radio....

William: "Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rocks... Hey mom, those guys are really telling the truth Jingle Bell does rock. And it pleases the Lord."

Wow, was that an interesting comment.

fa la la la la......

Tonight our small group went caroling. In a bus. How much fun does that sound like?????

.....all 24 of us...in one bus. It made for lots of noise, and tons of fun.

Some homes we went into....and others we stood outside. It was a perfect night to be out.

We also visited a nursing home tonight.

We were hoping the residents would be in a central location so that we could sing to all of them together. However they were all in their rooms. So we walked up and down the hallways singing. After about 5 minutes of walking the halls one of the doors opened. An older woman stepped out. Here is where I will insert the quote of the day.

Donovan: "we got a live one."

meaning, stop, let's gather around her door to sing to her.

However, it may have been a little inappropriate given we were in a NURSING HOME!

And really-speaking of inappropriate, does that shock any of you that know my husband?

She had to ask, didn't she?

I have absolutely nothing exciting to update you with. I have been either on the couch or in bed almost the entire weekend. I have had the flu. But, I think I am on the up side of this. I really hope so...because really you can only watch so much T.V. I have major cabin fever & I want out of this house. I have been inside for 2 days straight. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be back to feeling better.

I had to share a story/quote of the day....reflecting back to our VERY tragic cat story that I shared on my last post. On Thursday my friend/neighbor's little girl Abigael got off of the bus here at our house. Abigael needed a sitter for about an hour until her parents got off of work. So Isabella, Jack, and Abigael are walking up the drive from getting off of the bus. All of a sudden Abigael notices blood sprayed all over our driveway (what had frozen to the ground)

Abigael asks Isabella, "What is THAT??"

Isabella- "NOTHING!"

Jack responds: "Oh that's blood. My mom ran over our cat the other day. Blood squirted all over the place, it flopped up and down in the air, and then it died. It was really gross!"

Isabella rolls her eyes.

Mama sighs.

What can I say? He is all boy.

junior

Topping the most disturbing news of the day is the sad, sad, sad traumatic end to one of our family pets.

Today I was backing out of the garage to take 3 of our kids to the library. Donovan was working in our home office and Jack was staying home with him. As I backed up I thought I hit a chunk of ice. Turns out it was Junior, our cat.



How utterly sad. The 4 of us in the car, sat watching in horror as the cat leapt 3 feet in the air and then fell to the ground repeatedly, squirting blood all over the place. He did this for about 45 seconds and then lay dead, eyes bulging out of his head.
I could have thrown up. Isabella was crying her heart out. William was wondering & said out loud, "Mom why is Junior scratching himself?" Ughhhhh....William, the cat is having convulsions & suffering from head trauma. I felt utterly sick to my stomach. How very, very sad. I have never run over anything, much less killed.
I went to get Donovan in the basement, he came to do my dirty work. He told me to get the kids out of there, so that's what I did. I continued on our trip to the library. I held Isabella's hand and tried to console her. After being so very sorry for her loss, telling her how sad I also am....She finally looked at me with tears running down her cheeks and said, "Mom, can we please not talk about it anymore?"
Geesh, I never even liked cats 1 year ago. Unless they were baby kittens.
And now I feel loss tonight. Mostly for my children who keep remembering their beloved cat named Junior. Jack has said 2 times now, "Everytime I think about Junior I just want to cry."

Thankfully we still have one cat left. Missy.

new kid on the block

Well today the glasses finally came in....

When we ordered them the office said they would be come in within a week to 10 days. It was just shy of 3 weeks when we got them today. This boy has asked everyday after school...."did they come yet?"

He was just a tad excited about getting them.

Also after I used the trial pair of contacts & found that they fit my eyes correctly they ordered my contacts. They came in - in less than a week. Go figure.

The office told me that my insurance would pay for 4 boxes of contacts per year. ( they are 2 week disposable) So that would be enough for 48 weeks.

But when I got there today....She found out my insurance will pay for 6 boxes and sent 3 pair of free samples. That is enough for over a year!! They also gave me 2 bottles of contact solution. Well knock my socks off. I am thrilled. I am gitty. I love free.

Man, I was so excited I splurged and picked up a $5 Little Caesars Pizza for supper.

I know we're livin' large around here. Livin' the dream.

The quote of the day:
William was majorly picking on Suzy during lunch. His usual antagonistic little antics. I may have raised my voice and demanded that he leave her alone.

William: "If you're going to make a mean voice, and be mad I'm not going to watch T.V."

Hmmmm...really? Is that a threat?
He must realize how I majorly need that T.V. time so I can get my hair washed and straightened.