Our Christmas

I'm finally getting around to posting a few of our Christmas pictures.
Jacob helping us make a few last minute cookies for Aunt Kathy's house.



On Christmas Eve, I let the kids open one present. I got them a Christmas book (the one Courtney heard in Sunday school class and fell in love with.- turns out it was not the same book but she assured me this one was just as nice.) I would like to make this a new tradition. We didn't have any nice Christmas books at all so I thought it would be nice to start building a collection. It was tempting to buy a few more to start us off, but I restrained myself, it will be much more fun to stick with one a year.
Grace was really excited to open the first present. And, of course, she LOVES books!



We finished wrapping Daddy's presents but we ran out of tags. I think I like this better anyway.



It also gave the girls an opportunity to be a little funny.



That night, we had our Christmas Eve party. The boys just get sooo excited about new cars!





Megan and Grace



One of my favorite moments... Getting ready for dinner. Usually the kids are nowhere to be found (upstairs, downstairs, coming and going) but it's usually relatively quiet and you can actually hear the Christmas music and smell the sauce simmering and the bread baking. And I'm always walking around saying "what can I do?" - it's always hard to help in someone else's kitchen.



No pictures of dinner, of course, I was too busy stuffing myself.
After dinner comes the games.



After we spend a few hours at Amy's, we go over to my Dad's. Courtney just loves the babies.



...and the surprises in the stockings. She's such a ham.

"Chocolate? What chocolate? No, I wasn't eating any chocolate."

Our Snowstorm

Yeah, we got caught in it. I couldn't believe the cars that were stuck on the side on the road.
Photo by Courtney from the backseat

It was fun once we got home and were safe. Even Grace got to go out to play, just for a little while, though, it was pretty cold.

I was downloading my pictures today and this is what I found.
The rule is, no touching my camera unless given permission and under supervision, so nobody is fessing up to who the photographer is... but I have a pretty good idea.





Every time I ask Jacob what he wants for Christmas, he just shrugs his shoulders and says "I dunno."
Joseph, on the other hand, has quite a list. He rattled off a few specific items and added "write it down."
Jacob sighed and told him, "Joe, you can't ask for that, you gotta ask for someting else, like gloves or someting."

Playing with Grace

"Grandma, that's mine!"



"Please?"





Where's your belly?



Where's your eye?



You can't ask her "where's your ear?" because she will find yours and try to rip them off your head. She hasn't figured out how to be gentle yet.

Paige just got a new box of clay.

So what will she do with it? Make a creepy hand to scare the pants off of everybody. How would you like to walk in on this in the middle of the night?
Got to hand it to her, though, she is creative.



A few weeks back, she made this ornament and I brought it into work with me. Everybody loved it and then she got some orders. So she's been pretty busy, she had quite a few to make.



And here's the finished product.
(Kath, don't show this one to Dad - he's getting one for Christmas)



So are you sick of my bragging about her yet?
By the way, I'm sure Paige would want me to tell you that she doesn't really believe in Santa.

It's never too early...

to teach them how to do the laundry.

Goofball

Little Sadie Lady

I missed the Sadie Lady Christmas party tonight. Sniff, sniff. Now I'm mad at myself for not taking the night off. Oh, well, you can't do everything. The girls went and filled me in when I got home. They had to bring a gift to exchange, so Paige worked extra hard all week making one of her signature clay figures, sadie lady style.
Every day she would work another little part of it and then show me and say, "The head is too big" "the collar is too small" "Do you think the mop handle is too long?" "I'm going to do the hair over, it looks funny."
So I said "You're really too hard on yourself."
"That's because I know I can do better."
Well, I know I couldn't do better than that.

Tagged!

I was tagged. Thanks, Michelle, it's fun to look back. This was Courtney at Sunk In Gardens this August, when it was nice and warm. She's not exactly camera shy.
Now.. Amy, you're it! 4 months ago, forth post.

Dade

"Mama, let me show you what I love."
Then Joe wrote "mom" on his paper and handed it to me.
"Oh, that's so sweet."
"Now let me show you what else I love."
He wrote some more and handed me the paper again.
"Dade?"
Sigh - "No, here, let me fix it."
Then he added a line over the E (to make it a long E)
"Oh, oh, I see, Daddy!"

Paige's Supervisor

Happy Birthday Courtney

Tiny Talk Tuesday

"Oh! It's a blista (blizzard) outside! Mama, is it gonna melt?"
"It might. It depends."
"Does God depend it?"

Pennies in the tape deck

That's the title of the book I will write someday. When I had a vehicle that had a tape deck (not too many of them do anymore), it seemed to be at least once a week, I would try to put in a cassette and find it crammed full of coins. I had a pair of tweezers on the dash just for the occasion. Every time I found myself picking them out, one by one, I smiled and thought, one of these days, I will write a book of all the strange (and frustrating) things the kids have done throughout the years.
It's one of the joys of being a mother, all the little surprises you find hidden throughout the house. it's the rubber snake you rub up against when you crawl into bed, the doll glasses on the deer head, the magnetic letters on the fridge that spell out "Joe is anoing", and the half-eaten apple found shoved in a boot. Looks to be about, what?, two days old? I'm just glad I found it now.

Sick Baby

Wednesday night Grace woke up with a fever (which frightens me to death after this summer...)
So this was not a typical Thanksgiving for me since I stayed home part of the day with Grace. It was an odd feeling, I didn't know what to do with myself. You would think I would have made good use of the opportunity of having an almost empty house. But as much as I tried to accomplish something... anything... I was quickly reminded that I had a one year old that had no one else to play with and, of course, didn't feel well. Needless to say, I didn't get much done.
Well, I didn't get my house clean, and I didn't get my checkbook balanced, or do any laundry, or finish any of the many projects I have taking over the kitchen table. But I did get in some good cuddle time with my baby and that I can be thankful for more than anything on my to do list.
Too mushy for ya? OK, I'll get on with the story.
So now it's Sunday and the fever has slowly turned into a cold. Her sleep schedule is thrown way off because her cough wakes her up and then she just doesn't think she needs to go back to sleep. This morning she woke up at 5:45. I brought her down and lied with her on the couch until Courtney came downstairs (holding Grace) and woke me up. "Uh, does this belong to you?" I guess I wasn't paying her enough attention so she thought, "Well, Courtney will play with me, I'll go wake her up."
So ya know what happens to a baby when they wake up at 5:45? By 9:30 they look like this...



She looks pretty pathetic here, but it's mostly because she had just woken up (it might have been all the camera clicking.)





After she woke up a little she was back to her normal, happy self. She even ate (and wore) a good dinner.

Boys

We took our Christmas picture today (you can't see it yet). And I got a lot of other cute ones, too. The boys were really cheesing it up for me. I showed Paige this picture. "Isn't this one cute?" I asked her.
"Hmm. I would be even cuter if they were girls."

The Big Caterpillar

I was sitting on the couch last night, and just happened to glance over at the plant and notice something strange. What in the world? Either we have one really big caterpillar in the house or one of my kids has taken a bite out of my house plant. Now what would possess a child to do that? It couldn't have tasted very good.
I made a point of taking a picture this morning. Joe happened to be standing near and he thought I was taking a picture of him, so he bent down for me so I could see his face better. He was thinking "crazy mom, can't even point the camera in the right direction."

Craft Day

We went over to Amy's today for a craft day.
Since it was "pouring snow outside", we came over dressed in our snow clothes and the kids played outside as soon as we got there. It was a little too cold for me, but I managed to sneak out for a few pictures.



We have issues with snowballs. I end up having to ban snowball throwing at our house pretty much every other time they go out to play. It's all fun and games till someone gets snow in the eye. I never remember getting upset over a snowball in the face. I think I would now, of course.



The best part about playing in the snow is the warming up. If we had a fireplace at our house, I would never get the kids away from it. I'm forever finding them huddled around the hairdryer (I wonder where they get that from).



We made feathered headbands for our craft. I figured it was simple enough for all the ages. It turned out to be a great project.










"We are Thankful for..."
. Easy craft projects
. A fun day out
. Time spent with family

We made a Thankfulness paper chain. I was surprised at how quickly and easily the kids came up with their answers. Some of them even made two or three chains.





This one is my favorite. Can you guess who made it?