Tis The Season

Christmas time. The most wonderful time of the year. It sure is around these here parts. We are loving it. We have all radios, in the house and car, tuned to Christmas music and the CD changer loaded up with Christmas Cd's. After all these years and all the Cd's I must say that Amy Grant's Christmas CD is still my favorite. I have lots of others that come close, but for some reason, it's my fav.

We went to our church Christmas Party last week. Was that last week, or the week before. I really can't remember. It was decked out as a glorious winter wonderland. And it was a winter wonderland outside that night. As we drove home from the church, we had fun watching the temperature gage drop from 9 all the way to 0 just as we were pulling into our garage. Thank goodness for a warm house! Here are some pictures from the party and the kids with Santa. Addy was so cute. She kept kissing and hugging Santa and she was so excited when he told her she was on the good list.

One of the bestest things about Christmas is the traditions. We have a brand new tradition that we just started this year, and we are all loving it. Several weeks ago I was reading Christmas ideas on some blog and there was an idea to wrap Christmas books under the tree and let the kids open one every night and read it. They said it was a good investment and you can reuse the books every year. I loved the idear, but, um, HELLO! Last time I checked, we were in a recession. Buying 25 Christmas books just didn't seem reasonable or feasonable. So I forgot the idea. Then, Addy and I were at the library and, lo and behold, to what do my wondering eyes...somethin', somethin' (can't remember the words), but anyway, right in front of me was a library cart stocked full of Christmas books! FOR FREE! (as long as we return them in 3 weeks) So Addy girl and I, we loaded up on the Christmas books. We went home and wrapped them. Addy took great delight in handing me the tape and putting the books under the spare tree that we just so happen to have in our kitchen.

So all month long, the kids have been taking turns opening a book every night and reading it. We have read all kinds of fun books and some...not so fun books. Kinda makes you wonder how some of them got published. Must have been a slow year for Christmas books that year. Anyways, last night we read a fascinating book about how the song, "Silent Night" came to be. And tonight we read a German Christmas story. We LOVE our fun new family tradition. You should try it out.

Need anymore fun Christmas ideas? Try looking here.

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Flashback Friday - Beautiful Blue Eyed Babies

Emily and Zac in 2000.

They are all grown up now. Emily is 9 and Zac is 12!

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful

Today, Sweet Cheeks Addy and I took my sister Lauren to do her Christmas shopping. Lauren was helping Addy get her shoes and coat on while I was putting the finishing touches on myself. I thought I looked purdy guooood. I put my coat on and grabbed my keys and went out and told the girls we could go now. They were not as amused with my appearance as I was. They just stood there staring at me. Lauren said, "I'm not goin' with you like that." And I said, "If you wanna buy Christmas presents you are!" And she said, "Not like that." So I took Addy by the hand and said, "Come on Addy, let's go get in the car." She shook my hand off and said, "Not like that!" *Sigh* Fine. Be that way. So I went back to the bathroom and smoothed things out. How boring is that? I'm tellin' ya right now, it would have been way more fun to go shopping with the me in picture #1.

Monday Morning Musings - Sideways

So, my dear, sweet, wonderful, hardworking husband was out of town all last week. I missed him somethin' fierce. I am so glad he is back now. He missed out on all the fun we had around here. I have posted some pictures of some of the fun. However, the pictures are posted in a sideways manner. You see, my dear sweet Addison broke my camera and Steve took his (that I have been using since mine was destroyed) out of town with him. Therefore, I had to take pics with my phone. And who knew that there was no way to rotate them once you took them. I can't even rotate them on my computer. So, sorry.

Last week, Zac was in a play called Dig It. Here is a picture of him with some of his friends.

Zac and Emily both came home last Monday, insisting to me that their Science Fair projects were due on Friday. I looked on my calendar and assured them that no, they were actually due on Monday. After 10 minutes of arguing with them, I gave up. Fine. They are due Friday, you can work your little behineys off and get them done by Friday (we hadn't even started). So we worked very hard all week to get them done. Then Thursday came around. I picked the kids up from school and the first thing Zac and Emily said to me was this, "Oh, by the way, our Science Fair Projects aren't due tomorrow, they are due Monday. So we don't have to finish them tonight". Really now? Well, too bad! You are finishing them TONIGHT. Even if it kills us all! So we stayed up until midnight finishing them. Then they didn't want to take them to school the next morning. Well, TO BAD AGAIN! Get them out of my house and out of my sight!

Here is Zac's project.

He did an experiment to see if gender makes a difference in memory. He gave his class a list of items to try and memorize and then recall for his short term memory test. Then he gave them a paper with these pennies on it to test their long term memory. Can you tell which penny is the correct penny? Yeah, me neither. I had to cheat.

This is Emily's project. She did an experiment to see which brand of gum lasts the longest. We tested 9 different brands of spearmint gum. A special thank you goes out to our across the street neighbors and my mom and sister who joined in on the fun. We were all ready to puke spearmint by weeks end. In fact, I saw a pack of spearmint gum at the store today and went into convulsions.

Here is some helpful information for next time when you just can't decide which pack of gum to buy:

Stride lasted the longest.

Dentyne lasted the shortest.

Orbit Mist was a very comfortable gum to chew for me personally, but the flavor didn't last long.

Eclipse is downright nas-TAY!

Everything else fell somewhere in the middle.

Flashback Friday - Meet The In-Laws

Back Row: Lisa, Heidi, Steve

Middle Row: Mike, Roy, Myrle, Heather

Bottom Row: David

This is a picture of Steve's family, taken in November 1986. Steve was 19 years old. I know this, not because I'm good with math, but because that is what it says on the back of the picture. Let's see...in November 1986 I was 12 years old. Little did I know that there was such a handsome, uniformed 19 year old hunk of a man in St. Charles Missouri waiting for me to grow up and be his bride.

I have been a part of this family for over 14 years now, and I love them just as much as I do my own family. I am so thankful to be a part of their family.

Monday Midnight Musings - Drawstring Woes

So last night, Steve and I were in bed about to fall asleep and he remembered something he needed to take to work the next morning. Instead of getting out of bed to write a note, he just asked me to text him a reminder and that way when he turned his phone on in the morning, the text would come through and he would remember to take it. So I sent him a text and added a few other choice words. The kind of words that a wife should only be texting to her husband. Then I hit send and it said, "sending message to Steve and Andreas". I started freaking out. I don't know how I sent it to my neighbor and my husband but I did. So I started hitting all kinds of cancel buttons and back buttons in a very frantic manner. I think the text got cancelled. I really hope the text got cancelled. Just a friendly reminder to be very careful when texting.

Last week Steve and I were driving through some construction. We were stopped at a light and right next to us was a sign that said, "DANGER: Overhead Power Lines Boom Down". I kept reading it with a quizzical expression on my face. Finally I asked Steve why it said that. He said it was for the construction workers in the little cart thingys that go up and down. He said that boom down means to make the cart go down so they don't hit the power lines. I was so glad he explained it 'cause I thought the sign was for me and it was saying to be careful because power lines could come booming down. If they are for the guys way up high, why is the sign way down on the ground?

Last Tuesday the girls were in my room and it was almost bedtime. They didn't have school the next day. So I told them if they would hurry up and brush their teeth and get ready for bed they could watch a movie and have a slumber party in the play room. I was just talking to Emily and Aubrey. Well Addy took off. I didn't really think anything about it until I went upstairs a few minutes later to get her ready for bed. She already had her PJ's on and and she was in the middle of brushing her teeth. I told her I was so proud of her for getting ready for bed. She then informed me that she wasn't getting ready for bed, she was getting ready for her slumber party with her sisters. It was so cute. So they all slept in sleeping bags on the play room floor.

Am I the only person who doesn't know what to do with the drawstrings on her PJ's and sweats? I mean really, why is it there? All the pants that I have that have a drawstring, also have elastic. It serves no purpose whatsoever except to annoy me. I really don't know what to do with it. Do you just leave it hanging and have these two strings hangin' down about your nether regions? Or do you tie it and have this bumpy bow right in the middle of your stomach? Sometimes I just tuck it in the top of the pants, but then you can see the lines it makes through some of my shirts. Sometimes, I just take the drawstring out of the pants completely, but sometimes it is sewn in and removal is impossible. I was looking at PJ's at Target the other day and there were some really cute ones and they had this big satiny ribbon tied in a bow at the waist. And the shirts that went with them clearly went past the waist. So yeah, they are really cute on the hanger by themselves, but then when you take them off the hanger, and put a shirt over them, then what? Not so cute anymore! I guess I could tuck the shirt in like this:

Addy Turns 3!

Addy turned 3 today! We had a little party with some of her friends, and even celebrated it on the right date this year.

She was so excited to finally get her Dance Around Dora. I am just so glad she got it too. Now every time a commercial comes on for it she won't have to do her freak out screaming routine and make me come in and rewind the commercial and watch it so I can see what she wants for her Birthday.

Uncle Sam performed a little magic for the troops.

How We Spent Our Day Of Thanks

This is our "Wall of Thanks"  we made for Family Home Evening last Monday.  Everyone was able to write what they are thankful for on a post it note and stick it on the wall.

This is the first turkey I have made in a very long time.  I think it turned out just dandy.

As usual we shared our day with Da Boys.  However I refused to allow them to share the dinner table with us.  That made some people rather unhappy.  I reminded them I had been cooking since 6:30 am and they could pause the dang game (that's what a DVR is for after all) and eat with the rest of us at the table like decent people who appreciate someone caring enough about them to drag her tired booty out of bed to start cooking a meal at such an unreasonable hour.

The sun sets in our back yard and as you can see from this photo, it creates a problem with people trying to sit on the couch and still keep their vision intact.  Sometimes we have to wear sunglasses to watch TV.

As you can see from the above picture, my dear husband solved the sun problem.  Nothing says white trash quite like paper taped to the windows as blinds.

Me mum and Lauren and Aubrey enjoying a little round of Flash Uno.

Zac and Steve refusing to be photographed.

This is pretty much where they spent the entire day.  Oh yeah, except for that one time when the Wicked Witch of the West made them sit at the table and eat Thanksgiving dinner.

Around 8:30 that night Addy brought out the cheese ball palooza.  That's pretty much what we ate for dinner.  That and pie.

Addy the human cheese ball dispenser.

In the Spirit of Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for this year. I could type forever and would probably still leave something out. I am grateful for my life. I am grateful for my husband and children. I am grateful for my family and friends. I am grateful for my faith in Jesus Christ. I am grateful for this blessed country in which we live. I am grateful for all the Lord sees fit to bless me with, but the before mentioned are the most important to me. What are you thankful for this year? Click the link below for a Thanksgiving video.

In the Spirit of Thanksgiving