Still Christmas

It may be New Year's Eve but we are still in full Christmas mode at our house.

We've had a great Christmas thus far!

It all started on December 23rd with a small exchange amongst our kids and some of the daycare kids. We received a very generous gift that we look forward to enjoying.

Then Christmas Eve day we headed to Lincoln to celebrate with my immediate family. The kids got some awesome gifts that they, of course, had to dig into immediately. That night we headed back home in time for the 11:00 Christmas Eve service at our Church then home and straight to bed.

Santa came during the night and the kids woke up Christmas morning (after sleeping in - yay!) to way too many presents, as usual. We thought we had toned it down this year but as we got into it we discovered that wasn't the case. Christmas day we got to stay home and keep it low key. We did our traditional Christmas breakfast (cinnamon pull-apart rolls), lunch (appetizers), and dinner (out to our favorite Chinese buffet). Leading up to Christmas I was thinking we'd stray from our tradition and I'd cook up something more exciting. But in the end I'm glad we didn't. We really enjoy these traditions and it meant we spent virtually no time in the kitchen and we were able to devote that time elsewhere. We got to enjoy our gifts. Well, actually I've not yet gotten much time with my gifts. But the kids have so many new cool things that we went from one project to the next all day long. The house is still feeling somewhat destroyed as there's many things that still need to find a place to call home.

Friday evening (Dec 26th) we had a pizza party with the other daycare family. Carie received yet another generous Christmas gift that we'll enjoy. As part of Alexis' birthday gift (Abby & Ellie's school friend) we invited her and her sister over for pizza and an evening with us to see Frosty the Snowman. After the theater we picked up some special snacks and headed back to our house for some more playtime. While they played we started to get things together for the next day.

Saturday (Dec 27th) was another Christmas celebration. This time we celebrated with my extended family on my Dad's side. There were 52 in all that day... with a few missing. We arrived at my Aunt's house in time for lunch and about 12 hours later we packed up and headed home.

Sunday (Dec 28th) we opted to stay home from Church. We had a full afternoon with my cousin’s birthday party starting at 1:15. She is one of the 6 girls born within 6 months of each other.... 7 years ago. Abby & Ellie were numbers 3 & 4 out of that group. So I took the girls back over to my Aunt’s house for the party while Carie stayed home with Spencer in an effort to get him a much needed nap. As a bonus Carie was able to peel off some layers of the disaster that has become our house. I stuck around for the party since we were asked to help transport kids. With 3 minivans and a car we managed to get everyone transported to the theater.

Monday and Tuesday we were back to our normal schedules. Well, normal is a stretch. We won't have a glimpse of normal for about another week… if we are lucky and everyone settles back into their routines with ease.

Tonight we'll celebrate New Year’s Eve at home with our traditional appetizer and fondue party. Often we do some fun family activity in the afternoon. But this year I think we are keeping it low key. Spencer is recovering (I think) from an ear infection and Ellie just got back from the Peds office where we've discovered that she has a really bad ear infection (near rupturing) and a sore throat from all her drainage. Some friends may be coming over to celebrate with us but that was up in the air due to illnesses going around their house... and now our house.

Tomorrow (New Years Day) we'll host Carie's family for their Christmas celebration. We'll do a little Christmas celebrating, New Years celebrating, football partying, and birthday celebrating throughout the course of the day. Given that Yia Yia (the birthday person) won't be with us, the birthday celebration will be a smaller portion of the day than maybe otherwise.

Friday, Saturday & Sunday will hopefully be recovery days for us. I'm sure we'll venture out and do some fun family activities. But we also need to prepare everyone for the reality of Monday as we head back to school and work routines.

Christmas decorations will remain for the time being. We aren't ever in a huge rush to get them down "right after" Christmas... especially given that we are still celebrating. The only rule we have is that they can't go up until after Thanksgiving. New Years seems part of the "Holiday Season" to us so it seems natural to have the festive decorations still present. We generally wait until the kids head back to school before we dedicate any time to those efforts. It seems much better for us to not do it during their time off when we could be doing other fun family things. As an added (huge) bonus, there are less little hands helping put things away! The outside decorations and lights will naturally remain out and up until weather permits us to be safely and comfortably out to take them down.

Wishing everyone a happy and safe New Year's Eve!

Merry Christmas

Heartwarming

So every day I get this e-mail from a big toy retail chain with "Deals of the day coupons". I often look to see what the deals are, just out of curiosity. After all, we are done shopping. Right?

So today, many hours after receiving the e-mail, I finally get around to opening it and I notice something of interest being offered at 50% off... today only... in store only. It isn't a high ticket item, especially at the discounted price. I call Carie and we decide that we'd go ahead and see if we could get it. She kindly calls the store down the street from where I work to see if it is even worth my trip. She finds out that they have 3 left. It's close enough to the lunch hour so I head out in an attempt to avoid the heavy lunch hour traffic and hope to get one of the remaining three.

The trip was a success in more ways than one!

As I'm checking out I noticed another woman with a couple young to middle aged kids. She's looking over the selection so I approach her and offer her a coupon. I happened to accidentally have 2 coupons and I could only use one. I don't know that she really even knew what the coupon was for or what the value was. I did point in the direction of the product and mentioned that there was just one left. But she was genuinely ecstatic. She thanked me over and over, wished me a Merry Christmas, and gave me a huge hug.

It was as if I made her Christmas more doable. I was so glad I was in the right place at the right time to help.

Visit With The Big Red Guy

The line was longer than we had hoped, but it moved along pretty well. And it certainly wasn't the longest line we've stood in!

The kids visited with him, took the obligatory picture, and told him what they wanted. Both Abby & Ellie want to be surprised. Spencer would like a rocket.

We think Santa looked a bit... not with us...

First Snow & Decorating

Recreating that lost post from a few weeks ago...

Our first snow came the weekend following Thanksgiving. That Sunday morning we woke to a thick blanket of snow. It was just enough to get excited about! After a long holiday weekend and the promise of finally decorating the Christmas tree, we opted to stay home that Sunday morning. The kids got all bundled up in their snow pants, boots, and winter gear and headed out to play in the snow. I'm glad they did because by the lunch hour it was all but a memory.

Later that morning we got around to finally decorating the Christmas tree. I say finally because the kids had been begging all weekend long. We had planned to decorate it earlier in the weekend but when we went to set it up it didn't go as smoothly as it should have. No big surprise really, I don't think it ever goes as smoothly as it seems it should. Our pre-lit tree had large sections of lights that didn't light up! This is the 4th time we've setup this tree and the first time the lights didn't work. So Carie set out to fix it. She did awesome and got it all working from top to bottom. It just took a little time and patience from the little people.

The actual tree decorating went a little more smoothly than it has in the past. As part of the preparation for this experience, Carie and I separated all of their special ornaments so they each had their own tray to focus on. That was much nicer than having 6 grabby hands digging in the big tub of decorations. Then after all of their very special and fragile ornaments were hung they dug into the delicate (but easily replaceable) family ornaments. They all stuck with it until every last ornament was on the tree.















Most of the outdoor lights were up prior to Thanksgiving. Everything on the roof gets put up close to Thanksgiving before the weather turns really cold for us. Thanksgiving night we turned them on for the first time, an exciting time for the kids and the kids at heart. Since putting them up a section of lights decided that working was optional. Thankfully it is the strand at the end by the chimney and not in the middle. Then more recently part of another strand at the other end went out. With temps at a -20, they'll just have to stay that way!

We did get lucky with a couple more nice days of weather and we put the finishing touches on the outdoor decorations. We ended up decorating more than we ever have on any given year. If it would have been colder, we would have likely just put out the last few items and called it good.













The weather has been wild, as usual with nice comfortable days mixed in with really cold days. A couple of weekends ago we had a nice Saturday with temps in the 40's followed by Sunday with a -44 degree temperature swing accompanied by strong winds and a bitter cold wind chill. I suspect that Saturday was our last nice day that we'll experience for a good long stretch. We literally begged the kids to go outside and play. Now they are begging to go outside and they can't.

Since that first snow fall we've had a couple more light flurries. It's been disappointing, really. The kids are so excited to see the snow falling but there hadn't been any accumulation. Mid last week we woke to snow and accumulation! Unfortunately it is too cold and too dangerous to play outside. I did finally stop and get our snow blower and shovels from storage. It was the first time we needed to clear the driveway and sidewalks.

The driveway and sidewalks were all clear until Thursday night when the sleet fell upon us leaving a huge layer of ice over everything. I managed to get the snow off, but the ice wasn't going anywhere. Then again on Saturday morning we woke to more snow. Unfortunately I didn't get to the driveway before it had been driven on several times. I figure now we'll have to wait until the temps get above the freezing mark before I'll attempt to clear it. Too bad we don't have ice skates. Or maybe ice skates are optional? It was warm enough for the kids to go out on Friday and they took full advantage of it. Abby ended up with a nice bruise to the cheek bone thanks to Ellie’s boot. Something about ice on the slide and accidents happen. All is good.

Everything Else... Check

I didn't think it could happen, at least not this soon, but our Holiday cards are in the mail. We weren't expecting to get them until Monday and were quite surprised to see them arrive yesterday. Even with our upgraded shipping we weren't supposed to get them until Monday. Processing time and all that. So last night after our crazy day we got them assembled and ready to go. I dropped off the huge stack at the post office this morning. For me, this is a huge check on our mental to do list, especially since we just started this effort this past Monday. Yay!

Yesterday morning Carie went to the grocery store to stock up on all our necessities. And as it turns out, it was perfect timing! With school being out for today and the next two weeks, her opportunities have just decreased drastically. I can go to the store and I do go to the store. But we are much better off if Carie does this task. We need to make a better list of all the things we need for our Christmas celebrations, but we think we've covered all our bases. Hopefully any grocery stop in the near future will be quick and light on the good ol pocket book.

Wednesday afternoon (an early out day) the kids had fun making cards and such to include in some of the packages we were preparing to mail. That evening Carie took all of our packages to the post office with the hopes that they would arrive to their destinations in time for Christmas. It was nice to be able to wrap up these efforts and know that they are on their way to our friends and family.

Earlier in the week the kids took their gifts to their teachers and classmates. I'm so glad we didn't wait! I'm sure some folks were counting on kids taking stuff today. In prior years, that could have easily been us!

We still have some little craft projects to complete with the kids. They weren't done in time to include in the packages so we'll just have to send a smaller package when we are able to finish them up.

All that is left to wrap is a few Santa gifts that go to all three kids. That will be a piece of cake! We've just held out on this because we want to play with the stuff.

And better yet, we have our sitter scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. It's been at least two months and likely three since we've last had a sitter. We are all very much looking forward to it! I've even got our time all planned out and I'm so excited. The kids have been talking about Saturday and how excited they are. Abby "can't wait until Saturday"! Spencer wants to eat lunch and have popcorn with Andrea. Okay, we can do that! We won't let the door hit us on our way out!

The only thing left on our “to do” list is to make an official visit to Santa. All the kids have seen Santa, but not together. We plan to do that this weekend as part of our relaxing, taking it slow, fun family weekend.

Snow Day

Let the Winter Break begin!!!

Today was supposed to be the last day of school before a two week winter break. Mother Nature decided to drop some nasty weather on us and shortly after 9pm last night we got the call that school was cancelled for today. It was a good thing since we were just getting home from a friend's birthday party when we got the call. They were so excited that they stomped around in the snow a bit before coming inside for bed. It was so nice out (temp wise) that we couldn't hardly say no.

The kids are, of course, loving the snow day! It's not such a good deal for the older kids though. The last of their finals were scheduled for today. Now they'll have to finish them up after break.

The ice was so thick that I couldn't get my car door open this morning. And it seemed that the only way I was going to get the huge sheet of ice off my car was to melt it from the inside. I noticed that the neighbor across the street had gotten their car moved so I attempted my passenger door and finally got in.

After running the car for nearly an hour it was still covered with at least an inch of ice. It was a disappointing sight! I started chipping away at it and finally got to a soft layer that allowed me to peel chunks off the car... as well as my scraper.

Then as I was on my way to grab some lunch this afternoon the huge sheet of ice on the hood of my car came off in one chunk and flew over the roof of the car. It was weird to have this large chunk of ice and snow suddenly flying towards the windshield!

At least the kids are able to go outside and stomp in the snow! Hopefully that will add some excitement to their day.

Basketball Finale

The highly anticipated trophy! This was perhaps the most important part of the season… if you are 3 ½ years old.

Spencer's last basketball game of the season was this past weekend. That was a good thing.

He was so dang excited to play basketball. We heard about basketball nonstop leading up to the start of the season. Then it was time to play and the excitement was covered up in nerves. He did play, he played a lot, he had a great time, and he did awesome!

But we saw the same patterns we saw with swimming lessons. He talks like he loves it but when it comes to actually doing it, the love doesn't show. Even as we were pulling into the parking lot for the last game he told us he didn't want to play. But he went in on his own free will (as always) and he had a great time (as always). We won't be signing him up for the next session of basketball. Maybe we will do it again, someday. But not next month.

But really, his hesitation is only part of it. I was disappointed with the group of kids he was with and even more so the program. This is only our 2nd experience with the Y and I have to say that I was way less than impressed this go around. I need to speak up and let them know!

His whole team really struggled. There were 9 kids on his team and I'd be hard pressed to find many that really genuinely wanted to play. Carie and I coached one week and it was hard! That was a really hard hour to get through! Thankfully that particular week the coach on the other team was awesome and we had similar ideas... like not tackling each other for the ball or stealing the ball from the other team or more importantly your own players. I mean yeah, stealing the ball is what happens in real basketball. But these kiddos are just learning how to dribble the ball.

There were so many kids who truly did not want to be there. Nerves, maybe? But even when they were (willingly) on the court they seemed like they could care less. Like they just didn't want to be there. My focus was giving them high fives for being vertical! It's hard (and dangerous) to play basketball when you are lying on the court. Unfortunately, for one of the boys it seemed plausible that the parents signed him up to get him active. He just wasn't interested in moving his body! It took both Carie and I to get the kids moving and then moving in the right direction was the next challenge. But a welcome challenge!

So, this is the temporary end of organized basketball for us. Who knows what is in our future!

The preferred method of playing basketball...

Sideline entertaining lead by Carie...

Best Christmas Present Ever

Well... ever may be a little strong. But at this moment, this is grand.

So this afternoon I get an e-mail from Carie titled "By George... I think he's got it!" with a photo attached.

This chapter of the story all started last night. The boy is off doing his thing. We could hear all of them; we just didn't know specifically what they were doing. Then we hear some commotion and suddenly Spencer is racing downstairs all excited. Abby & Ellie are following and equally excited.

We have to come check it out.

He went poop in the potty. He was so proud of himself. Honestly, we all were quite happy! We've been trying to get over this hump for far too long. He is completely independent with the whole potty thing and has been for some time now. We just couldn't get him to care about where his poop ended up. Seriously, he could care less! He's had all these reasons why he didn't need to go, the most common being "the ants are still making it". Yeah, reason with that!

So, by the sounds (and looks) of it he's mastered it again today. I hesitate to say that this could be the start of a new trend. The last time I got my hopes up was months ago!

He was supposed to be in bed napping when Carie heard him calling for her. She went to check and there he was sitting on the toilet. Anything to delay the whole nap process! He was so excited and he wanted to save it so I could see it when I got home. So I got a photo instead. .

I could share the photo, but I don't think you really need to see the insides of my toilet! The cute boy wasn't even in the photo.

More Gingerbread Houses

As a tradition, Spencer's preschool makes gingerbread houses as one of their activities. Maybe they (the school) are inspired by gingerbread houses? The name of the school would lead me to believe so.

We knew this was on the horizon. We were asked to donate some candy towards the cause. Excellent!

As the time drew near we had discovered more tidbits about this gingerbread house making experience. We are newbie's to this preschool so their traditions are new to us. But Carie volunteer's there regularly, so we are easily in the loopy for information.

We discovered that they would be making the gingerbread houses as part of their kitchen rotation. Each week the class spends time in the kitchen baking snacks. It's a pretty slick system, actually.

We discovered that each class would make one gingerbread house, not each student individually... as we had envisioned. Someone baked them and the teachers were assembling them prior to the class decorating time. Hmmm, we weren't sure about this. We lean towards letting them lead and take ownership.

We discovered that some classes were asked to donate candy, some classes were asked to donate items to make the frosting, etc...

We discovered that the one gingerbread house (per class) would be available for purchase for $15. Oh, and that it's a scramble to get to see who can make that request first. We were thinking... not interested. We have three new beautiful gingerbread houses for the season, we don't really need another. And while Spencer contributed, it was going to be a class project. It wasn't his personal project. Ultimately, it was the teacher's project that the kids helped with. I wasn't concerned about not getting it!

Carie was volunteering on Tuesday and helped out in the kitchen when those classes went through their kitchen rotation. Spencer's kitchen rotation is on Thursday! So Carie and another parent volunteer got to make frosting, help out, and watch the gingerbread houses come to life. She said that those houses turned out incredible.

While she wasn't signed up to volunteer on Thursday, she asked Spencer's teacher if it would be okay to hang back and watch them make their gingerbread house. As it turns out, their kitchen rotation is first thing. Great timing! So Carie stayed, took pictures, hung out with the kids, etc... She and Mrs. W chatted about supplies and whatnot. Mrs. W was decked out with good supplies, many of which Carie has for her cake decorating. I guess the supplies the school had available were too basic for her. LOL

I'm so glad we have picture of this thing. It is amazing! Carie said that Mrs. W's gingerbread house was by far the best she had seen. But of course she had only seen a small sampling. The details were amazing. As it turns out, it sounds like Mrs. W and her daughter make them every year.

Carie is now inspired to make her own gingerbread house next year. Of course the kids will get to continue to make their own as long as they choose to. So far this has been a great family tradition for us. But maybe next year we'll do a little prepping before digging in to decorate the houses. Broadening our decorating supplies would be fun!

Candy Making

Each year we indulge in making holiday treats. We often share the abundance of treats and of course we manage to enjoy a few too many ourselves.

This year we haven't yet really formulated a plan. We haven't decided what all we are going to make and more importantly where it will all go.

But sure enough the ball is rolling. Carie has already made a batch of puppy chow. That is some yummy and addicting stuff! Hence the nearly empty bag.

Then recently Abby saw some dipped pretzels in the store and asked to get some. Instead of buying the pricey pre-made package we picked up some almond bark and a bag of circle pretzels. According to Abby, they had to be circle pretzels.

Something happened with the first package of almond bark. It didn't melt quite right and it just wasn't going to work. Disappointed children went off to bed with a promise that Mommy would put almond bark on her shopping list!

We recently made attempt #2 and it was a success. Well, except I got a little grumpy about all the not listening. But in the end, it was all a success.

And now, soon, we must create some sort of plan so we don't make one thing at a time... drag it out over 2 more weeks... and eat it all ourselves... one delicious treat at a time.

Christmas Shopping... Check

As if it were a race, we've crossed that virtual finish line. This past Friday night we wrapped up the last few loose ends with our Christmas shopping!

We are done! We are done no thanks to my brother and SIL who finally sent my nieces wish list. It only took a week to get it! It would be one thing if the list didn't already exist. I totally understand that not everyone is on the pace we are on! Totally understand! And if you aren't, that is fine! I'm really in no hurry and I can wait. I can't stand it when people ask for a list and then hound you for it like their life depended on it. But the list already existed. My SIL sent my other brother the list via e-mail a day prior to us even requesting it. Evidently hitting forward on an existing e-mail was too much. Most of all... unfortunately, I wasn't surprised.

Not only are we done with shopping, but everything is wrapped! We even managed to complete shopping for ourselves from my Grandmother. A task that was lowest on my shopping priority list.

And now a bonus of having the presents all around the tree is getting to hear every.single.day "can we open presents yet?" The boy is obsessed with presents! He's figured out who each present goes to. We even have some other random presents added to the pile, just because he loves to play the "present game". Would anyone enjoy a Frisbee this Christmas?? I know where you can find one. Wrapped even.

And we were naughty. We told them that Santa could take away presents just as easily as he could leave additional presents. With big eyes... "Really?"

So how does it feel? Weird!

I'm not sure it will really sink in until we aren't racing about to get gifts ready. I'm sure our focus will shift to other areas of preparation!

This past weekend we spent more time putting up decorations. As a result, the outside of our house is decorated more than it ever has been on any given year. The kids are enjoying it!

And while the kids have been counting down on their advent calendars, I'm just now realizing that Christmas Eve is just 2 weeks away.

We can't sit around eating bon bon's for too long. Soon enough we ought to start thinking about menus, what we'll take to our celebrations away from home, what we'll have for the celebrations we'll host, etc...

Not To Be Left Out

While we already had our 1/2 birthday photo of Spencer from late October, we just couldn't resist this one.

3 1/2 + 1 month, 1 week and 3 days... I think we'll still calling it 3 1/2.

What a cheeseball!
Or a cheese meatball as he would call them.

Not Just Another 1/2 Birthday

This weekend the girls reached another milestone. They are now 6 1/2 years old!

While it doesn't seem possible, it is very much reality.

We do make note of 1/2 birthdays in our house. It has never been a "big deal" celebrated with cake, parties, gifts, streamers, etc...

It's always been more of an honorable mention. Something we make note of. A simple little happy family day, if you will.

Somewhere along the way that wasn't what was anticipated. It was, after all, their six and a half birthday. Thankfully they weren't asking for a party or even gifts. But it did seem that balloons were quite high on the priority list. Easy enough! And we already had plans to go out to dinner so it was easy to think of it as a 1/2 birthday dinner out.

So all in all, we had a busy day but we managed to pull it off. I think.

I should have been prepared for what was yet to come. Last Friday Ellie's teacher e-mailed me mentioning that she had been talking about her upcoming 1/2 birthday. She asked if we wanted to celebrate her 1/2 birthday given that her birthday falls into the "summer birthday" category... just a week after school is out. Carie and I talked it over and decided to wait until the end of the school year. Given past experiences, the fact that we hadn't talked with either of them about their choices and it seemed that we should celebrate in both classrooms if we were going to do it. It seemed wise just to wait. We were on board. Ellie's teacher was quite cool with the plan. We talked with the girls about it. We thought everything was good.

Then this morning, out of the blue, they were both prepared to celebrate at school... today.

Thankfully we have such a good connection with their teachers, are easily able to reach out to them, and they are so responsive! A new plan was created first thing this morning and both teachers were very cool with it. Carie and Spencer set out to run some errands and picked up the requested classroom treats. They were delivered in plenty of time for their special school celebration. I can't wait to hear how it all turned out!

Happy 1/2 Birthday Abby & Ellie! You both are both wonderful in your own way. As sisters you have an incredible bond and understanding of one another. As individuals, you are so unlike the other. We love you very much for who you are.

Lost

Late last week I had written a whole post on our first snow day and decorating. It was done. It turned out just as I hoped it would. Then as I went to publish it, it got eaten by blogger.

While I'm bummed that the post is now lost into never land, I'm thrilled that everything else is safe. I wasn't sure there for a while.

So, I'll go back and sort of recreate that. But first... onto current news.

Jesus Activity Center

Friday evening we had my folks and grandmother up for dinner.

As part of the evening visit, my grandmother doled out her traditional early Christmas packages to our kids. This is a tradition I remember throughout my childhood. Only now she is continuing the tradition with her great grandchildren. This early package contains a special ornament that is often part of a series. They then have the new ornaments to add to their collection and are able to display it on our tree during the current season. We selected a new Noel Nutcracker series for Abby this year, Ellie is on her 6th Jack-in-the-Box, and Spencer received his 3rd Gingerbread house. They each opened their ornaments with excitement and couldn't wait to hang them on our tree!

As a bonus, grandma also had another package for the kids to open. Spencer received a couple of books. Both Abby & Ellie received little nativity sets for them to put in their room. At least that was my grandma's intentions. While they have found a home for them in their room, they've also been carried around the house! They make a nice little mess everywhere they go.

When the girls opened their nativity sets my grandma explained to them what it was and how it would tell the story of Jesus. A story of which the girls are familiar with.

Maybe this is where I note that they have been exposed to nativity sets throughout their childhood. Not only do we have some of our own, three of which are child friendly versions allowing them to be hands on without worry. Then there are three more little sets that are more fragile but have become hands on and we just don't worry much about it. This totally explains why there are missing pieces! Just the other night Ellie appeared with a baby Jesus that had been in their room (unknowingly to us) since last Christmas. But also, Yia Yia is known for collecting nativity sets, of which she had many more than an average person would tend to have. Until they moved a year ago she would organize this incredible nativity fair type thing where literally hundreds of various nativity scenes would be setup for folks to view. Each year we would be a part of this experience in some capacity. It was truly a beautiful sight!

For some reason on this night Abby kept referring to her new nativity set as the "Jesus Activity Center". We would say nativity and she would say activity. Maybe it's this darn cold/sinus infection we've got going on? I've noticed that our ability to listen has decreased dramatically! Maybe it's the crazy amount of activity centers they have going on at school? At any rate, it really doesn't matter. Activity center was on her mind. Reality is she knows what a nativity set is, what it is about, and who all the figures are by name. Even if it is a Jesus Activity Center in her mind, right now.

Later that night, after saying their goodbye's and all, they head up to their room to get ready for bed. Their new nativity sets in hand.

A few minutes later Abby appeared with her nativity set.

"Mommy, great grandma said that this would tell Jesus story. But I keep pushing on baby Jesus and nothing happens."

Well, great grandma did say it would "tell" the story of Jesus!

Carie explained what she really meant.

Thanksgiving

Stepping back in time...

Happy Thanksgiving from our little turkeys!















We hope all of our friends and family had a fantastic Thanksgiving. We truly have so much to be thankful for.

We hosted a fabulous celebration and shared the day with Carie's sister, brother-in-law, brother & niece. We enjoyed good food and good company. We didn't quite get to all the things we thought we might, but we did get to relax and enjoy the day. It was perfect!

The one project we did get to was decorating gingerbread houses. This has become a Thanksgiving tradition for us and the kids enjoyed it yet again.

Waiting patiently...












Digging in...

Eviction Notice

Notice: All blood sucking purple spiders with 5 legs, eyes, and no mouth need to leave our house immediately.

Stop tormenting our children. These nightmares must stop!

Mind Boggling

I need to go back and do my Thanksgiving post and a few other posts I've got bouncing around in my head. There just hasn't been time to dedicate to doing so. But soon! Soon it will take some priority. It needs to! I’ve got it all in my head; I just need to find time to get it down on the virtual paper.

Until then...

We made a quick stop by the Peds office today to take care of the children who have too much green gunk oozing from their heads. And while there the first order of business was to weigh them. Then while waiting in the room for our turn Spencer asks Mommy to measure him with a book. This has kind of become a ritual, it seems. Carie measured Spencer and then he had to measure Carie.

The crazy thing is... he's grown, by like A LOT.

In late September, just one month before he turned 3 1/2, he was 42" tall and weighed 42 pounds. Today, just 2 full months later, he is 44" tall and weighed 43 pounds.

He has grown 2 full inches in just 2 short months!

Ellie is only 2 1/2 pounds heavier and 3" taller. Abby’s measurements fall somewhere in between.

Edited: Two days later Abby was measured. She's the same weight as Spencer and 1 1/4" taller than Spencer. She also had a really bad ear infection that didn't seem to bother her. Our Ped was a little concerned.