WOW!

It is pretty amazing what is going on at this landfill.  Thanks for showing me this video mom.

December Picture Dump

 So we took family pictures this week, can't wait to get them up here because they are amazing!  My friend and neighbor Jessica is the best!  My sister keeps telling me she's going to come out here just so Jessica can take family pictures for her.  I know it's because she thinks her family is cuter than mine and she thinks if we look that amazing just imagine how amazing her family will look ;-)  I needed an outfit with white cotton and my Jessica had pined this really cute white dress, gray coverup, boots, and belt.  I loved it at first sight but had zero success finding a cotton dress in the midst of winter.  So I pulled out a long skirt I had and HURRAH!  I used a sash in this picture to see if it would work.  It did so I bought a belt.  Very fun.

 This is a picture of my little Gigi.  This girl loves to write.  She is constantly filling notebooks but sometimes she doesn't have paper.  It cracks me up because I was the kid in my family who always was covered in marker and pen.  Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

 We've been doing a lot of indoor camping.  When the kids are bored you have to find ways to get things done.  How this woman is going to survive Christmas vacation?

 Paper isn't the only thing she writes on.  When I got upset with her she said, "Mom, it's the kind of marker that will just rub off."  Great girl, great!

 We have great neighbors.  Sometimes when we've been in the coupe to long I hear our neighbors out in the front yard.  So I bundle the kids up and I head outside.

 We had these pictures taken a year ago and I finally got this canvas made.  Very exciting.  I had to get ready for the new pictures coming home :)

 Lots of baking going on at the house this week.  I made these cookies for the teachers, staff, and administration at the kids school.  I also included a note telling them how much I appreciated them and specific thanks for people like the school nurse, the janitor, the lunch ladies.  We got a really nice thank you reply note from the bus driver.  It made me grateful that I made an effort to remember everyone.    PS this cookies are divine.  Find the recipe here.

 We went to the book store while we were Christmas shopping this weekend.  I looked over Peaches' shoulder and saw the Cozy Critter collection.  How have I never seen this before.  This momma instantly feel in love with these little cuties.  They felt so familiar, I'm pretty sure I had some when I was young :)

 One day this week I just couldn't take the kids.  They were being so demanding and wanted to just watch TV.  Sometimes I just want to get rid of my TV.  Then we'd never have to fight over it again.  But this day it was just fight, fight, fight.  So I pulled some scarves down and my kids played pirates, singing, dancing pirates.

 It was Gigi's birthday this week.  I took doughnuts to her class, and doughnuts to Captain E's to celebrate his 1/2 birthday (you know that whole summer birthday thing).  The doughnut shop I went to is so delicious and I ended up eating a pecan roll for breakfast :)

 Rosie can now reach the top of our table.  Life will never be the same.

 Gigi wanted chicken and rice for dinner so we took her to Cracker Barrel.  When then went to Chucky Cheeses and bought 150 tokens and just let them go wild.  It was a blast and every person got in on the action.  Even Rosie who loves the car rides.  This mom particularly enjoyed the hitting games.  Captain E did a lot of basketball and football.  All the kids like the virtual reality roller coasters.  The nice thing about going at 8:00 on a school night...we had the place to ourselves.  Happy 6th Birthday Gigi bear!  You are stubborn as a mule.  You are constantly moving from thing to thing.  You can be willfully disobendient.  You also are amazingly helpful and loving.  You are full of light.  You are fun and amazingly sweet.  You love to learn, to write, and to read.  You are silly and fun.  Our lives would be dark without you.  We are so grateful that you are our daughter.

 

Peach hit the mother-load!

Some Holiday Fun

This really has nothing to do with the holidays but I had to include it.  My baby is so cute!  I mean, really, really cute!  Sorry to everyone else who has a baby but your baby will just have to be second because this is the cutest baby in the whole world!

 This is a thanksgiving picture but I had to include it because I forgot it in my thanksgiving post.  Gigi didn't like her turkey hat so she decided to turn it into a peacock, a much more noble animal in her opinion.  She's a little obsessed with things that are beautiful, maybe a little bit too much so.

HOLIDAY GIFTS
I'm working on some tins for Christmas goodies this week.  I got some old tins at Goodwill, taped off the top and then spray painted them.

 The black spray paint is chalkboard paint.  I'm going to tie some raffia around them and write on the top, Merry Christmas.  Thanks for the idea pinterest.  Now I just need to decide what type of Christmas treats to fill these babies with!

 SECRET SANTA
We made an executive decision this year to do Secret Santa with the kids.  When you have four it just gets overwhelming to take each one out to get gifts for each person, so we decided to trade names.  Because our kids were still very young I decided to print out pictures rather then do names.  First we drew names for someone to do kind acts for all week.  This is something I used to do when I was a kid.  In fact my mom had a little manger and straw and as we did kind secret acts for our secret person we'd get to put a piece of straw in the  manager to help make a soft bed for baby Jesus.  I skipped the straw this year because with Cheetah all over the place I just didn't think it would be safe but we did trade names.  It's been fun, although I've been doing the kind acts for me, Dr. J (he's been working until almost ten or later everyday this week), Cheetah, and helping Peach.  But it has still been fun.  It has even given me a break from being angry sometimes :)  Like this week when I moved Captain E's bed and found buggers all over the way.  I told him he had to clean them off when he got home from school, but then while he was gone I cleaned them off myself because they were grossing me out so badly.  I wanted to be angry but then I thought, you know I'm doing this as a Secret Santa gift (that's right, Santa will clean buggers off your wall) and I didn't feel angry anymore.  My personal favorite is to yell at the kids to get upstairs and make their beds and see them come down, wide eyed, "My Secret Santa already did it."  Yes I'm a meanie.  We then traded face cards for who to do gifts for.  Peach got me.  A couple of days ago when we were at the store I said, "Do you want to get mom slippers."  She said, "YEAH!"  So I let her pick a pair out and wrap them when we got home.  She is a happy girl.  Captain E and Gigi are excited because I'm letting them each take $15 to the Santa shop at school to get a gift for their person.  Originally when Gigi drew her person she was really upset.  She really wanted to have Cheetah and felt like Peach was a poor substitute.  She also had just been fighting with Peach to get her to put her pajamas on and I think that anger was clouding her judgement.  After the other kids went upstairs to brush teeth I talked with her about it.  First I explained that really Peach would be more fun because she understood Christmas better and would understand that Gigi was the one who picked the gift out for her.  I also asked her how she would feel if someone didn't want her.  From upstairs Peach pipped up, "That would hurt feelings.  It would make them feel like something in their insides was broken "  It made me tear up a little bit to hear her three year old understanding of not being included.  I turned to Gigi.  "Do you hear that?" I asked her, "She doesn't know you are talking about her.  Lets keep it that way because we don't want her to feel like her heart is broken.  Just hold on to the card and I promise you, you will get really excited."  Well it took one day and now she is happy, and really excited to pick her present out next week without my help!

NATIVITY

  I found this amazing site, Activity Village,  with all kinds of cute printables, crafts, and coloring pages.  It had this cute nativity on it.  The kids and I printed it off and have cut out all the pieces for them to play with.  I'm also seriously contemplating how to make another nativity that is bigger then the one I currently own and a lot more child friendly.  We've already lost one cow ear this year.  I found this one at gingersnapcrafts.com  I totally love that is just blocks of wood.  Thinking about how to do something like this for my house.  Just have to get the energy up to drag the saw out of the closet.

TREE

 The tree continues to be a constant source of entertainment for Cheetah.  Unfortunately that means she has broken almost every branch at the bottom.  We decided this is the last year we are using this tree though so I guess it isn't all bad.  I'm either going to buy a new one at the after Christmas sale or we are going to start doing real trees.  She also is constantly ornaments from the tree.  Most of them are plastic so it isn't a big deal but she did get a hold of ceramic ornament a couple of days ago that an older sibling had moved from it's higher place, down lower.  She dragged it into the kitchen where another child promptly stepped on it.

DR. J'S BIRTHDAY
Dr. J turned 35 this year.  It was a rather low key affair on his actual birthday.  Peach, Cheetah, and I took doughnuts and balloons to his work.  When we got there he was still rounding so we hung out in the lobby.  There was an old gruff looking man sitting across from us with a Vietnam vet hat on.  Twenty five minutes later when Dr. J finally finished he came down to find us laughing it up with this man.  Cheetah was on his lap rubbing her head into his chest and patting his Santa like belly with her little tiny hands.  He was just an average old grandpa, but he had some amazing stories.  He told me about his kids and grand kids, how he had died the year before and been dead for 45 minutes before the VA finally was able to get his heart beating again and how they had kept him on ice for 5 days to keep his body from damaging itself.  He told me how grateful he was for the hospital and for the opportunity to still be alive.  He talked to me a little about the war and the military, about honor and love, and about how it warmed his heart to see young couples with kids.  I was reminded of how hard it is to be away from family, and what our kids are missing out on by living so far away from their other relatives.  Then Dr. J appeared and took us upstairs.  We met his interns and his attending.  We ate a doughnut and them we left him to finish his work.  He was super late getting home that night and I burned his birthday dinner (lasagna) waiting for him to appear.  It was kind of a bummer deal.  The next day though he had off and we ate doughnuts and gave him an alarm clock that would charge his iphone.  We then headed off for a day of fun.  We took the kids to the children's museum where they could enjoy Jolly Days.  We got to bake in the fake kitchen where Peach would bump any boy who tried to take stuff off her pan.  The kids wanted to see Santa but then not a single one wanted to sit near him or talk to him.  We went "ice fishing", took care of a reindeer, and skated on a pond.  We then headed to the zoo to see the Christmas at the zoo.  To be honest that was sort of miserable.  Sure there were a lot of lights, but there were also a lot of people.  It took us over half an hour to go through two light and turn into the zoo (a quarter mile distance).  The cool things to see, the lights, the bats, and the tiger that seemed especially energized by the dark and all the people around his cage.  But that was it.  We have a zoo pass, thanks to grandma and an early Christmas gift, but had we had to pay for the experience I would have been really grouchy.  I'm more of a drive by and see the lights kind of girl :)  Halloween at the zoo was by far cooler!

 Some child couldn't wait to taste the cake.  Thank goodness for frosting :)