Christmas Day

Our kids really don't get up any earlier on Christmas morning then they do on other days. {yay}. So around 7:30, Kaebrie was the first one up, so we started our traditional breakfast making: scrambled eggs and cinnamon rolls. Yum! After breakfast, it was time for stockings!

Daddy does a really creative job of stuffing their stockings every year, but one thing this year made me laugh out loud.

Every stocking contained.......

their own can of "skeeter dope!"  (no complaints, I am sure they will all be used up in a matter of weeks this summer).

Then it was time for our presents from Mommy and Daddy.

Collin is now fully set to play paint ball!

The girls got the tire horse they have ben eyeing for weeks! They named it "Stocking" and Daddy has promised to find a good tree and hang it as soon as he can.

Tiff loved his new Star Wars Wii game!! (Thanks Poppa and Juju)!!!!

Then we took it easy for a little bit, but then we had to get ready for Christmas lunch at the Nott's house. Daddy had been working on the turkey since early morning, I had peeled and boiled all the potatoes, desserts had been made a few days earlier, and then there was one more thing I was excited about trying!

Last year at a squadron Christmas party, one of the ladies brought in a dessert I fell in love with. Now, I have to admit to loving chocolate dipped strawberries, but the presentation of this dessert was very creative.

I couldn't google a picture of what it looked like, but these 2 are close.

All of her strawberries were dipped , unlike this first picture, then positioned on a Styrofoam cone with toothpicks. She had put lettuce underneath so no foam would ever show. You get the idea. I mean , how HARD can it be???????????????

So Kaitlynn and I start the project, quickly realizing how easily lettuce tears when you try and stick it down with toothpicks.

Then we start to dip all the strawberries. Strawberries that it took 4 days to find and had to pay $6.99 per basket because they were out of season.

Well, needless to say, mine did NOT look like the above pictures.................................

I didn't buy the correct kind of chocolate dip. Obviously, you need the kind that HARDENS, not GLOBS all over the place. This is as far as we got, before we laughed and quit. The chocolate kept globbing and we kept laughing. It is Ok that you are laughing at us, because we know you are!

Why I keep trying to copy things I see that have to do with food........ one day I will learn!    :)

We then left for the Nott's house and had a wonderful day. There were 19 of us there and we ate and sang and talked and played games. We didn't get home until after 8pm.

And I didn't take any pictures. None. I know that isn't like me, but you see, I had a slight problem.

I had an allergic reaction to an eyeliner and I couldn't see! It was all I could do to sit and be polite when I kept thinking about clawing my eyeballs out! My eyes were teary and goopy and itchy. ugh.

They are still sore today, but better. The eyeliner has found a new home, in the trash can.

Today, it is 76 degrees out , GLORIUS!!!!!, and Sam and the kids are out doing yard work in short sleeves. We are nibbling on left overs all day and plan to have a family movie night tonight and watch Prince Caspian (most of the family,  I haven't decided if it will be to much for Kaebrie and we need to wait until she goes to bed).

I am thankful that I will be able to see the movie tonight!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a joyous day as you celebrate the birth of our Savior!

Secret Siblings

Three years ago we decided to start a new tradition.  On Thanksgiving day, all the children choose names as their "secret sibling" for Christmas. Obviously, I have had to do it all for the younger ones, but my hope is as they get older, they will have more input. Collin and Kaitlynn spend a lot of time thinking about what would be very special for the sibling they drew.

I love seeing them so excited about giving, and seeing how excited they get when they see how HAPPY the person is who opened it. All four of them were able to keep secrets this year! Nobody told anybody else anything! They are growing up!  :)

We sat them on the couch and did an eeny-meeny-miney-mo as to who would go first!

Collin was chosen, so he had to tell his name!

He drew Kaitlynn! She loved her craft carrier filled with all sorts of craft goodies.

Then Kaitlynn told her name and she drew Kaebrie!

(Who was so happy with a little three dollar cowgirl hat that she doesn't need anything else!)

Then Kaebrie said she had Tiffer's name.

And he liked his new bike helmet!

Then Tiff said he drew Collin, but we all knew that by then.  :)

Collin was so excited with his paintball helmet. Paintball is REALLY big around here!

It was great watching them be excited for each other. I am hoping this tradition continues for decades.

Except for Kaitlynn, it unintentionally turned out to be a "head" gift sibling Christmas!

There is a Bumps in the Zoo!

Bumps (who is my Dad) got up really early Sunday morning, and drove all the way here from Prattville, Alabama to be here by the 11 am church service. The kids were so excited! Kaebrie insisted on sitting next to him at church, and also insisted that he rub her back {neck, arm} the entire time. We visited and talked and ate and gave the tour of the house Sunday afternoon, then had to be at church early so the kids could practice one more time. After the concert there was a reception and he got to meet a lot of our new friends.

We got back to the house about 8:30 pm, and told the kids that after they got on their jammies, we would do presents with Bumps. I haven't seen them put on their PJ's that fast in a LONG time!

We had a great time opening gifts. It is always more fun to see people open the gifts you give them!

Monday morning, we bundled up and showed him around the land. Here is Kaebrie taking him to her swing set.

Then the boys wanted to show him the treehouse.

Collin has big plans for this tree house this spring when he wants to add a lot to it.

Then it was inside to warm up and play Monopoly Junior (one of the presents)! Kaebrie caught on really quickly, Colin ended up finishing Tiffer's turn.

One of the presents was a baseball game for the Wii.

All of my boys have been complaining of sore arms the last few days. I wonder why??   :)

It was a great visit! Thanks for coming to "The Zoo" (as I have recently heard several people refer to Yazoo.)

Choir Performance

 

On Sunday night, the choir gave one of the best Christmas church performances I have ever seen heard. Such talented people combined with the acoustics in the sanctuary ; several times I had goose bumps at how beautiful it sounded.

There is one video below which does NOT do it justice. I tried and tried to upload the other video, but it wouldn't work and I don't want to try anymore.

The children's choir accompanied the adult choir on several songs and had a couple of songs by themselves.

This is a great group of kids that my kids are really enjoying spending time with.

Swearing In

These pictures are a bit late in being posted, I hit a wrong button and filed them somewhere on the computer and just found them again.

This was on December 2nd. Sam is now released from Active Duty and has been sworn into the Guard.

He is now part of the 172nd Airlift Wing in Jackson. He will report for duty one weekend a month with some special assignments throughout the year. He will preach at the 7:30am service, which is attended by over 200, then he is released at 9:30am, makes the hour drive back home and is in his own pulpit at 11am. A very busy weekend for him.

Several times a month, this unit does a 4 day mission. They fly over on the really big Air Force planes and take wounded soldiers from Balad to Germany, then fly back. He has started the process to be able to join them on one soon. He has friends stationed over there and it would be nice for him to get to see them.


This is his new boss, Wing Chaplain Lt. Col Ken Elliott, a very nice man!

Tuesdays answer to Wednesdays Question

Some of you were close. Others, well, I wouldn't want to drink these!
Sam made a 4 mouse coffin!
Must have been a family visit, because the traps have stayed empty since that next day.
Peanut butter with a stinky cat treat stuck on it, a mouse's favorite!

Crazy Christopher

We love our new computer, a Mac. It has a lot of neat features. Combine those neat features with our very computer literate 6 year old, and well, below is an example of what one might find on your desktop one morning.

The Mac has great parental controls. Each child has a separate desktop, and a built in time limit (they each get one hour per day, max, of computer time, school work does not count). You can also set it so they can only go to specific websites. Tiffer's screen has 4 safe websites he is allowed to go to, but he can also access the movie maker (which has some obviously crazy settings as you will see) on his desktop. Apparently he learned how to film himself and save it.

Below is what I found on his desktop this morning and I about laughed myself off of the chair.

Wednesdays Question of the Week

Can you guess what is in here?
(Bonus points for creativity) :)

Fog, Frustration and Fun

Today was a good day. We woke up to rain pouring down and fog all around. The kids slept later than normal, and so did we. Sam did have to drop some things off at the office and pick up the Rover out of the shop, but then he was off the rest of the day.

And I was off the rest of the day. Off. Christmas shopping and errand running. For. The. Rest. Of. The. Day.

I am extremely thankful for days I get to get away. It isn't that I don't like being here, at home, it is just I need time out of the house in order to be happy in the house. I chose to have 4 children, I chose to stay at home with them, I chose to home school them. (Of course Sam is included in all these decisions, that is a given). I don't think it makes me a bad mom when I need to get away from them. I used to have guilt about that, but I am so over that by now. :)

I have had several outings here in Yazoo, lunch dates, mom's night out, visitors, but this was my first ALONE day since Idaho. I used to think I had a personality disorder, until a wise elder at our church in Louisville explained how "we" worked. For our personality types, we need alone time to "recharge our batteries." He was just like me, and for the first time in my life I realized how what he said was true and made the most sense. I have to have alone time to feel at peace, to feel refreshed. Some times, I will stay up an hour later than everyone else, because the house is quiet. Going to bed when the kids go to bed, feels like there is never a break. That is one reason I have always advocated an early bedtime for children. Parents need a few hours to themselves at night, without awake children.

Anyway, I sure got off track there!

I left here today around 11am. Ran some errands in town, then set off for Wal Mart! This time, trying for the closest one, 33 miles away, that I have not been to yet. A lady at church gave me EASY directions I was able to follow......mostly. She said when I exited the interstate I would be high up on the ramp, and I could see everything from there, and head straight for the store.

Can we say fog as thick as pea soup today? I could hardly see the traffic light, much less any stores or signs. I had to choose right or left, so I went left.

Wrong way.

What about the wonderful GPS? Miss Ginnifer Paisley Smith?
I think my GPS was having a PMS day.

Well, I guess it was the fog. She could not find the Wal Mart there anywhere. It never showed up in the system. Giving up, I decided to go into Jackson to the Wal Mart we went to the first time. I programmed in the info, and off we went.

And went.

Ginnifer kept changing her mind. Giving me wrong street names, telling me to turn when there were no turns.

Now, to understand this correctly, you have to realize that I have NO sense of direction. None. I am not driving around slightly turned around. I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I AM. The fog is messing up the satellite signal and I am at the mercy of a dysfunctional talking machine, whom I am blindly following because I have no other option. I can't call Sam and ask, because the first thing he would ask me is, "where are you now?" And i would have to answer, "I have absolutely no idea!"

She got me close to the second Wal Mart place, but we never found it. I DID find the Target, so I went in there and found the bar stools we were looking for for the kitchen. Scratch one item off the list! Of course, I did have to wander around for an hour just looking. :)

Back to the van, still needing Wal mart, I decided to go to the one where the cart fell over last week. The weather had cleared a bit, so we got there with minimal problems.

Third time is the charm! Third try for the third Wal mart in the third town worked! :)

(If I had had a van load of kids I never never would have done this).

I wandered more, shopped some, found everything on my list, and happily made it out to the van with an upright cart and sang so loud all the way home I didn't hear the phone when Sam called.

One thing I love about being away for several hours, is I don't have to talk. I can smile at cashiers, I can say excuse me, and thank you when necessary. But I don't have to talk. I just don't realize how much I do talk all day long, until I get a chance not to. I guess I also don't have to listen.

It is just refreshing.

I come home happy and ready to talk and listen.

So the GPS had a bad day and I was lost in three different towns. So it rained all day and the fog was terrible. So traffic was unbelievable and the stores were crowded.

I have a husband who loves me and encourages me to get out and get some alone time.
I have kids who love me and were so excited to see me when I got home.
I had a great dinner of fettuccine Alfredo with my family with all the kids sitting on the new bar stools.
We had a great family devotion with our Jesse Tree.

I am blessed.
And very thankful.

TIMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was on the computer yesterday afternoon (imagine that) when I heard this banging sound. I ignored it for a few minutes, then my curiosity got the better of me. I was looking to see what the KIDS were doing, but I found the noise culprit, my hubby!

He had decided to get rid of a dead tree in the front yard.

He started with the new chain saw...........

.....until the chain fell off.............

......then he moved to the ax.....................

........whew.........HARD work..................

......off comes the sweater and the ax continues to fly........

then it was time to leave! We had to drop the kids off at 5:00 and head out on our first solo date in a long time, and no tree was worth missing out on minutes of that!

So this morning, it was back at it! With the chainsaw again................

( I am on the front porch, this is the front yard)

..............until the chain fell of again.................

.....and he finished it off with the ax!

I just so love this picture!!!   :)

 

Everybody was excited except the poor woodpecker who lived in the top of the dead tree. She made her unhappiness well known!

Saturday

Yesterday morning I finally relented and agreed to put up the Christmas tree. I was curious to see it, as I bought it last year at a great price the day AFTER Christmas. But, I said they had to do most of the work!

(From this angle, you can now see the room is green, the other side is yet to be painted and is still yellow)

I was so pleased that the tree only came in 4 pieces that snap and plug together!

 

15 minutes later, we were done! I think I am in love with this pre lit tree! So easy!

Yes, it is in our foyer. Nobody ever uses the front door so we thought it would be a good place. There isn't any furniture in the big den, plus with it being only half painted, it looked really weird.

After we were done with the tree, we loaded up and dropped Collin off out in the country for a paint ball birthday party with a new friend. Sam was gone all weekend as this was his first weekend on duty in the Guard.

Then we proceeded to go 40 minutes away to the Weiands house. This was the family we bought our home from. Susan and I became friends on the phone we talked so much before the move. So not only did God bless us with a great house, he gave us some new great friends too! They have 8 children, and a perfect match for all four of mine.They had us all over for dinner a few weekends ago and it was so much fun. They also home school and we have mutual friends as well. We are so excited they didn't go any farther away and we can spend time together.

The reason we were there was to do family pictures. We got there early and I was enjoying sitting out in the sunshine by the lake. I caught this candid of Kaebrie that I like.

They had a lot of races around the trees!

Rolling down the hill was a lot of fun!

The reason we came: The Weiand Family!

Just the kids:

That was a lot of fun and the highlight of my day! Their oldest, Jonathon, graciously drove to Wal Mart so I could follow him. Granted, we once did live in Clinton, but that was 8 years ago and I do not remember how to get anywhere! We did a HUGE shopping run. When the nearest Wal Mart is 40 minutes away, it makes sense to make a list and plan out meals and buy bulk when you can! As this was an unfamiliar Wal Mart, it was time consuming trying to find everything on my list. The kids were getting hungry and I had a 45 minute drive back to Yazoo to pick up Collin from the party. At 6:00, we paid and headed out to the van. I had one cart with Christopher helping push, and Kaitlynn had the other cart with Kaebrie riding in it. They were right behind me.

Then I hear this blood-curling scream and I turn around, and the cart had fallen off the sidewalk into the street. Kaebrie is screaming, groceries are rolling, and people are staring. I run over to her, not sure if she is hurt. No blood, no bones facing in the wrong direction, she is OK. It just scared her. I try and lift the cart back up. It is so heavy and lopsided because half the bags are still in it. I pull and twist and finally get that thing upright. Then I start piling in groceries and torn bags and loose items, while Kaebrie is still screaming.

People are just walking by. Nobody helped. I was so angry. Not angry that it happened (frustrated and a bit unbelieving, yes) but angry that people could walk by and do nothing. ugh. Maybe I expect to much.

Anyway, we made it back to the van, threw everything in, and headed back for Collin. We had to stop at the Sonic and get slushies to calm everyone's nerves, because a Sonic can never be passed by without a slushy stop (or at least after you spend 3 years in Idaho with the nearest Sonic and hour away it can't).

Made it to the party on time, got Collin, got home, everyone unloaded all the stuff, then everyone needed showers, then we all went to bed.

And to think Sam was gone and missed all that fun!

:)