Holiday festivities

Just a couple of highlights from our past week.

1.  Big Ds Christmas party. 

Big D's "room grandmother" decided to have the Christmas party at the beginning of the day instead of waiting until the end.  I was quite happy with her decision because middle d's party was after lunch.  This way, I could make it to both parties.  The room grandmother made a big breakfast for all of the students, teachers and parents that were in her class!

I thought this red wall would make a pretty background for the girls...but they couldn't contain their excitement long enough to get a good shot in.  Maybe I should have waited until they were on their way back from seeing Santa...Oh well.

2.  Middle D's Christmas party. 

This child always has the busiest Christmas parties!  They're so busy in fact, that I always feel overwhelmed when we leave.  This year they had five stations set up:  making chocolate sprinkle covered bananas, icing and decorating sugar cookies, making reindeer food, gift unwrapping, and goodie eating.

3. Cute little d smiles. 

My little d has been trying to give me her "best smiles" for all of the pictures I have been taking!  This is a major improvement from last Christmas.  Isn't her "fake little grin" just adorable?! 

4.  Holiday baking and dessert making. 

One day last week I felt really crafty and baked sugar cookies, ginger bread cookies, and made dirt pie (without worms) with the kiddos.  They were very excited and helpful.  It was really neat having them try each ingredient that went into the gingerbread cookies.  Baking soda wasn't on any ones list of favorites!  Everyone had a different favorite.  Big D's was molasses (yuck!), Middle d's was brown sugar, and little D's was butter!  Her job was to open the butter.  She was holding it in her hand and asked me if she could try it.  Without thinking I said yes and she bit a huge hunk out of it!  Silly little goose chewed it up, swallowed it, and asked me if she could eat more!  Everyone enjoyed cookie decorating.  And while some were very neat and orderly,  other(s) were straight up um....artistic!

5. Moving on to Christmas eve gift opening and preparations for Christmas day. 

Stevens parents have always opened gifts on Christmas eve, so we always let the kiddos open their gifts from them on Christmas eve (any other gifts get opened after Santa's on Christmas morning).  Little d had lots of issues with having to wait her turn to open a gift.  She froze up and decided not to open any!  Guess she showed us!  She didn't freeze very long though.  I guess she was kind of upset that her plan didn't work and it didn't ruin our day,  so she decided to rejoin the gift opening.

After the gift opening, we got our reindeer food and sprinkled it all over the yard.  Have you ever watched a child throw a fist full of glitter into the air?  It is magical.  Little d really had a great time doing this and I had a great time watching her.  The expression on her face as she threw it in the air was beautiful. I love how she really 'got it' this year.  It's sad because Big D is starting to ponder over the magic of Santa and ask big, serious questions and little d is fully convinced that this guy is the real thing!  Middle d is standing on the edge.

 

Speaking of Middle d.  He managed to loose a tooth on Christmas and can you believe that the tooth fairy still hasn't came to make the exchange?!  Middle says it's because she is on Christmas break and I think I'm going to stick with that.  I'm pretty sure (just between me and you) that I'm just a really forgetful parent and that's why she hasn't came yet.

That's quite enough for now.  I hate being so behind,  but,  soon I'm sure God will give me a day with twice as many hours in it and I'll get caught up on everything, including blogging!

Happy Thursday Everyone!

just a test!

Little d's top five reasons for NOT going to bed.

1. "My back hurts."
2. "Sleeping makes my eyes hurt."

3. I'm too big for this!
4. It's not nessi-ser-we!  (necessary)
5. No, I'm not tired.  Babies need naps.  I'm a big goah (girl)

Sweet little girly.  I just love her!

Santa

I've been getting her ready for this for two weeks now.

I've told her all about this jolly ole' guy in the bright red suit.

I've showed her pictures of him.

Still, every day she insisted that she would not be talking to this magical guy.  No matter how much candy and toys he had to offer.

It's sad, but I was really excited about getting this grand screaming howling picture of my kid in Santa's lap.  So excited, that I told her it was okay to be afraid and that she could cry if she wanted to.

Has anyone figured this out yet?

We went to Wal-mart where Santa was and as soon as she spotted this guy, she walked right up to him and crawled up in his lap, introduced herself and snuggled  up to him and planned to go nowhere for the next forever or so.  REALLY little d?!  The only time I'm okay with you pitching a huge picture while I'm trying to take you're picture?

When Santa actually PUT her down, she turned to walk away, but then a little light turned on somewhere up there, she became little d again, turned and in a louder tone said "Hey Santa!  Gimme my candy!"

That's my girl!

Happy Monday Everyone!

People all over the world, join hands

I read a blog about a week ago that had a list of things to do to get ready for Thanksgiving.  It had really clever crafts and such on it.  But I didn't use any of them because we were staying home for Thanksgiving and to be honest, I wasn't really thankful for that at the time.  Instead of doing fun crafts and getting the house decorated for Thanksgiving, we cleaned and hung out in our pajamas all day long watching movies and eating extremely unhealthy food while we did so.

Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, our Minister, Austin quoted something he had heard before.  And I quote "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"..."If it ain't broke, lets improve it!".  I'm pretty sure I've heard that saying tons of times before.  But I always thought it was as corny as it sounded, but this time it stuck somewhere up there in my busy mind and I pondered over it for the next couple of days.  I'll bet you're wondering what this has to do with me, my family, and Thanksgiving...

One of the crafts I read was to make a paper chain with all the things you were thankful for on and hang it up around your dinner table, or in the general area of where you were gonna eat Thanksgiving dinner.  I thought this was an awesome idea, but silly, procrastinating, depressed me didn't do it because Thanksgiving was gonna suck because we weren't going home to see family we weren't really "celebrating" Thanksgiving this year.

Note:  We were invited by one of our dear friends from church to come and celebrate with them.  Thanksgiving was wonderful...and Delicious!!!

On Thanksgiving night, Steven and I hired Babysitter D and had an all night long half the next day shopping spree!  I'm torn between favorite events of that evening.  If it had to be narrowed down, I'd say my top three would be.

1. Waiting outside in the "Target line" at 3 a.m. in the morning trying to remember what we were actually there for!?
2. The two hour nap in the car that was parked in the mall parking lot.
3. The lady at bath and body telling us that we "weren't in line" after we had already stood there for forever and making us turn around and go to the back of the 4 mile long line.  When she turned me around my bag knocked over some fragile glass thingy and it shattering all over the floor and the look I gave her that said "It's Karma B***H get over it!"
4. Eating "breakfast" at Long John Silvers!...Note to self:  Vinegar will make you as sick as a dog if you eat it for breakfast in mass quantities!  You probably shouldn't ever do that again!

...Back on track (kind of).

I felt a heavy urge to spend time with these kiddos that I'd been so glad to get away from missed so much.  I wanted to make the "thankful chain"  but we were past Thanksgiving and well into the season that we are oh so jolly about.  Christmas.  So, I took Ole' Austins borrowed saying and put it into use!  We made a love chain.  We cut out strips of construction paper and wrote things that we loved on them.  I told them that they could write anything on them.  As long as it was something they loved, they could write it.

Diamond's list included:  Monkeys, NOT spiders, eyeballs and little "goas" (girls).  She was more into the cutting thing than actually "writing" things.  This was the first time that she had ever used scissors and she literally went crazy!  She got this strange...almost psychotic look in her eyes.  First, she started making chomping noises.  Then, the chomping turned into growling.  At one point, she started just ripping the paper to shreds.  Eventually, I had to take the scissors from the scissor crazy little two year old because she held her finger up, looked at it, stuck it into the scissors and tried to cut her finger off!  I guess she was thinking a) it wouldn't hurt and b.) it would just magically grow back.  After she did that, we put ALL of the scissors up so that she can't find them!

Here are a few of the pics of the D's making the "love chain".  Enjoy!

See little d's face?!  Scissor crazy, I tell you!!!

This one was supposed to say "God" but he got a little bit carried away with O's!

She's loved him since the very first time she heard his edited slim shady song.
She looks like a thug :)  Maybe she's gonna be a rapper when she grows up!

post you took my scissors away so now I'm gonna pee all over mysef fit

He loves sunshine :) ...I love the fact that he loves sunshine :)

"song book"  just in case you couldn't figure it out

Happy Wednesday Everyone!!!

10

1.  We went on a misson trip to help the homeless in Little Rock.  This was a very eye opening experience for everyone.  I know  personally, that the way I view the homeless from now on will be soo much different.  Steven and I thought that taking the D's would be a good idea and it was.  They were very humbled.  We are going back to Rock next summer for a week to help repair homes and make them live able for the homeless.

 Look at this weekly schedule!  Look at Wednesday!  From 9-11 a.m. people can come in for HIV testing...could you imagine penciling that into your schedule?!  I know its kind of blurry but the clothes bus also comes every OTHER week on Wednesday.  It's hard to imagine.  But it's true.  People really do live on the streets.  People really do worry about their next meal.  Here in America, people are starving and dying from AIDS.  People really are dying because they're home less.  You wanna talk about eye opening...Look at that schedule...uggh!

2.  Big D won story book character day.  She was Miss Mary Mack.  She told me the day before so we didn't have time to plan but we obviously did okay.  It makes me happy :)

3.  Middle d needs glasses!  Turns out, the boy can read, just not close up...which is a pretty big problem specially when you're learning.  This is a good idea of what he looks like when he looks at himself close up in the mirror...yikes!  Blurry!  He cant focus.  Uggh! Sometimes I feel like a really bad parent 0.0

4.  Arkansas has a beautiful fall foliage.  I was really sad and missin' the beautiful foliage that Georgia has to offer every fall.  Turns out, Arkansas' is just a about a month later...

5.  Soccer season is over.  I'm actually glad!  Ha!  I'm sure that I'll be missing it really bad when the spring rolls around.  But for now, I'm good!

6.  The lowest grade on Big D's progress report is a 95!  Holla!

7.  Cheer parties and medals and stuff.

The Cheer or Football association threw a big shindig ( <= love that word) for all of the cheerleaders and football players grades 3-6.  This was our first year doing any of this cheer business so we were quite blown away by how big a deal these folks made out of it.  Their was pizza, prizes, clapping, cheering, and engraved medals!  Big D was reeeally excited!

8.  Little d thinks this "chicken" is awesome :)  I also think that "chicken" is awesome! hehehe...

9.  Middle D hasn't pulled a ticket in TWO WEEKS!!!  Holla X2!!!

10.  I guess the princess thing was just a passing phase.  Look out Buzz.  Woody has a brand new hat!

Happy past ten days or so everyone!!!!!!!!!!

whats been going on lately

I'm gonna start blogging regularly again soon.

Cheer is officially over! We only have two soccer games left and after that we are sport free until March of next year!  I think I'm really excited about that.  I think.  I really miss evenings at home with my babies.  They're growing up so fast and I kind of feel like I'm just watching it all happen  from the side lines...and really, I am. I had a talk with Big D the other day and she is pretty sure she doesn't want to be a cheerleader next year.  I really hope she doesn't.  Soccer is definitely our sport.  We don't want it to feel like a chore.  We want to enjoy it.  And with every single night of the week devoted to something, that was kind of how we were feeling.  We are also going to ask the soccer association to switch their teams next year.  We feel like they could be playing alot better if they were playing with different players.  We haven't won a single game this year and we barely won any last year.  Big D, middle D, and one other kid have been the only ones to score goals this year.   It looks as if some of the kids on that team are just there because their parents want them to be and not for the love of the sport and that sounds kind of weird coming from a soccer mom of an 8 year old and a 6 year old, but seriously, our kids are pouring everything they have into the game while others are just sitting, playing, and rolling around on the field.  We just feel like our kiddos would benefit from a brand new coach and brand new kiddos to play with.

Sorry for my little rant....sometimes, things just have to be said : /

Lets rewind real quick to the Monday before last, all the way back to Middle d's parent/teacher conference.  We met with his teacher for what was supposed to be a 15 minute conference and it lasted a little over an hour.  Really long story short his teacher is old and tired of dealing with six year olds so she pretty much has given up on my child I don't think he was ready for first grade.  He is six, so he is old enough.  But seriously, he's just not grasping the concept.  He is reading at a kindergarten level and his math scores are barely first grade.  Steven and work with him everyday after school "reinforcing" the same thing that he was supposed to learn on that day, and he doesn't have a clue where to begin.  We are literally reteaching him.  It's like home school after a whole day of public school.  I have considered having him moved to a different class room, but, I don't know.  I just don't think he's ready.  I think he'll be ready for first grade next year.  And that's okay.  I'm okay with that.

Big D's conference lasted all of fifteen minutes and it consisted of her teachers telling me what a smart and brilliant child I have and how wonderful she is....and so on and so forth.  She made honor roll (I already blogged about that though)...I am so proud of her. 

I want to hear those same words about my son.  He deserves it.  We deserve it.

Enough about that.  We'll move right along to the fun stuff :)

School Parties.  Need I say more?!  Really, those things are the highlight of the school year (my opinion).  I really loved how the two schools coordinated party times this year so that we could leave one kids party and go straight to the others.

Finally, Halloweekend.  Friday, the businesses down town had their trick or treating.  Steven and I weren't planning on going to this one since we were planning on trick or treating Sunday night.  But we made a last minute decision to take them and let them have a little extra fun.  So I dug random stuff out of our dress up box, threw the kids together and off we went.  We ended up in line behind a bunch of chain smokers and cut our trip around the square a little bit short. 

Saturday, the youth group and ourselves all piled into the church van and headed to Magic Screams.  It was Magic Springs all decked out in scary.  The d's were okay with everything until the sun went down and all of the scary clowns and creepy crawlies make their way out of hiding. 

We were walking toward the carousel to ride it and a creepy clown came out of no where and started chasing Big D threatening to eat her.  It literally scared all of the kids to death!  I was seriously ready to punch this guy his ugly, scary "it" face.  Seriously, Dude!  They're 8 and under!  Go scare some kids that wont be traumatized for the rest of their lives!  I don't think they will ever look a clowns the same.


this is what ld thought about Magic Screams :)




his first bubble :)

Halloween was full of fun and festive activities.  I made the girls' costumes this year (a first for me).  I didn't make middle d's because he wanted to be a transformer and he already had the costume (I bought it for like three bucks last year) so...transformer he was.  I decided that little d would be a cat cuz the kid crawls around meowing as much as she talks.  So why not, right?!  I guess Big D got jealous...or just liked little d's costume because she decided that she would like to be a cat too. So,  a hundred or so yards of tulle and ribbon later and....

Viola! Two kitties and a transformer!

I think that's it.  Were almost caught up :)  More to come later.  Happy Monday Everyone!