Merry Christmas!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas. We did! We missed being with the big group in Baton Rouge, but we had a great day here! I took lots of pictures but haven't been able to upload them yet. (Sarah stole my camera cord & I haven't found it yet!). I'll add them soon!

We celebrated with my parents before they left to go out of town. We had a wonderful time there. My parents love Christmas & always do so much to make Christmas special for the kids (even us big kids). We have lots of family traditions that I am enjoying passing on to my kids. Guess what my mom got me?? A sewing machine! I'm excited to learn how to use it.

Jacob had to work on Christmas Eve. :( The kids & I spent the day watching Christmas movies, making cookies for Santa & playing with the new toys from Grandma & Papa. We went to the Christmas Eve service at church, which was wonderful, as always. After church we decorated a gingerbread house. When Jacob got home, we left out some cookies for Santa, and sprinkled magic reindeer food in the lawn. We read The Night Before Christmas and then Adam insisted on going to bed!! He was ready for Santa!

Jacob & I had to wake the kids up on Christmas morning! Sarah was so excited when she saw a wagon under the tree. She climbed right in it & wanted to sit in it to open her gifts. Her other favorite gift was an Elmo that sings and talks. Adam loves his new pirate ship. They got lots of fun things this year.

Jacob's family joined us for turkey dinner and we exchanged gifts with them. We played Rock Band, which was very funny to watch. His family is so much fun!

It was a wonderful day with family!! Merry Christmas!!

What rhymes with car?

Adam has been learning about rhyming words. Well, kind of. He doesn't really get it, but he likes to try. So we were playing a little game where I say a word & he tries to say a word that rhymes. I said "car" and he said "light house." Okay, not quite. So then I said "fun" he said something else random that didn't rhyme. I explained that it had to be a word that had the "un" sound like fun. His response... "oh, like unexplainable?" Um yes, my little three year old, like unexplainable. He doesn't totally get the rhyming concept, but he's got quite a little vocabulary for a three year old!

Christmas movies

I love Christmas movies! We have been watching lots of them this year. Adam has just recently started to like watching movies, so we've had lots of fun watching them together. Here are a few of our favorites:

These are some of my favorites:

These are Adam's favorites:

Jacob likes the classics:

Leave a comment with your favorite Christmas movie!! Get some popcorn & a blanket & watch it soon. Christmas is almost here!

Elf Yourself

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Extreme Home Makeover

Something exciting is going on in Keller. A family from our church was nominated for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and they won! I don't personally know the family, but I am so excited for them! We stopped by the "spectator area" today to take a look at the progress. It's amazing to think that just a few days ago they were demolishing the old house. You can see by the picture how far they've come in just a few days. There were tons of people there working on the house. It's neat to see how everyone is working together for this family. You can read about their story and the progress of the makeover here.

Seriously

I can't turn my back on this kid for a second. I keep telling Jacob we need a lock on that cereal cabinet! She's very big to get herself a little snack after school. Doesn't she look proud of herself?

So funny

Last night I was getting ready to give the kids a bath. I turned on the water & went to grab a towel from dryer. Then I heard Adam say "Come look at your daughter" (he's heard Jacob say this when Sarah's doing something she shouldn't be doing.) Sarah just couldn't wait to get in the tub. I didn't know she could even get herself in the tub without help. Of course I was first thankful that she wasn't hurt. Then, I had to grab the camera...

I guess next time I'll have the towels ready!

Cousin Sleepover

We had Sammy spend the night with us last night. The kids had lots of fun playing together.

We made peanut butter playdough:


We played a game that we used to play as kids, with my brother & his army soliders!
Sarah had fun playing with Sammy too!
And then it was bedtime. Don't they look sleepy? :)

Christmas program at church

Today, for the first time, my little rockstar who loves to perform, got to live out his dream of being on the big stage at "big church." He participated in the children's program at church. I was so proud. I thought I was going to cry, he was just so cute up there with all of the big kids. He looked really little up there. He did a good job. He had the "deer in headlights" look for a little bit, then he started watching the other kids to remember the hand movements. It was funny that he yawned a few times while he was up there. I guess it wasn't as exciting as he was expecting it to be! I got a few little clips on video (kind of shaky, sorry), but then put the cameras away to just watch, enjoy the show & try not to cry as I watched my sweet baby boy on the big stage with his precious friends!

Christmas at the Gaylord

Today we went to the Gaylord with Becky, Kasey & Baylee. The whole place is just beautiful, especially at Christmas time. We had a wonderful lunch there and then we walked around & took lots of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites:

The Decorating Team

We've been having fun decorating the house for Christmas!

Would you believe...

That I got sick on Black Friday!! I know! I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well at all. When my alarm rang at 3:30 am (no, it wasn't a mistake, I was considering meeting my mom at Kohl's when they opened at 4), I turned it off and went back to sleep! I slept till Sarah woke me up at 8! So, there you go. No big deals to report, no doorbusters for me. Isn't that sad? I did get out and go to a few stores even though I still wasn't feeling 100% better. I just couldn't NOT shop at all on that day. We did meet up with the rest of our group & have lunch at one of my favorite places, Celebrity Bakery. From there, we relaxed at my mom's house, then headed home & all took naps. I'm going to have to have my shopping marathon another day.

Fun day with family

We've had fun visiting with Grams, Aunt Julie, Jamie & Joey this week. Yesterday we spent the day in Grapevine. We went to Grapevine Mills to shop and eat lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Adam had fun at the new Thomas the Train store. He got to go on a train ride! On our way home we went down Main Street and checked out the Christmas decorations.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for my little cutie pies, my sweet husband, our wonderful families, all of the delicious food we ate today, and the shopping day tomorrow! Happy Thanksgiving!

One week from today...

One week from today is the BIG SHOPPING DAY!! I'm so excited! My mom and I get up early & go shopping every year on the day after Thanksgiving. We don't like to call it Black Friday, that sounds depressing. Plus we are seeing red & green on that day. Anyway, we get our ad's on Thanksgiving morning. We casually glance through them. Later in the day we will go back through them and make an insanely organized list. Seriously, organized- by store, price, time we need to get there, most likely highlighted and color coded, It's serious. Anyway, this year a few of our favorite shopping buddies will be joining us. We just couldn't be more excited!

Thanksgiving Fun at Preschool!

We've had so much fun this week celebrating Thanksgiving at preschool!

We made these cute tortilla tee-pee's.


Today we had a feast. All of the classes at lunch together. Look at this cute turkey made of lunch meat, cheese, fruit & pretzels!


And the dessert tree (Swiss rolls & cookies!) was a hit!

The kids were all so cute dressed like Indians & eating on place mats that they had made.

We are so thankful for our school! We have so much fun there!

So Sweet!

Is there anything sweeter than freshly bathed babies in snuggly winter pajamas? I just don't think there is! Sarah is now starting to love books. For the longest time she was too squirmy & busy to sit still and look at books. But, now she loves to be read too. And just to make this bedtime routine a little cuter, Adam likes to be the one to read to her. I know! So sweet! He can recite the whole book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear. His teacher mommy is very proud. It's just the cutest thing to hear him reading! And to his sister! And in their snuggly pj's! TOO CUTE!

Daddy's Little Helper

Cute Messy Faces

Tonight we had "gespetti" for dinner! It was messy as always. Sarah liked it so much, she licked her plate when it was gone. :)

Funny boy

Here's a piece of last night's conversation with Adam while he was trying to delay bedtime...

"Mom, can I go to a party? By myself?
I can drive there, when I get bigger.
After I sleep I'm going to grow bigger.
It's for my friend Chase. (I don't even think he has a friend, Chase, maybe at school, but I don't think so).
He's having a birthday and cake. It's at Jason's deli.
If any bad guys come, they might throw the cake in the water.
Then we'd have to make him a new one, okay Mom?
He likes chocolate. Do you know how to make chocolate cake?"

He's so funny. The sad thing is, he's growing up so fast. It won't be long and he really will be asking me if he can go to parties by himself & drive himself there!

Our Lazy Weekend

I got some comfy new pj's & have spent most of the weekend in them. Jacob & I both have today off, so we are still in weekend mode around here. We've been so lazy! It's been so nice! Of course the bad news is, if you look around the house, you can see we've done nothing all weekend!

The Rockstar Brother

Here's Adam (playing the golf club) singing his color songs that he's learning at school. In case you can't understand him he's spelling "O-R-A-Angie-E" and "R-D-D, red, R-D-D, red, I can spell red!" He is so entertaining!

My Walking Girl

Sarah is really walking everywhere now. Over the last week or so, she has just taken off. Now if she starts to crawl, she quickly realizes what she's doing & stands up & starts walking. She was so proud of herself showing off her new skill at school. Here are a few short videos I got of her walking. In the back you will notice the silly brother trying on Jacob's clothes (oh, and just ignore the laundry pile!) :)

Our Fun Halloween

We had fun celebrating Halloween. We had ghost toast for breakfast & mini pumpkin pizzas for lunch. My mom made a cute Frankenstein cake. We painted our pumpkins & read lots of Halloween books. Finally it was time for Spiderman & Minnie Mouse to get dressed. There was a party at our neighborhood park. We went to that & played a few games there. Then we went to Grandma & Papa's to trick-or-treat and to see Sammy, who was also Spiderman. Then we went to Trunk or Treat at our church. All of the trunks were so cute with different themed decorations & games. The kids had fun & of course got lots of candy! Happy Halloween!

(Slideshow to the right, click to make the pictures bigger!)

Happy Halloween

We are having a fun day. I'm sure there will be pictures later! I've always loved Halloween. My Dad always went all out for Halloween when we were growing up, which I'm sure is why it was always so much fun! For several years, he would turn our two story garage into an awesome & very scary haunted house. All of us kids & our friends would have a job in the haunted house. He would line the driveway in Halloween lights & tons of people would line up to go through it. My grandparents would come from Baton Rouge & be the "tour guides." It was so much fun. The day after Halloween my dad would go to all of the stores & stock up on scary stuff to make the next year's haunted house even scarier. It was fun!

Anyway, I don't have any pictures of all of that saved on my computer. But, I do have some of my kiddos from the past few years. I'll leave you with those for now. But sure to check back later for more!