The 8th day of Christmas

Well I decorated the house today. I think this is a man's job, but since my husband is a writer and not a light puter upper then I had to do the best I could do. I wish I had those pretty lighted snowflakes to hang from the tree, and lighted deer that move. Oh and some pretty candy cane lights on the walkway up to my house. (Well I can dream.)

Ashley and I are sick with Strep throat today. We both got on anti-biotics so hopefully we will get better really soon! The boys' got on anti-biotics on Saturday. So we will all be better by their performances on Thursday.

I had Ashley and Austin put on their ballet costumes so that I could take a picture to show their ballet teacher of what I made for them and the other students. I have a feeling that if I was taking pictures for me they wouldn't have been so compliable, but since it was for Miss Emily they did all kinds of poses.

The 7th day of Christmas

Well for several days now, I have been pulling up my friend Renee's blog whether she updated or not just to hear the Christmas music she put on her blog. Well I finally decided that I just needed to put some on my blog. So I just about copied all of the songs she chose and added a few and put them here. Enjoy! Now maybe you will keep my blog open and listen to the music. :)

We were going to go to Franklin today and try to get some nice Christmas pictures. But not even half way there Ashley said she wasn't feeling well and wanted to go home. We had promised the kids if they took the pictures that we would go to Christ Church to play. The boys had a fit when we said we were going home. So Ashley said, she would lay down in my lap and let the boys play.

We did stop by the agricultural park since it was close by to see if there was a good place to take a picture there. It was too cold to take their coats off and I really want the Christmas attire. I did get a couple of pictures. This one is not so bad, but in the others Ashley looks miserable.

When we got to Christ Church they had a nice big Christmas tree in the lobby and I thought I still MIGHT get THAT picture. So I took several...SEVERAL and not one of them is good enough. I got a lot of blurry shots. Some because one child wouldn't stand still long enough for me to take the picture and some because I was trying to get the effect of the Christmas tree and changed the settings but just ended up with blurred kids.

The kids slid down the slide like a train. I kept trying to get a picture, but just ended up always getting the train crash.

I know this picture is so blurry. I really wish I could have gotten a good shot of this. This picture just depicts Mason's character. He is usually such a happy go lucky boy. He was being sneaky and I caught him in this great laugh.

Mason is my little photographer. He can take a picture better than his daddy, but don't tell daddy!

And my little Ashley. Isn't her hair getting so long?

She took this picture of us.

So unfortunately I'm still left without the daggum Christmas picture!

The 6th day of Christmas

Ahhhh! Sweet Sweet Memories! I don't know if these are really good or if the memory makes them really good. Last night when I was making cookies I had some left over chocolate. So I covered a couple of bananas and froze them. My Grandma Curly used to make these all the time for me!

Today I ate one and it just brought back some really fond memories of my Grandma. I loved her so much!

Well I took Mason to the doctor this morning. It's a good thing that I did! He has a bad ear infection and Strep throat! POOR FELLA! We had Ashley tested too and she is NOT sick. YAY! I was going to crop this picture so you couldn't see much of the doctor's office, but then I decided that is exactly what I want shown. This shows exactly where we were on Dec. 6, 2008.

Aussie was with Daddy at Chinese school.

Mason took this picture of Ashley and me.

Well we didn't go to the girl scout thing, because too many people called in sick. So it would have only been Ashley from our group, so I said we would cancel too. Which I'm sort of glad, because it made for a more relaxing afternoon instead of having to run from one place to the next.

I finished Ashley's tutu for her performance Thursday.

Since Mason is sick, I suppose I won't be going to church tomorrow. I guess I'll finish decorating the house.

Tonight the cookie party was lots and lots of fun! Jill had games and prizes (LOTS of prizes!) I came home with 5 gifts! I got a cute Christmas serving dish, a beautiful watch, an ornament, strawberry lotion and a door hanging craft. I love games and I love winning! I had such a good time! And look at these fabulous cookies that were brought.

I made buckeyes. OH YUM!

Renee, Jill and I are all making a December Daily book, so I of course had to have a picture of the 3 of us.

This is Jill's daughter Mattie. I just thought this was a cute candid shot.

And I love this picture of Renee kissing Santa. Now Page can really sing the song..."I saw Mommy kising Santa Claus."

She is so pretty!

I need a haircut!

The 5th day of Christmas

Today we had co-op.

In class the kids made cinnamon ornaments, Christmas garland links

and a Santa advent calendar. (HEY LOOK- Mason is holding his pencil the correct way!)

We read the story of the Three Trees. If you have never read this story, you really need to!

I started making the 6 tutus for the girl's ballet today. I was so very lucky! I had 4 people help me and we completed 4 tutus. I am almost finished with Ashley's and I need to make one more. I need to make a sash for Aussie. I also need to get 3 kings outfits together. Their performance is Thursday. I don't know why I thought I had another week. So it is now down to the wire. But that is OK because I work well under pressure.

I need to work with the boys on their lines. Apparently Mason doesn't know his yet. UGH!

Well today Mason was pretty tired in class. He said he felt fine. But tonight he woke up crying hard. He has an earache. So looks like tomorrow I will be taking him to the doctor. It's a very busy day. I hope I get in early! Then I need to take Ashley to Murfreesboro to decorate the girl scout tree. Then I go to a cookie party. (I have my cookies done and JUST enough.)

(hey Jill- If I don't have time to look up directions before your party, I might be calling you from the road.)

The 4 th day of Christmas

Today was a much better day!

It started off with Fairy School. What's that you ask? Ashley is the teacher and she asked everybody to draw a fairy. Mason wanted a picture of Zelda as a fairy. So that is what I drew in Fairy School today.

We finished up the story Mountain Born. (Finally) I did not like that story very much. And I could tell how much Ashley had been listening to it the last few weeks when she asked me today, "Who is Biddy?" Oh she's only the MAIN character! UGH! Well it's over with and hopefully we will have a better story to read next week.

I worked on the school's newsletter. I enjoyed it very much! The kids from co-op wrote the stories, etc. I just put it into a newsletter format. I hadn't played with Microsoft Publisher before, but it was fun and easy to use.

Ashley has been asking me to make her a bag to put her drawings in. She specifically asked for 6 compartments in it, for it to be light pink and to have the tri force on it. So that was a bit of a challenge, but I did it. (The challenge part was the compartments.)

The 2 things Ashley says all the time are: I don't know what to do or I'm hungry. So today I gave her something to do. Ashley made an ornament for the Chrismas Tree for the prompt on Kids Can Scrap. It is Rudolf the reindeer and of course Tiger Lily. About 15 minutes later. "What can I do? This time make it longer." Ugh!

Then I started my cookies for a cookie swap on Saturday. I have learned that a regular size Kitchen Aid mixer can not hold cookie dough for 120 cookies. And I also learned that no matter how many points you have left for the day on WW, you probably shouldn't eat a handful of dough.

Ay! ay! ay! Is it really almost 1AM? OH shoot! I'm off to bed!

3rd day of Christmas

On the 3rd day of Christmas my true loves gave to me...

NOOOOOOO....Sleep!

Wow it was not a good night! I went to bed and my nose clogged up and I was gasping for air. Then Ashley woke up crying with both of her knees hurting. I went in her room to rub them, after a while Greg came in to relieve me. Then Mason came to my room with a fever.

So today was a bunch of lying around. I could barely keep my eyes open today.

I had a small window of a second wind. I went to Wal Mart to return a Redbox video and got a few groceries while I was there. I also picked up some fabric for some Christmas presents I hope to make.

I had PLANS today, many many plans and I'm really bummed that I couldn't do any of them!

Here are the pictures of Aussie from yesterday:

The 2nd day of Christmas

OK I'm dedicated to writing something down on this blog today, but I sure don't know what. So warning this might be boring.

Today- The kids went to Lighthouse tutorial. Aussie came home saying his Science teacher said he was well behaved, so that made me smile!

We went to McDonald's for lunch and the kids played on the playground and I think we ended up taking 5 trips to the bathroom. UGH!

While they were in class I ran to Target and got one last present for them. They gave me an extra $5 off coupon when I came into the store and they even gift wrapped the present. So that was a plus.

The post office was the slowest EVER! There was only one person working at a time. There were several people there and they came in and out. And I think everyone before me was doing something complicated like this one needs to be signed by the neice's daughter's nephew in Japan. Once I got up there it went quick, but no matter how hard I tried the clerk would NOT smile. BLAH!

I went home and made a list of the gifts I already bought so that I could figure out what else I need to get. I'm pretty much finished with the kids, except for stocking stuffers. I still need to get Aussie something special and I just don't know WHAT that is going to be.

Even though the batteries were dying in my camera I did get a couple pictures of Aussie today, but I won't be loading them tonight. He kept his hat on in McDonald's because when he took it off ALL of his hair was sticking straight up. It looked kind of cute. But he was embarrassed. I told him some people TRY to get their hair to look that way. But he wouldn't let me take a picture of him like that and you know what the reason was? Because he said I would show the whole world. Would I show the whole world? NO! Just the people who read my blog. :)

We went to the YMCA tonight. I am excited that I walked on the treadmill at least 3 mph for 30 minutes. I have never been able to retain over 2.8 mph for any lengh of time. So I'm quite proud of myself for that.

So those of you doing the December daily- out of this stuff I wrote, what would you write in your scrapbook?

Goodnight!

The 1st day of Christmas

I'm making a December Daily scrapbook. Many of my friends are making one this year so I thought I would jump in on the bandwagon. It's an idea that came from Ali Edwards, where you write down everything that happens in December. I probably won't get to scrapbook everyday, so I think I'll use my blog as a good starting point. Then I can go back and fill in the scrapbook.

Today Ashley helped me decorate the tree. She did the part where she could reach and i did the top.

I'd like to say that this is the tree before Kiki, but she was pulling down the limbs as we were decorating it.

The kids decorated their rooms. Here is the boys' room. It was funny to walk in there and see all these decorations that I didn't know they got. (Like using the blanket as a rug.)

This is Ashley's tree.

And this is my Santa tree.

And here is my Snowman collection.

I tried so desperately to get a Christmas picture today. But I'm afraid I didn't have much luck. Here are the few "some what" decent ones that I got. This one would have been good I think if it wasn't blurry.

This one is probably the best of the day, but I still need to keep on tryin'!!!

I do however like these pictures of Ashley with the snowman.

It seems like I had more to say, but I need to go to bed. Good night!