December Daily-Day 6 Panera

Today's activity in the Advent boxes said, "Go to Panera and get a treat."

So that's just what we did today.

Mason and I like the chocolate pastryAnd Ashley and Aussie like to get the big cinnamon roll.

The next few pictures are still in Panera, but first I want to tell you what one of the clerks in JoAnn's said to me. She was telling me about her children that are 14 and 16. And she said and they are just now getting to where they are not fighting all the time.

In which Mason excitedly said...

"Ahhhh we got 8 more years!"

Deck the Halls 2010

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

You may notice something that hasn't been seen in 7 years. I took down the board covering the fireplace. Greg's not too happy about that saying it will let in too much cold air, but he reluctantly agreed. So down it came. I suppose I'll put it back up after Christmas.The kids decorated this tree. I just helped a bit by putting some up on top where they couldn't reach.
Shaggy hair is in style and all the girls LOVE it. I don't mind it except I hate not seeing his eyes.

I decorated this one. It is my snowman tree- only snowmen and snowflakes. Last week the kids made these paper snowflakes and I sewed them together and hung them around the living room.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It even snowed today- just a little flurry but still pretty.

Yuletide Saturday

Well Saturday proved to be a much better day. It certainly was a busy day.

Aussie had a class project due in Chinese school. So all of us went to the presentation. His is very impressive and I hope Greg will load it onto YouTube soon so that I can share it. He drew a comic book. I helped in the coloring of it. And Greg took all of Aussie's pictures and put them in an animated PowerPoint presentation. Then Aussie and Greg spoke the words in Chinese. It is really adorable.The first student was a Chinese chef for his project. He created 3 Chinese dishes and the two that I ate were VERY good. He did it all by himself, with a little help from his Mom. He also spoke Chinese very clearly. OK so I was about to say he spoke it very well, but quite frankly I have no idea whether he was saying things correctly or not, but he was confident and it sounded good. This sweet girl sang a Chinese song and her little brother joined in.
This little girl was very quiet and shy. She introduced her family members in Chinese. She just graduated to this level so she is a newbie.

This is Aussie's teacher Jennifer Bai. She is absolutely THE BEST teacher. So good that Greg and Sam's parent's decided to keep our kids in her class another year. She is teaching different things this year so it was fine to do so. She challenges the kids and is so encouraging.

This little boy has so much personality. He comes from a home where Cantonese is also spoken. He gave an example of the differences between Mandarin (Which is what the kids are learning here.) and Cantonese. There is a big difference.

This is Sam, Aussie's best friend.
He did a PowerPoint presentation that he put together all by himself. It was quite impressive.

This boy was as prepared as everyone thought he would be. He chose poems out of a book, that he read to the class. OK- not so bad except that they were songs that the class already learned and performed.
A funny thing or sad thing depending how you look at it, one child asked every kid how long it took them to prepare. One child said 2 weeks, Aussie said every bit of time that we had and this child said 15 minutes.

My afternoon was a bit of a wild goose chase. I got a tip that pillow pets were $5 at Toys R Us and although I was no where near Toys R Us I immediately set out to get there. The store was so extremely crowded. It was worse than Black Friday. When I got there pillow pets were not on sale. Maybe they were on sale the day before but they were not Saturday. Someone else told me they had them at Dollar General. Even though they were the same price as everywhere else I have seen them I had a $5 off coupon only to be used on Saturday for Dollar General. So I went to 3 DG stores before I finally found one and bought it.

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I got home with about 1 1/2 hours until the next event.

I finished up the aprons so that I could take them to my friend that evening. (I was cutting the loose strings all the way there.)

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In the evening we went to Mansker's Yuletide Fest.

Colonial garb is encouraged but not required.

Aussie's girlfriend dressed for the occasion.

She is such a pretty little girl.

It was to be a Girl Scout event but only three families came.

This is Melody (Kadence's sister). Near the end of the program, she got out her violin and played with the musicians. She was quite good.

It was cold. This is one of the more fun things that we did. It was a short ride but still nice. I couldn't get a picture of all of us on it, so this picture of strangers will have to do.

I enjoyed the caroling, but I'm the ONLY one in my family who enjoyed it. We sang 4 songs and then left that area.

The girls were trying to run away from my camera, but I caught them this time.

Now the very favorite part of the fest was the dancing at the end of the program. Aussie begged to stay the entire time. He pleaded, "When do I ever get the chance to dance with Kadence?" He had a blast and I enjoyed watching him have so much fun!

It was very cold outside.

December Daily- the first 3 days.

Well we are officially into the Advent Season. I created this cute advent calendar last Saturday while at a friend's house. Each box has an activity written in it. Some will be ultra fun things we will do, some will be planned activities and others will be service oriented.Day One- Write a letter to Santa. I got eyerolls on this one. Probably because I asked them to do it 2 or 3 times already and no one would do it. Ashley didn't want to do it because she says she can't spell well. So she drew pictures and I helped her some on the spelling. I did not help her on the letter reversals. Poor girl, she is getting better but the dyslexia is really hard on her. So when you see that she wants a rodot dog no leash, she means a robot dog on leash.
Mason wrote his out with no pictures. I've asked him to draw something on there. I haven't gotten it back yet. And I've asked Aussie to color his. So those two will be shown later.

Day 2- Go See Despicable Me at the $1.50 theatre

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Greg's car wouldn't start. His battery was completely dead. So he took my car to work. Both of us changed our plans around. He was able to come home early and work from home and we went to a later show. It was a hard day. Everybody was crying for one reason or another. I don't understand why Mason has been crying over his math lately. He is so good at it, but he just cries and cries saying it is too hard.

Day 3- Decorate!

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It's been another hard day!

Nothing seemed to go right. Everybody was picking on each other. New battery for Greg's car...Merry Christmas! Bah humbug!

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I went to Kroger and one of coupons was rejected and one of my e-coupons didn't even come off. I was to make $7 profit, but I only ended up with $3 profit. True not so bad, except that they don't just give you cash back the money goes towards other groceries. So I was stuck buying $8 worth of groceries when I only intended to spend $2. That was kinda stinky!

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Then I went to Walmart.

They did not have the two toys I went to get. I bought the kids How to Train A Dragon figures. There were 4 different kinds so I got one of each and thought I would split them up with Ashley getting 1 thing different and Aussie getting the other thing different. Turns out they all want the same dragon. Drats! I only had one, so I need to buy 2 more. They are only $3 but Walmart was sold out. I'll try a different Walmart another day.

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Then when I picked up the kids from co-op we came home anticipating a night of decorating.

The kids cleaned the area in which the tree would go. During that time everyone fought. No one would turn off the Wii because someone else turned it on. So the Wii was put in time out. There was much much crying.

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There was a big package on the porch.

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I took it directly upstairs to see what goodies came and the order was WRONG! I was so upset! I ordered Build-A-Bears unstuffed, because the stuffing part is what makes it so special and they all came stuffed. I waited on hold for 35+ minutes. They told me I could take them to the store to get them unstuffed. So trying to figure out WHEN I could do that without kids knowing or seeing was going to be a trick. I thought I would have to go tonight. But it turns out that I can go on Sunday.
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Greg is recording we need to be extra quiet. I ran out of Christmas lights. Greg needed something from Walmart. So I took the kids out with me to Walmart. I got some lights, and I treated the kids to ice cream at the McDonald's inside Walmart.

Got home close to 10 and told them all to go to bed.

So tonight I still have this:

Trying to salvage any part of the rest of this day I decided to work on a project I'm making for Ashley's girl scout troop. There are 6 girls and I have decided to make them aprons. One of the other ladies is going to embroider their names on them. I thought I had time, but I need to get them to her tomorrow. Rushed but still relaxing (well except for the few mistakes I made and had to do over.) So I have all 6 pretty much done. I need to add pockets to them, but I can do that tomorrow. Tomorrow is a pretty packed day. We are doing several special things. So praying that tomorrow is a much better day.

So far this advent I feel like I've bombed. {sigh}

It's nearly 3AM and I need to get up early.

Pray for me.

Pray for us.

Pray that tomorrow will be a good and successful happy day!

Deals!!!!

Boy am I tired but I'm running on little bit of adrenaline right now.
Went to bed at 3:30 AM last night. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get myself to go to bed. Then I woke up at 8:15 and dragged myself out of bed to go to Walgreens. I wanted to get a newspaper and get some of their awesome deals today. They had most of their toys 1/2 price.

When I got home around 10:15 I checked my receipts and found 2 errors. So I knew I would need to go back. I wanted to double check when the luncheon was at church. I couldn't find my bulletin so I decided to check the church website. Greg had just left to go on a walk. I had remembered 1:00 in my head but when I got online it said 11:30. It was 11:15! I told the kids to hurry and get dressed. We rushed out of the house at 11:30 just knowing we were going to be late. Anyway, when we were almost there I found the bulletin and it did say 1:00! The website was wrong and we got there an hour early.

It was still nice. I didn't get any pictures. Being rushed like that no one was dressed for pictures. There was about 30 of us there and it was really nice! Then we went to Dana's house for dessert!

When we got there I taught Dana some couponing tricks. We left and went to Walgreen's and The men and the kids stayed home to play. I found some really nice knock-off Lego sets for only $10!!! And I was able to get something I had already bought for cheaper there. So I'll be doing a little returning this week.

Then we came home and I went out again at 9:30 for the 12:01 Walmart sale. I loved how laid back it was there. We were able to get the stuff in our carts way before midnight and just wait around until the sale started. There was a high priced item that I really really wanted to get and I wasn't sure if it was on sale. I asked 3 people who said it "probably" was on sale. When I got up to the check out it was not on sale. But the manager gave it to me anyway!!!!! I got it for 1/2 price! YES!

So when I got home I heard little pitter patter feet running up the steps. I could not believe at nearly 1:00 my children would be awake. Greg was asleep and Aussie met me at the door. That little stinker. Then he started asking all kinds of questions, "Did you get what you wanted to get? How much did you save?, etc."

Well I wanted to go to CVS tomorrow to get some of their great deals, but I have no more money left. So I think I'll go to bed and sleep in!

I think I'm done with all of my Christmas shopping. I just need to get one more thing for sure and I think I'll get that closer to Christmas.

Good night! And Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Black Friday!

Cupcakes and such!

Even though I realize I haven't put pictures on here from our last field trip to Chattanooga, I think this will be the last post for tonight. I am beginning to get tired.

This morning I was awakened by Aussie. The conversation went something like this:

"Mom, I promise I won't tell! Ummmm...I was looking around on your blog and I saw....well...I promise I won't tell. "

I thanked him for not telling and then I asked, "But isn't it cool?"

He said, "Yes it sure is!"

{Insert big smile!!!}

It looks as though I haven't shared the finished product here on my blog. Sometimes I get confused at what I've shared here and what I've shared on Facebook. I like to have it here on my blog because it is more like a book of memories.

So here is Sara standing next to the painted table I made.Then I created these muffins.They look good enough to eat.

I started to make doughnuts, but it was actually harder than I thought it would be and I decided I really didn't need to do that.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I am excited that our church for the first time will host a Thanksgiving lunch. Then we will go to Dana's house for dessert. I made a YUMMY peppermint dessert and Mason made cupcakes.

Actually on my birthday

What a crazy fellow Mason is! On my birthday we quickly ate dinner at Panera, where I or Greg shot these pictures.

Sometimes she can be such an angel.

Happy Birthday to me! I get to get my picture taken with me kids, with no complaints.

Then we dropped the kids off at Dana's house and Greg and I went to see the movie Inception. Wow! It was good but had to think on it a bit. It was mind boggling!
Thank you Dana for watching my kids for me so we could get out on a date!!!