I'm in the Christmas Spirit

This has been a WONDERFUL day! Greg surprised me the other day by offering to help with decorations. So we set up today as the day. I was giddy all day long. I put on the non-stop Christmas music and got to work. Ashley and Mason helped a lot!!! They brought me all the tree branches and helped me put them on.

They each had to put on the star, so they took turns. We never made a big deal about this before, so I'm not sure where they got it. But each one asked at different times if they could put the star on. I thought that was really precious!

Of course they had a big time getting into everything. I love this picture of Aussie blowing the horn and Mason listening on the other side. And many times today Ashley would pose and say take my picture Mama.

Earlier in the day- I got out to finish up my Christmas shopping (well almost). During that time Greg made an incredible rail system for Austin's doors. It is amazing but it takes up the entire Family room. Austin was so excited. He played with it all day long. He took a few breaks to put an ornament on the tree or play outside a bit.

And here is a picture of the Sock countdown we are

doing. Today I put in a note that said Day 2: D..D..D decorate! Only 23 more days until Christmas. I don't have time for any extra activities tomorrow, so I put stickers in the sock for them to play with.

This has been a great day!!!! I am in the Christmas Spirit!

Puppet Theatre

Ahh...Blogger finally MADE me switch to Beta. I've been avoiding it as long as I could. So hopefully things will be smoother this time.

I'm SO VERY excited! I am almost finished with one of the Christmas presents I'm making for my kids. I thought I was finished with it tonight until I put it up. Then I remembered I need to get yellow cord or ribbon to tie the curtains back. Also when I put it up, I noticed it was slightly too big in the doorway, so I will cut off an inch on the 2 middle wooden rods. Here is a picture of it. It's a puppet theatre if you can't tell. I also got them some puppets that arrived today in the mail. I haven't gotten to look at them yet. I just ordered cheap ones from Oriental Trading Company that I have to put together. I didn't want to give them nice puppets yet, when I know they won't take care of them.

Today I started a sock countdown to Christmas. What's a sock countdown you ask? I copied this idea from Kelli Crowe. Look at her November 22nd post. Mine doesn't look nearly as cute, but as soon as I decorate for Christmas I will post a picture. Anyway, today's sock had a message in it saying to eat their breakfast and get on their SOCKS because we are going to the Jumpy Place. And here is an action shot of Ashley jumping.

I'm not sure what I'm putting in tomorrow's sock...ahem I mean today's sock. Maybe DAY 2 Decorate the tree. or Decorate the playhouse. hmm...any suggestions? I might not get to them tomorrow but I have until Christmas. I don't have time to make cookies tomorrow, but that will be one on the list. I really don't have time for them to make a craft either tomorrow. Tomorrow is dedicated to cleaning and getting the Christmas stuff out of the garage and up in the house. It really needs to be something special for them.

I didn't realize just how late it is...I better get to bed! Have a wonderful day!

Thanksgiving and conversations

Well I finally uploaded the pictures from my camera. Here are just a few on Thanksgiving. We had such a
wonderful time. We were invited over to our friend's The Hill's house. I'm trying to remember if I blogged about it.

I had Ashley in a cute dress and she had to do her own thing with it. She added a pink belt.

Over the last few days I've heard some "funny" things, mainly from Austin.

We were playing out in the yard and Ashley and Mason were fighting over a flag. Austin was helping me pick up leaves and I was letting Ash and Mason work it out. Well Austin got fed up and stood up and said, "I'll be right back, I'm going to deal with this." So he goes over and talks to them and then hands the flag to Mason. Ashley of course has a meltdown. After a few minutes he told Mason that is was Ashley's turn and Mason didn't give it up. So Austin just shook his head and said, "I've very disappointed in you Mason, I'm very disappointed."

Then last night he was trying to get Greg to draw some people in his doors. It was late and he said no. So then Austin started in on me. He said, "Mom, you could make me one or you could make me ten......Make your choice." I just laughed at him and said, "It's too late, not tonight."

Then today I was making him 3 doors and he said, "You get Mommy of the Month." I said you need to call your Dad and tell him, so he will appreciate me. I just thought that was the cutest thing! Where did he get that? Greg thinks it's from Monster's Inc, where there is Monster of the Month awards.

Then Mason the other day yells up to me, "Hey Mommy."

Me: What Honey?

Mason: I did my phone number.

Me: You did?

Mason: Yes, I did it all by myself.

He hands me the phone and indeed he dialed our phone number and got our answering machine and that was the message left on it. Greg recorded it on a recorder to keep.

What fun stuff!

Beautiful day!

What a gorgeous day we had today. The weather was just amazing. Today we went outside to "help" rake up the leaves. Ashley and Austin had lots of fun "stealing" daddy's leaves out of his pile and putting them into their own piles. And of course Greg played along making it a super fun game for them.
Then they also got to play on the neighbor's trampoline. They have been so much fun lately!

Can you tell I've borrowed someone else's camera? Oh I just love this Canon Rebel! I found a camera that is in the $300 range that I would like to have. It's called the Canon Powershot A640. There is a really nice one in the $500 range but that is way out of my budget. Well unfortunately so is the $300 one, but at least it is closer to a possibility. I liked my little camera, but the zoom is broken and I'm not able to get those great shots anymore. So I would really like a new one. I took my camera in to get it fixed, but they told me that it wasn't worth fixing and that it would be better to buy a new camera than to try and fix mine. {bummer}

If I could borrow this camera for every major event I wouldn't be in such a hurry to get a new one, but it is highly unlikely that I can do that.

How about just a few more pictures

a few extra pictures from the previous post

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!

Things I said about 500 times:

put the letter down

look at me
turn the letter around
look at me
don't put the letter in front of your face
You can have the Y when you are sitting on that side.
Put your finger down
look at me
smile

say cheese

How many fingers am I holding up?

If I get a decent picture for the Christmas card I'll stop taking pictures.

Thanksgiving weekend

I'm having computer problems, but I think I may have figured out my internet problem. Sorry I haven't posted in awhile.

We have had a really nice Thanksgiving weekend. We were invited to a friend's house Thanksgiving day. It's so nice to be with friends if you can't be with family. The food was great. Everyone raved over my ham...lol...my ham was SO EASY! I just bought it at Aldi and cooked it like the directions said. Someone even asked me for the recipe. When I laughed she said, "Oh you don't have to tell me, I know some recipes are family secrets."

Friday we took the kids to the park to get Christmas pictures. Nana made the boy's shirts and Ashley's dress. They had a great time feeding the ducks, pretending to fish, climbing a tree, and racing. Out of ALL the pictures I took (nearly 250) not one of them was perfect for a Christmas photo. But never fear Photoshop is here! I just grabbed one photo and replaced a head and I think it will do. Now I better not get any, "well why didn't you replace this head too, while you were at it." comments.

presents

I was asking the kids what they would like to get each other for Christmas. I'm trying to get them to think of others other than themselves.

I asked Ashley what she would get...here are her responses:

Mommy- doll so I can play with her
Mason- a clown
Austin- Make-up (Austin went screaming around the house I DONT WANT MAKE UP)
Daddy- a purse

Here are Austin's responses:

Mommy- a doll
Mason- I don't know...nothing
Ashley- a doll
Daddy- Let me ask him....

Here are Mason's responses:

Mommy- A great BIG HUGE Pumpkin like at the pumpkin farm.
and my favorite...
Daddy- Let me ask him
Me: No Mason, try to think what he would like without asking him.
M: Let me ask him
D: What do you think I would like?
M: hmmmmmmmm....I think you would like your OWN bed?

my "weak" at a glance

This was to be my busiest week! I had events and stuff planned for everyday. But I guess there was just another plan.

Monday- I was supposed to teach a Scrapbook class. Greg's car broke down and I had to cancel and go pick him up.

Tuesday- I was supposed to help Dana with a craft at Chick-Fil-A, but thankfully that was cancelled. I went to the grocery store in the morning, and I had to pick up the kids early from school. They had their "Thanksgiving Celebration". So the grocery store is all I got accomplished that day. Then I took the kids to Chick-Fil-A, but I had a massive headache. I couldn't sleep and I was having a lot of abdominal pain.

Wednesday- I was supposed to go to a Thanksgiving Potluck and babysit in the afternoon, but instead I was Very sick. I was hurting everywhere. I thought it was severe PMS and I'm sure that was part of it. I called the doctor and the nurse thought that I might have endometriosis. I go in for a check-up on the 30th. You can't really tell if you have endometriosis without having the exploritory surgery, but they have things they can give you. And if those things work they can assume you have it. Anyway, about an hour after I talked to the doctor's office I got REALLY sick! In my stupor, I tried to joke that I was on a "flushing your colon" diet. Then poor Mason got sick. He threw up 3 times in the night and with many dry heaves.

Thursday- I was supposed to have a Crayola party here. I felt a little better, but I slept most of the day. I had solid food for dinner and found out that I'm not quite ready for them yet. Ashley and Austin both said their stomachs hurt before going to bed. So pray for my family please.

Friday- I am supposed to go to a MOPS meeting. Greg still doesn't have his car fixed, so he will take the car to work and we will be stuck at home again. BUT...I doubt we would feel like going out anyway.

Saturday- It's an all day crop- OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE let us all be feeling well by then and have Greg's car back! I need the day out.

Greg has been such a blessing. He stayed home and took care of us on Wednesday and Thursday. Poor guy he is so exhausted. Hopefully we will be all fine by tomorrow evening and I can send him out for a Chai tea latte.

My birthday post

I have a few minutes to blog so I'll tell you about my birthday Saturday.

In the morning the kids couldn't wait to give me the presents they picked out. They got a bunch of scrapbooking stuff for me. It was so cute and just as I suspected. I got sesame street stickers and Halloween stickers and paper with flowers on it and how could I forget the BIG letters from Austin. Then I got a gift certificate from Greg, which came in handy already.

Then Jann had a class at Scrap It, Saturday morning. First of all the class was SUPER. This was her first time teaching and well she is just a natural! We made 3 ornaments. They are really cute.

She had everything in cute little bags and so classy. AND they also had a birthday cake and balloon right at my seat. That was so sweet!

I got carried away with making the ornaments. When I was embossing, I turned the big ornament around and it got stuck to my shirt (Jann got the picture to prove it.)

Then after the class I decided to stay and crop. Doris joined me. (Dana did not.) Ann and Tammy were there. (apparantly Dana's parents were more important than me) And we ordered from Bellecino's! YUM! I ordered a BIG one and it was way bigger than I thought. So I had half of it for dinner. (Dana didn't even answer my phone call in the afternoon). But I had a super great time.

Ok you all know I like to pick on Dana... She was there with her Mom for Jann's class. What I found out is she is just like her Mom. She gets her quick whitted banter honestly. :)

Ok so in the afternoon, the kids came to visit me and they ended up scrapbooking. These are their first layouts.

This is Austin's layout and this is my favorite. It just cracks me up. I had them pick out their own pictures. Austin had to know how to spell most of the words but this is just what he wanted to put on his layout: You can do whatever you want to do.

And this is Ashley's first layout. I love how she spelled Butterfly with the U and the L upside down.

And this is Ashley's 2nd page. She was fast with her pages and I had to cut her off after her second layout or I may not have had any pictures to work with myself. (ha!)

This is Mason's. At first I thought he was really going to do a great job. He was the only one to put the pictures on the page going the right way and spaced apart well. Then he left to sit with Daddy and a pack of jellybean stickers. Well I guess this is a good thing because he did just what he wanted to do. If he was sitting with me I probably would have encouraged him to put the jellybeans around the pictures instead of on the peoples faces.

Then the next day we went to my VERY FAVORITE resteraunt Outback Steakhouse. I got gift cards from my inlaws. Woohoo!

It turned out to be a nice weekend!

PB&J door

Ok so who is the crazy one?

Me for making the peanut butter jelly sandwich into a door?

or

Aussie for asking for it?

Ashley's request

Ok so my daughter told me what she REALLY wants for Christmas...

she wants a "baby" doll that has hair and has breasts like me.

Ummmm....so any ideas?

Aussie's Christmas present

Alright just a quick post to say I am SO excited! I found this on Ebay with extra accessories and I won the bid. Wahoo! Austin will be SO excited! So you are asking, "What is this?"

It's the Monsters Inc. Electronic Scream Factory. This is the device that carries the DOORS. In the extra accessories it comes with 3 more doors!!! This will be Austin's BIG present.

I hope he is as excited to get it as I was finding it!

MY Birthday

It was absolutely a WONDERFUL day today!

I will need to update later on what happened!!!

attitude

Wow! Today was a bad day! This whole week hasn't been great! My days have run together this week. Ashley got sick at Chick-Fil-A and on my much needed night out I got called home. One of those days, Ashley and Mason decided to "help" me clean the Kitchen floor. There was standing water everywhere. I really thought I needed a valium or something to calm my nerves. So I reached for what I had, my sparkling grape juice and some Halloween candy and that helped some.

Today started out good. I tried out a new MOPS group and I really like it. It fills a spiritual need that I have been looking for. When I picked up the kids, the first thing they said is I don't want to come back. Austin said, He didn't want to take care of babies. I think they liked the first part of it, but after they came in from the playground they were put in a playroom with younger kids and that's the part they didn't like. I guess this is just another disapointment they are going to have to face, because I really feel the need to go.

Then it went even more downhill.
Ashley screamed, cried, whined for H O U R S!!! She wanted to buy a toy today and I said no.
After the wonderful talk today on God as the perfect parent, I was extremely patient and firm with her. Then it happened-- she pushed my buttons too far. I just broke down in tears! That's when she stopped crying. I left her in the Kitchen and I went into the bathroom where I could lock the door. I called my friend Phyllis in tears. She gave me some advice and told me I haven't lost yet and I still needed to win this battle. So I calmed down and told Ashley to grab her a piece of paper and markers and come upstairs with me. And she said, "NO." I repeated myself and waited as she grabbed 3 or 4 pieces of paper. I took her to her room and told her that her attitude and whining have been really bad all day and that she even made me cry. At that moment I knew I was not going to turn back...she tried to supress it, but she got this look in her eye and a little smirk on her face. She just KNEW she had won. So I looked at her and said, your attitude has been so bad that you need to be in time out. You will stay in your room for an hour until I come get you. IF you come out of your room I will spank you.
Anyway, that helped some. That's just part of the story, there was more before and it went on from here and I was even putting her in her room again as Daddy walked through the door.

I'm not asking for advice please, remember this is only part of the story.

Anyway, Greg is home now and I'm going to bed! Tomorrow is my birthday. I am looking forward to having a day to scrapbook.

Pictures from the park the other day

Here are some more pictures from the park the other day.





So can you tell the one who is afraid of heights?

My quirky children and a challenge for my Mom

Do all boys do this?
Introducing the Under_Warrior
or as Austin says, "the underwear warrior"

Mason really wanted to show the ducks this today, thankfully they were left behind.

And here is Austin at the park. I'm guessing that this is a swing for the handicap. But today I think it is a spaceship. Who is this kid anyway that likes to wear goggles everywhere we go? For those of you who know him...Doesn't Austin's smile look just like Sam King's?






Oh and I really wish I had a picture of Little Pink Ice Cream Cone. Ashley comes into our bedroom every morning with a pink blanket over her head. Some times she is a pink ghost and some days she is Little Pink Ice Cream Cone. When you address her you need to call her by her full name. "Hey Ashley, I mean Pink Ice Cream Cone..." She says, "NOOOOOOOOO....my name is LITTLE pink ice cream cone." I've got to get a picture of that to scrapbook. And speaking of scrapbooking... My Mom likes to do the same things as my kids do, because it is the next best thing to being here. So she made this layout from the other day's pictures of the kids' playing in the leaves and then took pictures of herself in the leaves. Shoot the 2nd page won't upload. The journaling on that page says:

Gramma thinks it is fun to do the same things the triplets do, even if she can not be with them in Nashville. When Chelle put these pictures of the triplets on her blog, Gramma went right outdoors, set up the tri pod and took pictures of herself in the leaves. Then she got on her computer and used PhotoShop Elements to digitally scrapbook these pages! It's as close as I can be to being there.


SO Mom....I'm looking forward to seeing whatcha going to do with these pictures from today. Do you even have any goggles or superman underwear to put on your head? And what will your alias be? (Vertically challenged "AfricanAmerican Cherry" ice cream cone?)

(I can just hear my brother saying that...with his articulate contriculation from the political stand point.) ROFLOL! Little Family humor there.

playing in the park

Today we had a very full day! I went to MOPS (Mothers of pre-schoolers) meeting in Mt. Juliet. That was a bit far. I enjoyed it, but I don't know if I want to make that trip every other week. And I'm not sure the kids really liked it either. So I think I am going to try out another MOPS group that meets in Green Hills next week.

Then we met Dana and her boys at Chick-Fil-a for lunch and to play on the playground. Then we went to this area by the dam that was beautiful!!!! I recharged my camera battery before I left the house, but it said I had a low battery. I don't know what happened. Anyway, I got a few pictures before the camera died and then I used my phone camera. I actually got 3 or 4 GREAT pictures on my phone and I can't upload them unless I pay $5.00 more a month. I carry my camera everywhere so I don't really need this service. I wish they had a one time fee. Well I'll see what kinds of pictures I get the next time I go. If I don't get any good ones then I may think about paying the $5.00/month charge to upload these pictures.

The kids played in the leaves and there was this really cool tree there that they could climb. There were lots of duck looking for food. They came right up to us. It was a pretty cool site to see all these ducks coming to us. Then Austin went nuts and "tried to catch one". LOL! He ran and ran after them. I couldn't help but laugh. Here are some fun pictures from today:

Then we came home and I rushed around to clean up the house before our babysitter came over. That's right we actually got out of the house tonight. We went to a Halloween Party. It was originally planned for before Halloween, but the host's stepfather died and they needed to reschedule. I was a little bummed because I missed my crop. But it was fun. They started playing a creepy game and I was ready to go home. It was a guessing game and you had to choose whether a vampire, zombie or wearwolf would jump out. And I am really spooked out by vampires they really make me sick to my stomach! So I went in the other room for the rest of that game. Luckily it wasn't too long and Greg took me home to relieve the babysitter and he went back to the party.

I have another full day tomorrow so maybe I'll have more to blog tomorrow evening.

Have a wonderful day!