December in a nutshell

No, you have not been removed from our Christmas card list. I have not mailed a single one this year... but I will, eventually!

After my last post of our night at Blue Man we've had Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and Maggie's birthday. I feel like I run non-stop and the kids aren't even doing any extra curricular activities yet. If I'm not at work I'm doing errands and household tasks with the kids. There is no downtime except after 9pm... which turns into 10pm and then I'm too tired to think about making complete sentences. And I never remember to finish the last load of laundry!
Really nothing with me is a nutshell! I just haven't had a chance to sit and write in a while. I was reading Leslie's blog and she "broke the silence" after a long quiet month too. I don't feel so bad about not writing the news except that there are a couple of people out there who actually check to see if I put up new pictures of the kids. Our lives are not that exciting... but the kids are cute!

Maggie lost her two front teeth recently and has been singing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" for several weeks now. Even though Christmas is officially done, she continues to sing and "wisth you a merry krithmuth" because she thinks it's funny. And she usually is.

Bennett has complained for a while about his heart hurting and feeling funny sometimes when he goes to bed so the doctor said we could get an EKG just to make sure it looks good on paper. With a genetic history like his Dad's and Papa's we thought it would be good to get a baseline. He was extrememly anxious over the whole deal, but the tech was good and once she started with the stickers he was fine. It was over in less than a minute and we were on our way again. Since we were next to the hospital I took all 4 over to the nursery to see all my co-workers. The kids were in a great mood (for not having naps) and decided a little Christmas caroling would be in order. Bennett put on a show for all the women and the girls chimed in every now and again. We stopped by 4 different nurses stations and each time he had to sing his favorite just for laughs and claps... "Oh Christmas tree O Christmas tree... why did you have to fall on me? You broke my leg, you killed my dog... you electricuted Santa Claus". Yes, he was successful in getting laughs from everyone and it only provoked him to sing it more!

Thanksgiving was spent with me at work and Curtis and the kids with his folks up at Vogel State Park. It was a cold and rainy day so they didn't get to play like they wanted, but the visiting time was good.

Maggie's class finally took their field trip to the Christmas tree farm... the October trip was rained out... in the year of the worst drought! We enjoyed our time even though it was frigid that day. The trees in the pictures are inside the barn and are painted white... it's not snow. The kids got to roast marshmallows over a faux fire and made lighting for a cute shot of the girls.

Christmas was a whirlwind. My entire family congregated here the weekend before Christmas. It's always so much fun to have all the cousins together. We played lots of games and thankfully the eldest girls are finally allowed to stay up and play cards (since their mother poops out so much earlier)!!!!!

These are the 3 eldest cousins with lovely shots with Aunt Jenny. We are so photogenic!

We spent part of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day over at Curt's parent's since that was the only way to get to see his sister and his grandparents. We got a couple of meals out of the deal and some good visit times too. I think cousin Eddie finally enjoys a little time with his younger cousins.

Christmas morning for us was very mild compared to my childhood memories. I remember going into my living room and seeing 4 huge piles of wrapped boxes in the 4 corners of the room and 4 stockings stuffed beyond what the crocheted socks should hold. Mom would always go so overboard (and still does!) that it makes these years seem anti-climatic to me. It wasn't big stuff... but just so much of it. And as a kid you really don't care so much about the cost of the goods, as long as there were goods. I enjoyed getting all those cheap little plastic things that lasted a week and then disappeared. I don't remember ever throwing those things away either. Now that the kids are mine I don't want to buy the cheap plastic things because I don't want to have to throw them away and disappoint the kids. Why would they remember if I don't remember? Who knows?!?! So anyway... we stuck to a few board games and the like for the kids this year. It seems to have been the thing to give since they were all on sale after Thanksgiving this year. There were a few clothes items for Maggie and Bennett since they are the biggest. I didn't even put the usual toothbrush/toothpaste combo in the stockings this year. But Curtis did go get Pez despensers for each of them. Great substitutes for teeth care, eh?!

This is at INK later in the week. Lara, Leslie and I took the kids to run off some energy. We painted some pottery too that turned out really cute. I can't show it until after Aunt Lara's birthday this month when she turns 39!!

Bennett finally got a bigger bike so he doesn't have to do the clown ride on Maggie's anymore. He even got to ride it in the snow today. Such a boy!

Maggie turned 6 on Monday and had a day full of celebration with two of her favorite friends, her sister and mother. We started the day at INK, took a break to see Enchanted and eat popcorn, went back to INK, then met Curtis et al for dinner. She wanted a steak! After that we deposited the friends with their families for the new year's celebration and we went to bed.

Now we've started 2008 in style. I've worked both days. Stayed up too late each night watching football. (Go Dawgs!) Finished a couple loads of clothes and now I'm trying to make a dent in the Christmas (new year's) letter. Hey, at least by being late I was able to get a great sale on photo prints and ordered enough for everyone to have 3! Isn't that exciting?!?!

Here's a little video clip that I'm using as a trial. I haven't put an video on here yet so I'm just checking out how it works. It's from this summer down at Grandpa and Grandma's farm. Lydia was still cute at that point and wasn't so TWO!