Holiday Recap

The month of December was a true whirlwind. Personally, I was disappointed this year, just because there was so much we missed. My silly little job turned into a very demanding and late night job. Not leaving the time or energy to do much else. And when I was home, Jason was hunting. So, not ideal, but still lovely and memorable.





If I recall, Cookie Day was our first family event of the season. We drove to Mason and met with family to do our traditional sugar cookies. Its a great low key get together, and the only time I get to see my Mom's side of the family in the winter. I cannot lie, I cant find the pics from that day. Hmmmm...





The next weekend, Santa(!) was visiting our Credit Union. This house full of believers had to go visit! And I am happy to announce that no one was afraid! This is a first for us!



The next weekend, we had Christmas with Bob and Joan. I had to work a very long and busy day before we visited, so I was basically worthless. But the kids loved being with their cousins and making a snowman craft with Grandma.





Up next were class parties: Summer's was first...

It s funny how much they tone down parties as the kids get older. They barely had any treats, and did some movement(dancing) and drew on placemats. Summer's teacher is wonderful and sweet. It was a fun peek into her school day.


The next day was Teagen's party. Such a difference! The kids were so adorable and it was nonstop action the entire class! I love that Mrs. C always includes Grady. He even got do do the gift exchange.

Look at this handsome little guy-

(shirt by Rachael. What I dont have a photo of is Jason's matching shirt. CUTE!)

ringing bells. It looks like Teagen does not approve of Grady's technique.

All the different Holiday stations.

And then Mrs. C took the class caroling to some other classrooms. Grady stayed with Daddy in the classroom and I helped set up plates for the little feast, and wouldnt ya guess who shows up....

SANTA!!!!! Grady squealed and ran to him for a big hug. I thought he would be scared, but nope. Asked for robots and batman. He totally enjoyed his private meeting with the BIG GUY before the class walked back in.

Relaxing from the excitement.

Teagen can never remember what she wants to ask Santa for. Usually she say "a barbie". And thats what he brought her;)

Great time. I was so ready for the kids to be out of school. I really like doing projects and had made way more promises than I could keep. But we did do these...

Martha Stewart puppets! These crafts are fantastic because they already have the adhesive on them. No mess!

We did some baking, and some ornament making. On Christmas Eve we visited with Cindy's family. It was an icy drive to and from Montague. So we got home pretty late and put out cookies for Santa. Jason and I still had some serious work to do and we needed to watch A Christmas Story. Its tradition!

We told the kids we would get up at 8 am. at 7 they asked if we would get up. We said 8! So they played in the girls room for an hour and then we got up. It was so funny to listen to them giggle and be silly with excitement. I really was not with it as far as taking a lot of pics, but here are a few...

Teagen got her Rebecca doll...

Love the PJ's? Thanks Aunt Rae!

Not sure what Santa was thinking on this one...its hidden at this point!

Rachael and I decided to exchange hand made gifts only this year. I knew I would make her a papercut, but I needed another idea. So this is what she got. I was so worried, because it either something you this is SO COOL or it just looks like junk. Jason was really worried when I was putting it together. but the finished product is very fun.

Made from book pages! And its huge! I think she liked it.

Christmas day was spent at my Dad's. Nice and relaxing. Especially when there is no work the next day!

Rachael and Gary came over for New Years Eve. The kids played, Rachael tried to teach me to sew and we played a game .

The next day we got into the snow...

And built Muskegon's LARGEST snowman. He is crazy-big. He should make the newspaper:)

Happy 2010! Here's to better blogging!!

Its(finally) Beginning to look...

A lot like December, like it should at this point!
I am not going to complain. I am an adult, and choose to live here, where the weather is certainly 4 different seasons. I like it. I would like it even more if I had no reason to leave my house from December to March.

I started decorating before Thanksgiving, and took a lot of heat for it. The deal is that the little bit I do work, its retail. And um, well, we all know about retail in the weeks after Thanksgiving. I am working a lot. Again, not complaining, lovin the bit of extra cash for Christmas. But that's why I needed to get an early start on decorating. Speaking of an early start, here is a project I worked on this past summer with my Aunt Linda and my Gramma (and Lisa too!) They are a sample of Tim Holtz Christmas tags. Trust me, the photos dont do them justice. They are so detailed and took an enormous amount of time to complete.

Also got to use a ton of products that I had no experience with, like alcohol inks, crackle paint, grunge board and all the fun little accessories that are here, not to mention the beautiful stamps.

I always enjoy crafting with them. Such a super creative bunch! And they spent months collecting and purchasing all the supplies for them. Thank you, Gramma and Linda! I've been dying to hang these. For now they are hanging from the ribbon that I hang Xmas cards on. Beautiful!

And today was our first snow!! Here are the kiddos after picking up Teagen from Preschool.

It was sucker sale day:) Did you know they make banana Tootsie Pops now?

Let the craziness BEGIN!!

Ketchup

So busy, a little emotional(stressed!) but generally no good excuse for bad blogging. So here is a post of random photos among random happenings here...
(geese at my Dad's lake)

We were at my Dad's last week on one of the beautiful days we had. Lovely! It always feels like a bonus when you get to enjoy the outdoors when it could just as easily be snowing and nasty.

I also spend the day Saturday shopping in Michigan City with friends. We had such a great time. So good for us to get to be together and talk, and eat and shop and just be ourselves. Good for our kids to see we have lives outside of them.

(my Dad and Summer)

( yes he got wet. Duh.)

Summer has lost 2 teeth in a week. Its always such drama! She also thinks that the tooth fairy is Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson. She even wrote him a letter to go with each tooth. I think she may have a little crush. Better than her current crush on Rich from the Imagination Movers.

Summer had a field trip this week to a LumberJacks game. Jason went, and then took her hunting. They just sat in a tent where Summer insisted on rattling antlers and making entirely too much noise, but you can bet she'll never forget it. Speaking of deer, Jason got one this week! Thats very good news in this house. Also I have conferences with Sum's teacher that night, and got lots of good news on her. She's such an amazing girl. And I love that she had a teacher this year who can see it, too. Great teachers are priceless! You just dont see it until you get stuck with a less than stellar one.

On a bad note with Summer. She is really having some issues with a specific girl in her class. Now this child is what they used to call a bully, but these days everyone is so afraid to point fingers, that I feel that Summer is getting drug down simply because a bully has singled her out as her main target. The school has gone so far as to develop a special "club" where these 2 along with a few more girls meet once a week to talk and learn problem and conflict solving. Things have been slowing changing until today when this girl punched Summer in the stomach on the bus. There is just no excuse for that! Summer is not physical in anyway. Not even to her siblings. Ever. She wants out of club, and is done trying with this girl. Apparently the girl was written up on the bus. When Summer came home in tears and pain, I called the principal to fill him in. at this moment I am still waiting on a follow up call from him. But when your daughter is the one who was hurt, it just makes me want to explode! I have no patients for this behavior, and Jason is really on top of it, too.

(coloring at Grandma's counter)

We had conferences for this teeny one too. Can I just say there is nothing better than a teacher meeting that exceeds your expectations!! The thing with Teagen, is she flies under the radar. She know SO much, and never tells you. She does not require the constant"mom! look what I did!""Look what I can do!" no. I just find full on notes and pictures and pages colored to perfection, all done by her. She rocks out puzzles like a 1st or 2nd grader. I was told today that Teagen is writing ahead of most all day kindergartners, and is by far the most advanced of all the schools preschoolers(as far as writing). The deal is, we dont work on this stuff with her. She just knows it. I am both baffled and proud.

And this is how Grady insisted on attending the conference...

wearing a headband, circa 1979.

Something tells me conferences next year will be interesting.

Ummm..yes please!

wanna win this??

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year?

*a membership or gift card to Studio Calico

*sewing machine
* SLR camera
*a new bottle of VS Dream Angels Heavenly perfume
*Biggby or Starbuck gift cards-its a nice treat:)
(whew, that was hard! I am not good at that and got stuck after 3!!)

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received?
This is a hard one since there are so many talented people in my family! I am so lucky to have so many handmade gifts, scarves, ornaments, santas, a wizard my Dad carved, a quilt, hand painted boxes, jewelery, blankets, and much more. I could never choose!!!


3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle?
Oh, I always say I want to sew, but I'll require a machine;)


4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
Christmas was very important to my Mom, so she made a very big deal about it. I didnt realize it then, but as a mom now, I see that it was a lot of work and she must have shopped all year. I guess specifically I remember getting Barbie's gigantic 3 piece Dream house as a joint gift one year. It was awesome!


5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?
Summer- A "real" camera and more American Girl clothes and accessories to go with her Julie doll.
Teagen- thinks she's ready for her own American Girl. Talking day and night about Rebecca. But also wants Barbie's moterhome. This one's got expensive taste.
Grady-Batman's Bat Cave. And Transformers. And I guess some new Power Ranger's stuff, but I have no clue where he even know what Power Rangers are.


6. What is your favorite holiday food?
Christmas Cookies!!! And meatballs. weird.


7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays?
Something with paper;)


8. What is your favorite holiday movie?
A Christmas Story, hands down.


9. Favorite holiday song?
1st one to come to mind is Jack Johnson doing Rudolph. I'll have to post my holiday playlist soon:)


10. Favorite holiday pastime?
Shopping, baking, decorating, doing the paper snowflakes with the kids, really all of it. I just dont like the having to be so many places. And driving in bad weather. yuck.

Aunty Ollie $100 Gift Card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Aunty Ollie $100 Gift Card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Halloween 09

We were not off to a good start this year. Wednesday we went to a movie with our friends and that night, the SICKNESS hit our house. I was up all night with Teagen who was running a fever, and Summer, who was worried that we all had Swine Flu. Before you think we are totally pathetic for getting all crazy over a fever, let me remind you that we rarely even have runny noses here. These kids just dont know how to be sick, and they get scared. If someone happens to vomit, all hell breaks loose and it is the talk of the town for a month. Anyway, Teagen missed her class party, her 1st class party ever(at least she had no idea what she was missing) but the teacher asked if I wanted to stop in and get the art projects they were doing. So I did, and also got a tray of goodies and treat bags for each of the kids. There were enough art projects for all three kids to work on. LOVE that pre-school!!
Summer's party was Friday, so I painted her face before school. Amazingly, it lasted all day beautifully!! Oh, she was a "funky green fairy".

She left her wings at school, so we had to steal a pair from another costume and ended up borrowing a really cool pair from Aunt Rae. I would also like to mention that she ripped her tights and had some crud on her shirt. And she didnt even eat at the school party! I was really frustrated, let me tell ya.

Here are our Jack-O-Lanterns-

Summer's 1st...

Jason's...

Teagen's....

And Grady's/mine...

Everyone was fever free by Saturday AM, so we ventured out for trick-or-treating. 1st was a stop to Grandma Joan's and Grandpa Bob's. They fed us and gave the kids loot bags.

Summer's facepaint changed for Saturday.

Hmmmm...another random pic of out pumpkins. Wasnt supposed to go here, but oh well.

I think Batman started to lose it. He was really tired and no acting himself. Smeared the heck out of his mask.

Then we went a few houses down and hit Grandpa Bill's home. Quarters and Candy from Grandpa. He's a good man and had Snicker's for me.

I have a thing for mini snickers. I eat em frozen, and nearly break my teeth. Love it.

Then finally we meet up with the Burns' at my Dad's. Cindy had cups of Oreos for the kiddos(the very 1st thing they all ate once we were home).

Reid was a duck hunter and Kennedy was a nurse.

And Grady was in a daze...

We trick-or-treated a little subdivision our Friend Holly live in in North Muskegon. It was so cold that the little ones were done early. Summer carried on with Aunt Rae and even did another street on the way home. We stopped at out neighbors and it still wasn't even 8pm.

That night, Jason started feeling cruddy and sure enough, he got it now too. So that's really everyone except me. Summer never had a full blown fever, but she lost most of her voice for a few days. How I have managed to steer clear so far is beyond me. Hopefully I can completely dodge this one!