~Merry Christmas~

Drum roll, please.............Our Christmas Card is FINALLY finished! This is the picture Duane took of the kids on Sunday. I was VERY happy with the way it turned out. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get 4 kids to look in the SAME direction at the SAME time with a somewhat pleasant expression on their face? Let's just say it took soooooo long that the batteries ended up dying, but it is ALL OVER! That is, until we do it all over again next year! :)

Merry Christmas everyone!

~Simon's Hawaiian Dance~

Saturday evening we all were watching a Gomer Pyle episode and Sgt. Carter was talking about a taking a vacation to Hawaii. Simon pops up and does the following dance for us. We howled with laughter, ran got the camera, and had him demonstrate again for us.

"Mommy! It looks like Narnia outside!"

On Friday, Seth went outside and took these photos of the ice covered bushes & trees around our house. The kids kept saying how much it looked like Narnia outside! There's just something breathtakingly beautiful about the snow and ice covering everything!

The tree pictured above is our Christmas tree that we won in a contest several years ago. It's still alive and growing taller each year!

~Seth's Squirrel Photos~

Seth took my camera outside to get some pictures of the ice we got on Thursday/Friday. I showed him how the zoom worked and he used it to get some great shots of one of the MANY squirrels that visit our backyard.

I love the expression on the squirrel's face and his little paw holding on to the tree branch. It's as if he/she stopped to pose for the camera!

FREE 8 by 10 at Walgreens

Just wanted to let you all know that you can get a FREE 8 by 10 picture at Wal-greens. Just type in the coupon code FREEGIFT at the checkout and it is totally FREE. I just ordered a picture of my kids that I took a couple of weeks ago. Make sure you order it before tomorrow (12-20). Here is the link below:
https://www.walgreens.com/logout.jsp?source=photoCenter&DPSLogout=true

~Christmas Program 2008~

My sister-in-law took some pictures of Callie & I. We tried and tried to get Callie to smile. She would just frown even harder. Finally, she covered her eyes with her hands. She was trying to hide the fact that she was trying NOT to smile.

The other pictures are some views of Simon as the donkey, Seth, Lauren and the children's choir! I think this will be the LAST year for a member of our family to be the donkey. The costume barely fit Simon this year. I made the costume at least 3 years ago. Either Seth or Simon have worn it in the Christmas program since then. Next year, someone else can take over as the donkey! :) Oh, and did I mention that one of the angels threw up at the end of the program! Yeah, and I was sitting about 5 feet in front of her! I thought I was going to get sick myself! :(

Samuel & Callie with their Sunday School Class. This was the first Christmas Program for both of them. They actually stayed up with their class! Mommy was a nervous wreck about Callie. She refused to go to the bathroom before the program. She didn't have an accident 'thank goodness'! As soon as the class was finished with their part, she came straight to wear I was sitting saying in a LOUD voice. "I pee in the potty, Mommy!" Mommy hurried her into the bathroom and she FINALLY went! Of course, the rest of the program she kept telling me she wanted to go again. I think she has discovered another excuse for leaving during church now! :)

Take note of the fact that Callie is the ONLY girl without tinsel in her hair. I tried and tried to get her to wear it, she refused. I went and got Daddy. He talked her into wearing it. But, somehow she managed to ditch it before going onstage. She can be STUBBORN sometimes! I just don't know WHO she takes THAT after! :)

Samuel, on the other hand, stood like a solemn shepherd the entire time. He tried singing along with his class and than decided it would be more interesting to figure out what made that candle work! Oh, and by the way, Samuel's collar WAS down and his shirt WAS tucked in and his hair WAS coated with hairspray when he went to Sunday School. Maybe I should sew his shirts to his underwear! Maybe they would stay tucked in! Don't know what to do about the undoing of his hair. Except maybe give him a military cut! :)

~Seth's Solo & Simon as a Donkey~

Thanks to Carrie for explaining in plain and simple English how to do this! Carrie, when you get your Computer/Internet Book for Dummies published, please let me know! :)

How do you embed videos from YouTube??? Help!!!????

I am attempting to figure out how to post YouTube video clips on blogger. Don't know if this is going to work. I am technologically challenged......LOL! Any suggestions from those that have mastered this skill? I need help!!!!!!

Click on these links to watch some YouTubevideo clips from our Christmas Program. Please let me know if they work!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-HzvkH5PVs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km1k_p0BqdA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U0F5g3E5dg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP95hK65S1A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc0Kog6YYn0

Callie's Crazy Curls!

Okay.....so I decided to curl my daughter's hair for her very first Christmas program. Let's just say it turned out FAR curlier than expected! LOL I think she actually enjoyed the whole process. She didn't complain one time when I was putting all the curlers in her hair. I figured when I put her to bed she would have a fit about sleeping in them. But, no....she actually cried when putting on her nightgown messed some of them up! She wanted to have pretty hair! Dear me.....what will she be like in a few years!!!!!!!!! HELP!!!!!! :)

.....hmm.......maybe I'll roll my entire head in curlers for next Sunday! :) What do you think that would end up looking like.......?

Oh, by the way...any suggestions on how to curl a little girls' hair so that it looks a little less wild!!! :)

I decided to make a collage of the pictures to show you all the results and now I'm uploading it for the SECOND time! The first time I got a message saying BAD REQUEST -ERROR. I wonder if there is an easier way to upload collages of photos? Now I am getting more messages....Could not contact Blogger. Just isn't my day. Or maybe it's because it's Sunday and I should be taking a nap! :) Bad thing.....if I take a nap on Sunday afternoon, I have found that I just can't sleep Sunday night. :(

Am trying to upload for the THIRD time! Aaagghhh!!!!! This time I changed the file format on the collage. Maybe that will fix it.

~Who knew that a singing snowman could be so much fun!~

The following is a video of my two youngest children having a blast with the early Christmas present my parents gave us at Thanksgiving. When we got it home, we sat it out on the table in the living room. Samuel & Callie were jumping up and down, laughing and dancing all over the place and pushing the button to make the snowman sing over and over. It's a wonder the poor snowman is still in one piece, the lamp not knocked over, or the curtains pulled off the rods, the way they were carrying on! :) It is a much used and enjoyed decoration. The batteries will probably have to be replaced soon! Hope their energy & enthusiasm is contagious to all who watch! We could all use some extra energy right about now. :>

My...What BIG Feet You Have.......

...the better to play in, my dear!

Callie had a blast prancing around in Seth's shoes.

What does a Christian Soldier & George Washington have in common....?

They're brothers on their way to school!

Seth shows off the chocolate pudding pie he made to take to school
for his Fall Party!

Simon signs his name on a copy of the

Constitution!

Simon won 3rd. place in the costume contest for his grade.

His potato (pictured below) won 2nd. place in the best-dressed potato contest! He decorated the potato all on his own. He wanted to have some eggs for his bird, so mommy boiled them to be on the safe side. :)

Seth mixes up the pudding for his yummy chocolate pudding pie! He did a great job with making his pie. All four of my children love to bake and cook as often as mommy will let them!
I think this sweet potato was absolutely darling. The nest is coconut, tinted brown with chocolate icing. The bird has pineapple leaves for the tail and wings, olives for the eyes, and cinnamon sticks for the fancy spike! Simon did a great job with his creativity on this project!

~HCS Christmas Program~

Seth sings with his classmates. He is the one in the suit!

~3rd. & 4th. grade choir~
Simon made alot of interestig faces as he was singing!

Simon with the 1st. and 2nd. grade choir. He is the one in the suit that has his mouth opened the widest of ALL the kids! :)

The 1st. - 12th. grade singing the final song.

The boys did a great job singing. After it was over, I used a free movie rental coupon to rent WALL.E for us all to watch and picked up pizza from Little Caesars. We let the kids stay up until after 10:00! They were thanking us over and over for letting them stay up and eat pizza and watch the movie they had been wanting to watch for months!

Now today, I have to attack the house with a vengeance. I went shopping twice yesterday, helped decorate 2 more Christmas trees (one of these days I'll have time to take pictures of all 4 of our trees and post them), did some laundry, taught 5 lessons, and attended the kids' program. There was NO time at all to do any kind of cleaning.

It's Finally Time.......

My 2 year-old daughter FINALLY decided it was time to grow up and be a BIG girl. She made the decision to potty train! On Friday evening, Daddy was on the computer when he heard Callie grunting. He looked over at her and asked, "What are you doing?" She replied that she was pooping. (sorry if I am offending anyone here) Daddy told his daughter that she needed to do THAT in the potty. She ran and told me that she needed to poop in the potty! I didn't really believe her, but sat her on the potty anyway. To my surprise, a little bit later she yells, "Mommy, I'm done!" She had went in the potty!!! I put underwear on her and she has went in the potty ever since. (with only 2 accidents-which made her so sad that she cried) I have learned through previously potty-training 3 other children, it is far EASIER to potty-train when THEY decide to do it and when Daddy encourages them.

What's your vote....

Which picture of the kids do you like best?

I bribed them with M&M's to get these taken. These are the best 3 out of about 3 dozen!!!

#1

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#3

This is our very first attempt at making a gingerbread house. I have been wanting to make one of these with the kids for YEARS! I figured out it's a lot harder and takes a lot longer to make one of these than I thought! There were tears, icing that was like glue everywhere, arguing over who was going to decorate what, a little girl eating part of the rock hard gingerbread roof than throwing the rest of it in the trash can (we had to fish that part back out), someone taking a bite out of one of the gummy roof decorations, not to mention spilling an entire bowl of itsy, bitsy pieces of candy (which resulted in one screeching mommy), it wasn't as perfect as a family memory as I would have liked, but hey, we all learned from our mistakes last night and will do better next year. Yes, I would do it all over again next year!