Christmas pictures

Here's some pics of the kids from today. They all matched, so we of course had to take pictures!!!!

Happy Birthday to Jesus

The kids sang by themselves in church this morning for the first time.

Niki got ENGAGED!!!!!

My best friend, Niki, got engaged last night!!! I am so excited for her. Her man, Jeff, did excellent. For one thing he kept it a pretty good secret from her. He called her up on Friday and told her he would pick her up in a few hours to go out. He then took her to a carriage ride...(how romantic!) and then proposed. Congrats, Niki! See it proves good things come to those who wait!!!! Love ya, Niki! Check out that diamond! Awesome, huh? It's exactly what she dreamed of! Good choice, Jeff!

Look at her!!!

I took these the other day. I just haven't been in the picture taking mood lately (which is obvious because of my lack of blogging), but she looked awfully cute right here, so I had to grab the camera. The second one is my favorite, but the third one just makes me chuckle out loud!

What is it?

This was Kaleb the other night at the dinner table inquiring about the food.

(Kaleb) "Mom, what is it?"

(Me) "Food!"

(Kaleb) No, Mom, What is it?"

(Mom) "Food!"

(Kaleb) "No, Mom! I see that! But what is it?"

That little booger!

(by the way....it was the chicken stuffing casserole...Lisa!)

Cookies

We made some cookies today. I, of course, cheated and bought the sheets of cookie dough already made, not to mention the fact that we were supposed to use a bell cookie cutter...which of course I couldn't find here at home..so we had to improvise. Everyone made one tray of cookies. This is not a picture of ours, but they look similar. The boys had fun making them. Here's where I got the recipe: reindeer cookies.

muh-nah muh-nah

I came across this on a friend's blog, and the boys have been hooked ever since! Love the Muppets! Here's two different versions of it. I like the 1969 version the best. Anyone know what they're from???

1969- I love the guy when he winks and blinks his sunglasses!!! So Awesome! And if you watch carefully you can see the puppeteers hand when he takes the guy far away!!!

1976 - My kids like this one the best.

Walk thru the BIble

We went to this farm the other day. The Christian family puts up a light display showing a "walk thru the Bible" starting with Adam an Eve, and ending with Jesus' ascension into Heaven. It's a great ministry, and it's free. This was our first time going, and we thought it was pretty awesome. The kids loved it too. They read the Bible verses that were set up along the way, and of course they were thrilled with the hot chocolate and cookies at the end. Oh, did I mention that they were able to look at some of the animals in the barns too???

brothers bonding

This is very rare to see in our house.
This is how I found the boys watching TV the other day.

Someone's 6 months old today

Wow, she's already half a year old!! How time flies! She's getting so big, and so much fun! She's just an all around happy and fun baby. She eats baby food now although she's much more content on just eating cereal or milk...none of that yucky veggies or fruits. She can sit up with some assistance, and well, she's just so lovable and cute! .(Check out all the past months: June, July,and August, September, October, and November.)

Ornaments

Here's what we did today. Aren't these the cutest little things?? They are square glass ornaments with three fingers painted on them. Then we decorated them to look like snowmen. We used Makenna's hand on a round one for her. I saw this idea online, so take none of the credit on this one, but it was fun and easy.

Makenna's funny smile

She's sticking that tongue out all the time. Oh, and look where she fell asleep the other day...in her Jumperoo. Bless her heart.

Stockings were hung by the....

...chimney with care.....

Okay, so we don't have a chimney, but still......Are these fun stockings or what??? We found them at the $$$$ store and decorated them ourselves. Seriously, you could fit a whole kid in these stockings. (Maybe instead of sack races, we could have stocking race!) Okay, anyways, I took pictures of the finished products.

Now only to find enough stuff to fill them...........

3 1/2 hours

That's how long we were in the dentist office on Friday....all seven of us...talk about one long morning. I doubt we'll ever schedule us to do that again. However, it was Kaleb's first visit to the dentist office. Check out the pics.

what a day!

I was on my way to meet my friends for lunch this morning when I decided to run my car off the road instead. ARGH!!! It was snowy, and well...I'm from Florida...I'm no expert driving in the snow! Thank God there was very, very minimal damage on the car, and no one was hurt. God was totally watching over me and Makenna. We ended up running a stop sign and plowing straight into the...what's the word....bank...side of the road....whatever.
Okay, on to the rest of the day...it only gets better...NOT! Blake started to get sick in the afternoon. He's resting on his bed when I hear a huge splat....yup he decided to return his lunch to the floor from his TOP BUNK. Needless, to say it was not a pretty sight.
Later that evening, Eric and I had a Christmas party with our Sunday School class. That was fun! But when we got home, we found Kaleb was pukey, and then late into the night Luke was pukey.
Needless to say, none of the kids went to church on Sunday. Now, poor Eric is sick too.

Christmas cards

Made my Christmas cards. I made 60 of them.....crazy!!! I've never made that many before. I got done a little early this year compared to last year anyways. Instead of just making one card type, I made a whole bunch of different ones. I got most of them addressed and in the mail. We didn't get a family picture in them this year though, so don't be too disappointed!

Crazy kids

Kids do the silliest things!!!

Pepto Bismol, Basketball, Post office, and Ornaments

What do all of these things have in common??? They were all a major part of my day yesterday! Let's see...let's start at the beginning. I was in the bathroom when I noticed that the medicine cabinet looked as though it had been ransacked. There was medicine everywhere...on the floor...just everywhere kinda strewn all over the place. I figured that Kaleb must have gotten in there. He's always climbing on the toilet and messing with the cabinet. Now, notice, I'm not really paranoid because most of the medicine is children's medicine or band aids, so I'm not stressed......YET! I ask him if he did it, and he said no. I then find an empty>Children's Pepto Bismol pill bottle on the floor. I ask him if he ate these. He says no. I asked him who did.....he must have blamed everyone in the house including Makenna (and of course I believed that one...NOT). He refuses to admit it. What's a parent to do??? He says he didn't do it. So I just let it go basically, because I'm a bad parent, and just didn't want to do it, and I figured Pepto Bismol can't really hurt him...... no, but it can sure BITE ME IN THE BUTT!!!!

Fast Forward a couple of hours later. We had just finished lunch, and Kaleb was taking his plate to the sink. He comes back to stand in front of me to talk to me when I hear, much to my dismay, a PBLLTT.... I assume that he, like the other males in my family was just a little gassy. But then I hear it....I hear an extra PBLLllllllltttttttttTT. It was not a happy sound at all. I knew what it was...I just didn't want to deal with that either. I ask Kaleb if he poopied in his pants, and he says..."No, MOM, I didn't!" I look down to ground where I saw all the evidence running down his leg into a little pool on the floor that he had, in fact, poopied. I asked him again if it poopied. He looked down, got a surprised look on his face, and said, "No, MOM, I didn't!" I then grab him and put him in the tub and ask him again showing him that he did, but yet he still said....."No Mom, I didn't!" I then administered a cleanup, shower, and then discipline for lying. I then realized..........pepto bismol!!! I had proof now that he did eat the Pepto Bismol.

BASKETBALL: Luke started his first day of practice today. He was so excited to go. When he got there, he got all shy, and didn't want to go out on the court. He was actually hiding underneath the bleachers. (Side note: I do not do well when my kids do this. To me, it's actual proof that I should not be homeschooling. They need more social opportunities.) Finally and thankfully, the coach saw him and called him over. He then had a great time.

POST OFFICE: I've sold some things on ebay, and had to stop at the Post Office. Normally, I would end up taking all the kids....which is a treat in itself. Thankfully, Eric was with the boys at Luke's basketball practice, and us girls went to Post office.Bad Idea.....we took the black Sunfire which does not have a stroller. You should have seen me trying to carry Makenna in her car seat and then THREE BOXES (two of which were a rather large size) in to the Post Office. I made a couple of back and forth trips. It was pretty funny.
ORNAMENTS: We had our church's Third Annual Ornament Exchange. We had about 29 ladies there. I think it's the funnest activity of the year. The ladies are CRAZY!!!! It was loads of fun!!!!!

Snow Days are here!

I'm sad to admit this, but these are some of my kids first times to go out and play in the snow. I'm sure we've taken them out when they were babies to get the first snow pictures, but I really think this is their first time....PLAYING. It's kinda nice because..although I have to get them all bundled up, I don't have to stand out there anymore freezing with them. I just bundle them up and send them on their way. They had a blast! I found this junky sled at a garage sale this past summer for 50 cents, but hey....it works! In case you were wondering....Makenna was inside in her jumperoo and Kaleb was .....in trouble....more about that later.)

Anyone want to help me out here?

Why is it that my sweet little girl has to look like this by the time she's done eating???

Meeting Santa

Took pictures with Santa today after church at Walmart. (they were doing free pictures with Santa.) The older boys know that Santa is not real, but I tell them that it's kinda fun to pretend so they needed to tell Santa what they wanted and then he would call and tell me what to get them. They were so excited about seeing him and talking to him about it all. I love the pictures of the boys whispering to Santa.

Decorating the tree

As always, we put the tree up on December 1st. I just can't bring myself to put it up any earlier. The boys got tired this year after about 10 minutes. But then later that night I got some pictures of them by the tree.

more pics for the calendar

Took some more pictures for the church calendar today. I love the ones of Jakeb and Addi. They look so adorable. Kaleb, on the other hand....well, I'm not going to even get started on the kind of day he has had. Let's just say...."a picture is worth a thousand words!"

EVACUATE

We're getting a new electric heater system, and Eric convinced the heater people to take off $100 if Eric himself ripped out the old oil tank and heater unit. He did great with the oil tank, but then came the heater unit. As he was ripping it out, somehow he did something wrong releasing freon everywhere. (I was not impressed with this.) From what I understand this is not good. Eric comes upstairs and tells everyone to get their shoes on and go outside......into the RAIN!! So here we all are on the front little porch trying to stay dry under the awning...some of us in our pajamas still just standing there not sure of what to do next. We were definitely a sight to see.

The boys were getting pretty nervous about the whole thing thinking that we were all going to die or that our house was going to burn down or something...., so we tried to make the best of the situation and made the excuse to go to Chick-fil-A. YUM!!


By the way, we contacted a guy from church who knows all about this type of stuff. He not only advised us to open the windows and let the place air out, but is hooking us up with a better heater for a better price!!! Yay!!! God really does work in mysterious ways! New heater will be here tomorrow!!!!!

Kaleb's Birthday

Kaleb turned three today. He was pretty pumped about it. This morning we had a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. He got lots of goodies. Then after dinner he opened the ones from us. For the past month he's been telling me that he wanted a pirate ship. Well, he got his pirate ship. He was so excited about it. He was so excited that he didn't even want to go out with his daddy for ice cream. He just wanted to stay and play with his ship. And when his brothers kept trying to play with it, he kept saying...."No, it's my burthday, my burthday!" In other words....."don't touch my ship!!" And thankfully, they had to oblige because we have a rule in the house....if you get a new toy, you have a full 24 hours before you have to share. So anyways, Happy birthday, Kaleb!!! I can't believe you're three already!

Football

The boys learned how to play football with their Uncle Michael. For any of you who know Michael....know that the guy LOVES Football!!!!! And well, he's passing the love to the kids. They were loving it!

Thanksgiving

We had thanksgiving at my house on Thursday, and believe it or not..I didn't take any pictures. On Friday, we went to my mom's to celebrate Christmas since my brother and his family weren't going to be back in town at Christmas time. Makenna got her first piece of jewelry...a ring from Aunt Stacy and Uncle Michael. It was so pretty. The boys loved their gifts. My mom got a new jacket, and Stacy got some really cute snowman stuff that she was soooooo excited about!

Leaf Jumping

I also took these over a week ago, and never posted them. It was so much fun to watch the boys jump in the leaves. The three older boys ran, jumped, and played in them. Kaleb, on the other hand, ran to the leaves and then refused to jump. Of course, some times he would just get mad that his brothers beat him to the pile and stomp off. Once, he even went inside to get himself some protection. He brought out the sword and helmet to keep himself safe.