Merry Christmas To All...

Christmas was wonderful, as it always is. Long but great, as always. On Saturday we did Christmas with Dave's family at his mom's. There's a total of 8 kids ranging in age from 14 to 1. So all of the kids have a ton of fun together and I actually get to talk to the grown ups, since the older kids can chase Levi. It's pretty nice.

We stayed home on Christmas Eve and got ready for Santa. Sienna was very particular when it came to putting out the cookies and milk. I just followed her directions. I told the kids they could open one gift before bed. Sierra was pretty disappointed when I pulled her out from the tree and told her she didn't get to pick which gift, I already had the gifts picked out. It was their new jameys~ a Christmas staple. They all looked so cute ~ the girls in their pink jameys and Levi with his cars and trucks all over his. Simply adorable.

Finally~ Christmas morning. The girls came in my room at 7 exclaiming, "Santa came! Santa came!" We got up and woke Levi up and then the present unwrapping extravaganza began! Levi tore off that first piece of paper and brought it to me, like 'look mom'. He grew tired of unwrapping the presents pretty quickly. He just wanted to play. Even Sienna grew tired of opening gifts. She has been sick though, I think that had something to do with it. Sienna is at that great age where everything is great. She was opening the last few gifts (after the motrin kicked in) and she came running up to me with a clothing box in hand. She said, "Look Mom! A white box!!" How cute is that?! I told her to open the box and she was just as excited to find a pretty skirt with matching shirt inside. Like I said, it's a great age. Sierra had a great Christmas too. She knows the truth about Christmas now so there was no Santa magic for her. However, it was AWESOME to see that awe and thankfulness that is usually reserved for Santa directed my way! She got the mp3 player that she wanted sooo badly and an outfit that she instantly fell in love with. After those two gifts the rest were great no matter what they were.

Papaw Walt (Dave's dad) came over for breakfast on Christmas morning. It was a really nice visit for all of us. Of course, Mom and Shell (with kids) came over for dinner. Another lovely visit. It was a really nice day.

It was a wonderful holiday for all of us. (I got my Lost Season 3 on DVD :) ). We're leaving for West Virgina in the morning to spend some time with Dad and Hilde. Shell and her kids are going with us and all the kids are SUPER excited! It should be a really great time!

Christmas Programs

I love going to the school Christmas programs. I still remember how excited I would get as a kid for my Christmas program. I felt like a star. I felt special. So now to watch my children in their own Christmas programs is special to me.

First was Sierra's program last week. She always does such a wonderful job. However, I cannot say the same for my camera. Something about the lighting in the gym totally messes with my camera. It is IMPOSSIBLE to get a decent picture inside the school gym. I'm posting a picture any way so you can understand why I'm not posting more. The Lord truly blessed my life with Sierra. She is such a special girl. She did such a great job, like always. Here's a quick little video. She's in the third row, 6th to the right. Again, sorry about the camera. :(

Then there was Maddie's choir program. This is not your regular grade performance, this is 'choir'. Again, brings back good memories for me. I absolutely loved choir. I took it all 4 years in highschool, was in the Show Choir and even choreographed dance routines starting as a sophomore. Big ups to Emily~ she was definitely my choir homie! Back to Maddie~ she did such a wonderful job! She seems to truly enjoy herself. I know I enjoyed myself watching her perform, even when she made me participate (even if my evil sister was laughing hysterically at me). Sadly I don't have any pictures since I forgot my camera.

Today was Sienna's program at the preschool. She was absolutely adorable! They sang songs and recited a poem and then got a surprise visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus. She did such an awesome job. And I think it's safe to say that Sienna really enjoys performing for a crowd. She knows how to keep contact with the camera, that's for sure. I'm so proud of all the ladies in my life. They're all at different stages in life but all growing up so fast. They all did a wonderful job.

Here's a couple of videos of Sienna's progam. In this first video, pay attention to the little girl next to Sienna. This little girl is one of Sienna's best friends. She puts her arm in front of Sienna's face. Notice how Sienna handles that!

The First Family Portrait

I know it's sad to admit, but this is the first year that we've actually done an entire family picture. It was quite an adventure. Well, here's our first ever family portrait and pictures of the kids.

A Little Christmas Joy

Christmas is absolutely my favorite holiday! I LOVE it! It's such a special time of year. Thoughts are filled with family, friends, love and memories of the past. And Christmas is the holiday we do at my house. Shell gets Thanksgiving and I get Christmas.

We did a family portrait this year. It's actually the first time that Dave and I have both been in the picture with the kids. I'm really excited to get the pictures back. I'm hoping they'll be in any day now. The portrait technician was amazed at how quickly we did our pictures. We have three children - everything we do is expedited. It took us longer to get service from the picture tech to make our selections and pay than it did to actually take all the pictures. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, was quite irritating to me. Levi was all over the place! There was about a million people in there waiting for their pictures and he was making friends with all of them. Sears had a Dora video going so Sienna was pretty content to watch the show. Poor Sierra. She tried sooo hard to keep up with Levi. She did a really good job. She's so helpful to me at times. She's truly a blessing!

After family photo time we went to see Santa. I felt horrible last year because we didn't even do Santa. We knew that Sienna wouldn't sit on his lap (she made that perfectly clear) so we didn't even bother. This year, Sienna was excited to go see Santa. She promised that she would sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas and even let Mommy get a nice picture. Which she did! I was so proud of her. Sienna isn't too smiley in the picture but I still think it's an awesome picture!

Our Christmas tree has been up for a couple of weeks now. Sienna LOVES the tree. The first thing she does every morning is ask to 'turn on the tree'. ALL of the kids helped Mommy with the tree this year. We do the fake tree thing. I think it's a little disappointing to Dave. We tried a real tree a couple of times but it's such a pain in the butt! The needles are constantly falling off (choking hazard for small children and puppies), you have to keep crawling under the tree to water it (how many chubby girls do you know that like to crawl under things?), you worry all month about the tree catching on fire, and disposing of the tree after Christmas is always horrific. And I'm not even going to mention the torture you have to endure while attempting to snag this tree out of the wild!! Isn't it so much easier to just go down to the basement and drag out the box? I think so.

Anyway, all of the kids helped put up and decorate the tree this year. Sierra was a HUGE blessing with the tree this year. She went through the box and sorted all the branches as I started assembling. She read the directions and knew which branches were needed and when. She helped Sienna choose the right branches and put them in the right spot. Levi wanted to help with this part but I didn't think that was a good idea for obvious reasons (refer to my previous post which mentions Levi choosing weapons disguised as children's toys). Levi did get to help with the fluffing of the branches to fill the tree out. He seemed to enjoy this part even though the girls and I had to rescue several branches and put them back.


Decorating the tree was alot of fun with the kids. I took a very relaxed approach to the tree this year. I think it's the best tree we've ever had. It might have an empty spot here or there and there might be several red bulbs grouped together in one area and the bottom of the tree is a little naked but it was done with love and wonder by the three people who mean the most to me. Every time I look at this tree I see love. I catch myself just looking at the tree and smiling. All the Precious Moments ornaments are at the very top where Sierra ever so carefully put them. For each ornament she had a different question and wanted to know the story behind the special ornaments that are always at the top of the tree. It was nice to talk to Sierra about the times when she was my only princess. She seemed to really enjoy hearing about the way life used to be.

Sienna loves to put on the little drums and presents. You know the ornaments that come from the dollar general, $1 for 12 or something like that. I've had these things forever and now there's not as many as there once was. But Sienna was digging through every box looking for them and she would get so excited when she found one and come running to the tree to find just the right spot. And that's exactly what it was~ every single one that she found was special and needed a special spot. She would stand back and look at the tree and then say, "Yep, that's it". She was very careful with the glass bulbs too. She kept saying that she didn't want to break them.

Then there was Levi. We tried to let him help. Honest, we did. We tried to help his little hand get the ornament on the branch but he would just get too excited and start smacking the tree and making things fall off, much to the girls' disappointment. So we finally gave up on trying and he seemed much happier to sneak in and steal an ornament from time to time. But he's given the tree his own special touch too. He keeps adding things to the tree. So far I have found in the tree: disposable camera, 2 dog toys and a dump truck. How he's getting these things to actually just sit on the branches is beyond me.

It was a really nice time with the kids. It was a day that I'll cherish forever. I can't wait to remember that day with them next Christmas and so many more to come.

Getting Settled

Max is settling into his new home nicely. He really enjoys hanging out with Lola. They're so cute together. Lola is a little more aggressive than what Max is ready for but Lola is really good about listening to Max and backing off if he whimpers at all. Sienna of course is trying to carry Max around all day, everywhere she goes. And again, we're back to hearing her phrase "He's just a baby." Sierra is eager to see Max as soon as she gets up and then again after school. She's getting up better for school again (until the newness wears off again). And Levi~ what can I say about him? I think he might think that Max's bed is a new chair for him. He keeps flopping right down on top of the dogs. I'm afraid he's going to smoosh poor Max. When Levi is up and loose Max spends most of his time either on my lap or tucked away under my desk at my feet, trying to hide. I've tried soooo hard to explain 'gentle', 'fragile', and 'baby' to Levi, but he doesn't care. He just gives me this little evil (rather scary) laugh and then takes off (to find a new weapon disguised as a child's toy). So, pretty much all is going well. We have a few bumps here and there but isn't that what life is, one big bumpy road?

Meet Max

There's a good chance that I've gone completely crazy. We got another pug puppy today. His name is Max and he is 9 weeks old. The kids are very excited and happy to have him here. As for Lola, she is extremely excited too. She wants to play with him even though he isn't quite ready for Lola play yet. He's quite curious and exploratory for his first day home. He's going to make a lovely addition to our now complete family!

The Happy Village

Like every other female at Christmas time I too have a village. I have a toy shop, church, house, another toy shop and a couple other buildings. Of course no village is complete without the trees, carolers, ice pond, etc. Pretty basic. Starting last year, we put the nativity scene right in the middle of the village. It doesn't really belong there, I know. But the girls LOVE to play with it all. Normally this would be the type of situation that I would explain to the girls is 'Mommy's stuff that needs to be respected and not played with'. But they enjoy it so much and they're actually very careful with it. And honestly, I get way more enjoyment out of it by watching them enjoy it so much rather than just seeing it sit there so nice and neat. Plus~ let's be honest~ I'm pretty sure most of my stuff has been purchased at the Dollar General or Dollar Tree. We're not talking about fine collector item pieces here.

The kids and I put up our Christmas tree last week and we pulled out all the village stuff. By the time we got around to the village Levi was napping so it worked out nice. The girls set everything up exactly as they wanted and even honored Mommy's one request to put the manger in the middle. Levi got up from his nap while I was making dinner and he was playing nicely with the girls. Sierra was in the dining room with the little ones and I could hear them all so I felt okay to hurry along with dinner. Later, after all the craziness of dinner production time, I noticed that the village seemed strange from a distance. As I got closer I gasped in horror as I realized that the village had been hit by a tornado! A tornado named Levi! It was a complete wreck~ there was a dump truck right in the middle of town (I'm not sure if it was there for destruction or rebuild, but it was there none the less), a Christmas tree was on the manger roof, the angels had fallen from grace and were face down in the destruction -except for one that was placed neatly in the manger and has been left there just for Levi- Joseph was trying to get into the toystore, Mary was on the ice pond, Wise Men face down in the sleigh, and Baby Jesus was nowhere to be found. AMBER ALERT: BABY JESUS IS MISSING! I put everyone on the case. Sierra recovered Baby Jesus rather quickly but it was still quite the scare. I also found a camera on the scene, probably dropped by the insurance agent.

It's nice to see Levi enjoy the village as much as the girls but he's not as gentle as the girls. Maybe he thinks the Wise Men are 'action figures'. They sure have been flying around like super heroes lately. I had to get my carolers out of the garbage a few days ago. I'm very concerned for the village this year. Maybe I should just start collecting a 'mommy only set'. At least it's a happy village.

Snow Already

This was the view from my front door this morning. I love how the snow has been captured mid-fall. However, I hate the snow. I hate winter. I become a hermit once the temperature falls past 40. If I had my way, I would NEVER leave the house during the winter season. I do like to see snow on Christmas day, but that is the only day.

As I opened the front door this morning and pushed Lola out of it, my heart sank when I saw all that snow. Inside I was screaming NO! I was immediately devastated by the realization that I was going to have to bundle up all three of my kids and take them out in the snow and cold to get everyone to school. My first thought was let everyone stay home but then the responsible parent in me said no. My only hope left~ school closing or delay. Imagine my delight when I discovered that Western was on a 2 hour delay! Yeah!! I've been saved from one day in the cold! Yeah!! I'm starting to think that one of the best decisions I have ever made was getting my kids into a school that is located out in the middle of nowhere!

Speckles

My son is completely speckled from head to foot. He ran a low fever Friday and Saturday accompanied by cold symptoms. There was no fever come Sunday but a slight rash had taken its place. He had shots on the 15th so he was in the right timing for a rash from the MMR shot (i think that's one). A rash from this vaccine is very short lived, it comes on and is gone all within 24 hours. I was hoping that this was all that was going on but no such luck. When Levi woke up this morning his rash was worse than last night so I knew we were going to the doctor. I bundled him up and took him with me to drop the girls off at school and then to the doctor. He fell asleep in the van and slept the entire way. When we finally arrive at the doctor's office (approximately 1 hour later) I gasped as I opened the van door and saw his little smiling face looking like a can of red paint exploded in it! No kidding or exaggerating here. It looked like a can of red paint just blew up right in his face. The rash had DEFINITELY gotten worse, to say the least, just in that hour. Plus, he had a little scab on his face where he scratched himself and he had scratched off the scab and it was bleeding. Great. My son's face is more red than white and he's got a big blob of blood right between his eyes. **I'd like to thank everyone in advance for my Mother of the Year Award. Thank You.** Needless to say I couldn't get Levi into the office fast enough. I've never had so many office employees come to greet me before. I think word spread fast that there was a kid who just came through the back entrance looking like a speckled dinosaur egg. The doctor was very pleased with Levi's symptoms and rash. I mean this guy was gushing over the rash! He had a student doctor with him so, apparently, he was talking from a teaching perspective. In short, the diagnosis was roseola. No strep throat, no antibiotic~ just a viral infection that should clear up on it's own in about 5 days. The only piece of medical advice I got for treating this explosive rash was to keep Levi 'cool'. Heat will intensify the rash. After we got home and he napped the major redness went away. He is still speckled but the coloring isn't fire engine red anymore. Click on the picture in this post to see a bigger version and you will be able to see a few of his spots. The picture really doesn't give you a good view of the speckles though. And sorry about the cookie in his mouth. I'm not a big fan of posting pictures of my kids with food in their mouths but it was either this picture with food or one with half of my face appearing to have a double chin. I went with the food ~ you know you would have too. :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. What a nice day but sooo exhausting. Our Thanksgivings always start with the parades. I remember watching them as a kid and being so mesmerized by the huge balloons and now as an adult, I'm still mesmerized by the balloons! :) My family eats ALOT on Thanksgiving~ we had 3 dinners to attend. We start off our day of many meals at my sister's house. Shell always makes an awesome dinner that includes a turkey with a name. This year's turkey was named Shelia. I think this is actually the first year that Shell gave the turkey a female name. We were running a little late for dinner after a few mishaps but we finally arrived and I was STARVING! Things weren't quite ready and instead of jumping in to help I found my way to the table where a huge bowl of dinner biscuits was calling my name. I quickly grabbed one and tore in half for Sienna who was just as hungry as I was and we found a nice cozy spot under the table to hide and enjoy our stolen biscuit. But Mother found us and ran us off from under the table. I felt like I was 5 yrs old all over again! Dinner was wonderful and I stuffed myself until I couldn't move. It was a nice relaxed meal and I throughly enjoyed it.

Our next stop was Dave's mom's house. Again I found myself staring down a huge spread of food that I couldn't wait to devour. When we get together with Dave's family there's lots of kids to play together, 8 in total with ages ranging from 1 yr. to 14 yrs. They always have so much fun when they all get together. This year is quite a surprise to see all the doggies that got to come to Thanksgiving, 4 in total. Chris, Dave's brother, came in early and helped Sue, Dave's mom, cook dinner and the two of them really out did themselves. Everything, including the company, was excellent.

We stopped by Dave's dad's house on the way home. This time I was just not able to eat again sadly. I was sooo full still from Sue's I just couldn't imagine putting one more piece of food in my mouth. Everything smelled really good though and the company was still just splendid. Overall it was a wonderful day that has me already looking forward to next year.

My Hero

I do have a Thanksgiving post coming, I promise, but first I must deal with what is on my mind. I went shopping at 3:00 this morning for those fabulous after Thanksgiving Day sales, better known as Black Friday. I have never done this before as I am a night person, not a morning person. But I always felt like I was missing out on something by not going. Well, now I know what I was missing out on - PURE INSANITY! It was completely insane! It was virtually impossible to shop because the lines were so long for the check outs. You couldn't even see or get to the products on the shelf. Our first stop was Kohl's at 4am. The line for check out was completely insane and I just couldn't see myself waiting in line. My sister finally said for me to give her my stuff and for Maddie and I to go ahead and go to Toys R Us. Let me say that Maddie and I did Toys R Us and Best Buy while Shell was still standing in line at Kohl's. Shell waited in line for over 2 hours just for the check out at Kohl's! That doesn't include shopping time, just check out time. Can you believe that?! Shell kept a great attitude through it all and even seemed to enjoy herself. There was alot to be learned from Shell today, however it was all lost on me!! Shell was my hero this morning and I'm still amazed by her patience this morning! However, not to speak for Maddie, but I will probably never do Black Friday again!