Last Day of the Year

This picture is from yesterday.  Henry is just so fun to photograph because he doesn't really play to the camera just yet.  So fun!

Church was just fabulous yesterday.  What a great message!  So challenging and just so real.  I guess I don't really have anything huge share.  This may be an uneventful post, but to us right now, uneventful is wonderful!  Last night we made California Rolls with Steve and watched part of the Colts game.  Such a fun dinner!  Bridget loves to listen to Steve play the piano, so that was just so cute to watch.  Today we are putting away stuff and catching up on laundry.  We'll play games tonight with some friends and eat fun food.  I want to do some goals and just chatting with the kids about the year.   Hope everyone has a safe and fun  New Year!  

Congrats Jana and John!  They got married this weekend!  I can't wait to see pictures!  

The 'e' Planner

This planner was made with the Phoebe line from Basic Grey.  I so love their stuff.  

My 2008 Planner

So here are the covers for my new planner.  The paper is from Cosmo Cricket's Halfway Cafe Collection.  I have two more in the works, so I will post them when they are done.  Thanks for looking! Have a great day!

Christmas Morning

I thought I'd post a few pictures from our Christmas morning.  The kids actually slept in.  What a treat for us!  

Henry loved his Christmas book.  I actually had to talk him into coming downstairs because he just wanted to sit and read his book and play the song over and over again. I was thrilled that he loved it.

Kathryn was delighted when she opened  her Hannah Montana wig.  She doesn't watch the show anymore, but she loves to sing the songs she remembers.  

Jack was so excited to open his first big Star Wars ship from Jerry's parents.  

As expected, Bridget was most excited with the paper and the ribbons.  

'Twas the Night

'Twas the night before Christmas, when chaos did roam

as Henry shoved toilet paper down the throne.

Long talks about plumbers were lectured with care

In hopes that no more toilets would be plugged up there.

Bridget cried loudly, wetting her whole head

While I anticipated Henry climbing out of bed.

And I sat in my chair with my Mac on my lap

With a large Mt. Dew to avoid a quick nap.

When downstairs I heard quite a loud sound.

It was Kathryn and Jack watching Charlie Brown.

I sat and I prayed that all would soon sleep

And that our toilet would not leak a peep.

"My ear hurts," I heard my mom say.

Her earring was stuck in K's braid to stay.

Then thankfully I heard my mom sign in relief.

Her ear was free. Oh good grief!

Kathryn cried while standing there.

Then ran up to tell me they had cut her hair.

Finally it was time to kiss them and give them a hug.

I smiled and sighed and prayed for them on the rug.

"Sleep, Kathryn! Sleep, Henry!  Sleep, Bridget and Jack!

Stay in bed, so your tush I don't have to whack!

Sleep in!  Have good dreams!  Sleep longer than us all!

Now hurry adults!  Let us relax. Let us all!

As I write this Henry is asleep--now I am free

To go downstairs and watch Rush Hour Three?

Not exactly "It's A Wonderful Life"

The movie was Jerry's choice, not the choice of his wife.

And so I am going to quit my little song.

I had not realized that the poem is so long!

Merry Christmas!

What can I say?  I haven't had a lot of sleep lately. :)  Have a wonderful Christmas!

"Beauty Shop"

What can I say?  Kathryn is quite the hair stylist.  Playing Beauty Shop is really code for "Mommy just needs to sit down for a minute."  My parents are visiting for Christmas so they were watching the wee ones while Kathryn did my hair.  When Henry came upstairs, he goes, "Mawmee, Fawncy Hairw." 

The Latest

We have been really busy.  I can't believe it has been a week since I posted.  Course now that our Christmas letter has gone out with this address, I'm am a bit nervous to write anything.  It is silly.  Our printer died about half way through, so we still need to send out the last half or so of the alphabet.  So here is the latest on what we've been doing all week.

Kathryn, Jack, and Jerry sang in our church Christmas concert.  Kathryn had a solo, and she did a great job.  She just loves to sing.  Jack is also in the children's choir, and he seemed to enjoy singing too in a less obvious way though.  :)  Jerry sang in the adult choir and octet.  My parents helped me with Henry and Bridget while we listened.  

We had fun with the winter storm.  It was only a fraction of what they predicted.  We had the best day of just playing in the snow, eating yummy food, and playing games.  Jerry was on a huge cooking spree.  He made an apple tart, roast beef, and cilantro chicken.  The kids were able to make a snow fort and a snowman.  So fun for them!

Piper is always hanging out under the Christmas tree by Joseph and Mary.  

One of my good friends was over last week organizing her planner for next year.  She let me do the covers for her. What fun!  She is such a godly woman and such an encourager.  Our kids played together for two days, all day.  They had so much fun.  It was such a huge encouragement to me that she wanted to make one of these, and it was such a treat to get it all ready and deliver it to her.  What a fun project!

Those are some of the highlights of the last week.  I was able to get together with some college friends last night and say goodbye before one of them moves.  What a sweet time to just take a break and visit.  I hope we can do it more often next year.  Bridget is crawling now.  I still have a pretty long to-do list before Christmas.  Kathryn was sad that her snowman was melting.  Hopefully we'll get more snow soon.  Have a great evening everyone!

Have to Laugh

You just have to laugh.  I feel like I write that on here a lot.  Wacky stuff always happens when we print our Christmas letter.  I should have know today would just be funny just because of that.  Today was fun.  My friend Shari came over and we worked on her planner for next year.  Our kids played. I decoupaged like a mad-woman.  I took all four kids to Target in the bizarre weather that is Indiana.  It was almost sixty outside today.  What in the world is that?  Kathryn was exchanging a Barbie that she had received this weekend at our family Christmas.   She already had that one, and she took her time looking at all her choices before she decided on a different one.  Tonight was bath night, which isn't a huge deal.  However, I was on Henry duty, and as I'm sitting out in the hall, I hear Jack singing the theme song to the old Batman show.  Then he throws open the door, jumps out into the hall in his PJs with his Batman mask on.  Now we are mac people, so I ask Jack if we can take a picture on photo booth. So we are taking silly pictures with my computer, and Kathryn comes running down the hall, "Can I be in it?"  Apparently what she really meant was, "Can I randomly hold Barbie infront of the camera?" Meanwhile, Bridget is cutting teeth and has been crying for hours, well minus the checks on her to make sure she is ok.  Henry took a two hour cat nap after he went to bed only to be ready to go just as everyone else is going to sleep.   Then there was the changing of diapers again.  I managed to watch parts of The Biggest Loser while I ate a chocolate bar.  Is that wrong?  Just seems like you shouldn't snack while you watch that show.  Jerry came home after his long day, and we just laughed.  

Such Fun!

A friend of mine asked me to photograph her children.  Nobody has ever asked me to do that before.  It was such a huge compliment and an honor to do.   It was so fun!  I loved every second of it.  Her kids were so fun!  I thought I'd post a couple of my favorite shots.

Beautiful Morning

The First Snow

Most of the kids around here were sleeping in this morning.  Our kids are just like us.  When they heard us say that it had snowed, they were up and wanting to play first thing.  They have already been out with their sleds in our yard, and they are just counting the minutes until Daddy will take them on the sledding hill.  

Just for Fun

Holly Wreaths?

Tonight we attempted to make holly wreaths.  After just a few minutes, we decided holly bushes would be much easier.  I was taking pictures right as Jack ate a handful of red hots.  He wasn't too happy.  Henry loved them and just sat there eating away.  

Peppermint Ice Cream

Sunday night we made peppermint ice cream.  Kathryn and Jack helped break up the candy and were the quality control on how pepperminty it was.  Jack managed to get quite the peppermint face during this activity.   The ice cream was eaten quickly, so we'll have to try that again soon.  

"Mom, You Better Come Down Here!"

Jack yelled that to me from the kitchen this morning.  That phrase can't mean anything good.  So I run downstairs to find Henry sitting in front of an open refrigerator.  He is holding the pitcher of orange juice over his sippy cup, and there is orange juice all around him.  

So as Jack is laughing at this craziness, I am attempting to just find the humor of this whole thing.  "Can we just list all of the reasons why this is bad?" I said to the boys.  "Henry, you are not allowed to open the refrigerator.  Henry, you are not allowed to get stuff out of the refrigerator.  Henry, nobody can pour anything into a sippy cup that already has a lid on it.  Guys, orange juice is just one of the stickiest substances known to man."  Well maybe not really, but of the things that get on our kitchen floor--it ranks high.  You know, you just have to laugh. 

There was once a time in my life where I would read something like this and think to myself, "Well, when I am a mother, my kids won't do that." or "Where was the mom?  How could she have let this happen."  So this is just another example of God showing me not to judge other people.  You would think I would have caught on by now. I just cringe at all the judgemental things that I use to think about moms and kids before I had kids.  One by one those things and new ones are happening in our family.  Just last night Kathryn and I were talking about how God disciplines people differently.  How Mommy and Daddy don't get spankings from God, but sometimes things happen to teach us or discipline us.  Hello!!!  So it was a bit humorous to talk about that again this morning as we relived the OJ incident while we were eating.  

You would think that the rest of the morning would be calm, but no.  I in my-freezing-just cleaned the cold floor-it is freezing outside-self thought I'd give the kids hot chocolate with their breakfast.  So I let Henry have some in my plastic Colts cup that normally holds my coffee.  So there Henry sits this morning on his big stool at the island saying, "I love coffee.  My coffee.  Coffee me Mommy."  When it was time to go the bus stop, I put his cup by the sink to which I heard, "No, Mommy.  Coffee please mommy."  I kept saying, "No, it is hot chocolate." So we are just one trip in the cold away from hearing my son yell for coffee in a store.  Nice. 

Decorating the Tree

After Kathryn got back from HSM, we decorated the tree.  My parents came down to watch the kids so that we could go to our church Christmas banquet that night.  I always love unwrapping all the ornaments.  My parents and aunts and uncles always gave us ornaments growing up, so we have a ton at this point.  Mom was able to hang up all the breakable ones and help Kathryn and Jack as they decorated the tree.  It is such a joy to see them get excited about their ornaments or the ornaments from our vacations.  Since Mom was here, she was able to tell the kids the stories behind many of my ornaments.  I know I need to take pictures of the ornaments and get those stories into scrapbooks.  Someday...

Our Christmas banquet was fun as always.  The food was good, and it was nice to have so much time with just the adults. We sang the Twelve Days of Christmas song complete with motions. This year our table was Four Calling Birds, nothing too terribly embarrassing.  If we are ever A Partridge in a Pear Tree, I will probably just melt right into the floor.  I can't even imagine what antics Jerry could add to that one.  It was fun to sing and great to just laugh so much.  I love that our banquet is at the beginning of the Christmas season, right as I am making lists and starting to stress out.  I was reminded again about how Christmas is the celebration of Jesus coming to this world to be our Savior.  What a great evening!  

An Early Start to December

5:45 

Yes, that is the time that dear Henry got up on our cold Saturday morning.  He has taken lately to using nouns as verbs lately.  So not only was he up long before the sun, but he was at my bedside saying, "Pop pie me." That is Henry for "Please get me a pop tart." Oddly enough Jack followed shortly after 6:00.  All I could think was, "What on Earth is going on?"  Now thankfully, Jerry and I had made a sort of deal a long time ago.  Basically it goes like this:  If the kids get up at some off-the-wall-early hour, then we can go get doughnuts.  It may not sound like much, but it is enough for me to make it bearable.  So at 6:30 I piled the boys into the van and we drove to our local hole-in-the-wall doughnut shop.  I loved those people.  They are so nice, and they just make the best doughnuts I have ever had.  Jack and Henry had never actually been in the store, so it was fun for them to pick out what they wanted.  It was fun to be able to tell this sweet, wonderful-doughnut-making couple how much I just loved their blueberry doughnuts.  

Kathryn had the special treat of getting to go see High School Musical: The Ice Tour on Saturday morning with friends of ours.  She was thrilled and loved every moment of it from what I have heard.  Jerry was able to sleep in since I had all the kids in the basement.  So despite the craziness of it all, everyone had a great Saturday morning!

The Nutcracker

Friday night Kathryn and I went to see a local production of The Nutcracker.  There were eight of us that went, just three moms with their daughters.  It was so cute and fun. I remember my mom taking me as a little girl.  I don't actually remember liking the ballet when I was little.  However, it was such a treat to watch Kathryn watch the ballet.  At one point during the second act, she leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I'm in heaven."  Priceless!  She just loved it.  I was never really a girly girl, but God has blessed me with a very girly girl, and she is just so fun.  Jerry's mom made matching shawls for Kathryn, Bridget and me. So when Kathryn came down the hall wearing hers, I asked her if she would like us to be twins.  "That would be fabulous Mom" was her answer.  So we were twins at the ballet. 

Christmas Toys

Just like the Christmas books, we also have toys that we only bring out at Christmastime.  I think it just so cute and so fun that they have basically been playing with them non-stop since we got them out on Friday.  The tree was up when Kathryn got home, but we didn't have time to decorate the tree and I couldn't get the boxes down by myself with the wee ones running around. So instead I brought up all the Christmas toys.  It is so fun to watch their imaginations.  Santa is visiting Jesus in the stable.  Mary and a sheep are going for a ride to the Christmas village.  Jack is running around the house doing laps with the Christmas train.  

Christmas Books

Thursday my kids really wanted to put up the Christmas tree, but I just couldn't do it without Jerry's help.  Kathryn asked if we could get the Christmas books out instead.  So I brought them upstairs, and the kids spent the next hour looking at them.  It brought me so much joy to see them love the books.  This is the first year that Kathryn can really read most of them.  They were so excited.  Every Christmas each of our kids gets a new Christmas book.  We pack them with all the decorations.  I write inside the cover of each book, and they seem to really get a kick out of that.  My parents did this for me.  Kathryn and Jack love to look at my Snoopy pop-up book.  It is from 1978 and my mom wrote my name in it.  Thanks Mom for the great tradition!