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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas Wrap-Up

I can't believe Christmas is over already. It seems like it flew by this year. We had a really wonderful Christmas; we celebrated with Chuck's family on the 23rd. The boys got a ton of fun stuff there and Moosey got to show off his dance moves.
Check out this little video:


We had a quiet Christmas Eve at home, which included tracking Santa's sleigh on the NORAD site-very cool thing by the way! And then we headed to church for the candle light service.


The next morning the boys were up bright and early to see what Santa had brought them. Ever since the incident in 2004, they have to wait for an adult to go downstairs on Christmas morning. ("The Christmas incident" was the time that Bryce and Jarron went downstairs without us on Christmas morning and opened EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING, under the tree without us knowing. They were only 3 and couldn't read, so they assumed everything was for them. It was Jackson's first Christmas. He didn't get to open anything that year-neither did Chuck or I. I rewrapped the gifts for Uncle James and my parents.)
Anyway, the boys were so happy and surprised to see that Santa had brought them so many things from their lists. Jackson got his Zsu Zsu hamster, thanks to an elf that looked suspiciously like Uncle James, Bryce got his Mindflex, thanks to another elf that looked like Aunt Fawna, Jarron got his skateboarding gear (but no ramp for the backyard, Santa's got to draw a line somewhere!), and Brody got some Little People sets.


Christmas evening, my family came over and we had another round of presents. My nephew, Blaze got his very own camera for Christmas (his momma is a super talented photographer and he is following in her footsteps). So the boys spent a ton of time setting their wrestlers and other toys up in elaborate scenes for Blaze to photograph.

Okay, so the toys weren't the only props being photographed-Moosey did this on his own, he is standing in his mega blocks wagon while being pulled around-the kid has no fear!

The Saturday after Christmas, we headed down to Jackson County, Ky to see Chuck's grandmas. After a few more presents (the big boys got these cool lantern things-a big hit!), we headed to Lexington to spend the night at a hotel. A hotel with a heated pool! Woo hoo! (By the way, if you are ever in need of accomodations in the Lexington area-I highly recommend the Holiday Inn Express near the University-super nice and clean and VERY affordable!). As you can see, the boys loved the pool.


 



 

We had a really fabulous Christmas, and I am looking forward to what the new year will bring! See you next year! :)


Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Ten on Tuesday

1. Christmas is just 10 days away! I can't believe how fast the season is going by this year. I'm just about done with my shopping, just a couple of scrappy gifts to make. I'll try to post pictures of the teacher gifts this weekend-I am making them pocket planners and maybe some notecards.

2. Our digital cable box/DVR broke Friday night. So frustrated with Time Warner these days. A couple of weeks ago they just didn't show when I made an appointment to get a new line installed, and then this. The guy on the customer service line told me to take the box to the mall and I could swap it out for a new one. We lost all of the shows we'd been saving on the DVR-Chuck's Kentucky games, my brother's interview on a national show, and all of the mid-season finales from last week-so annoying. The lady at the mall wasn't very helpful either-she acted like I was bothering her when I asked for the new box-and told me it would be more convenient if I had mailed it in or had someone come out to the house. Maybe for her-but we needed that box working for Saturday's basketball game-we couldn't wait a week for a new one to be mailed or a tech to come out. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.

3. But some good came out of the whole fiasco, it forced us to go somewhere that we rarely go these days-the mall! And you know who is hanging out at the mall this month? Right?
This guy...


Surprisingly, Moose sat on his lap without any hesitation. I had to bribe Jarron to go anywhere near him (apparently, some 8 year olds are too cool for Santa). Bryce and Jackson were both willing to talk to Santa and let him know what they were hoping for (the Mindflex game and a zhu zhu pet). After a few pictures, Moose got restless and he was done, but I think we got at least one good shot.


4. We got our tree Saturday afternoon from the produce farm up the street. It's a really nice tree and we got a smokin' good deal on it-$25! Highly recommend Uncle Rog's produce stand for trees! (They also have yummy fruits and veggies in the summer.)

I have no idea way Jarron is smiling like that. This was the best picture of the bunch though. Sigh.

5. Bryce and Jarron are working on a unit in economics at school. As part of their lesson, they have a Barter Day this week. They have to make an item and bring it in to trade with the other kids in their class. I took them to Hobby Lobby to pick out the materials-the whole time all I heard was, "Can we get out here? This is a girl's store...can we at least go to the wood aisle-that's manly!" Shortest trip to a craft store ever! They each bought a wooden nutcraker to paint and decorate. Let's just say that the black paint was a popular color.


 

6. Sunday morning Bryce, Jarron, and Jackson had their Christmas cantata at church. Jackson was towards the front, so it's easiest to see him. He did a little dancing to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"-so cute. Bryce and Jarron were in the middle of the sea of kids but they both looked like they were singing. They all looked really cute in their new sweaters.

 That's Jackson in the gray sweater grinning because he saw me taking pictures from the balcony. (The poor kid in the plaid looks like he's going to burst into tears at any minute.)

 
Of the 15 pictures I took, this is the ONLY one where Jarron is facing the camera. (He's in the red sweater and collared shirt.)

 
Bryce is in the gray sweater, looking super thrilled to be on stage.

7. We decorated the tree Sunday afternoon, the boys and Chuck did most of the work, I just finished it off with some bows at the end. As you can see, the majority of the ornaments on are on the upper 1/3rd of the tree. You'll understand why when you read #8...

(Clearly, Bobbi is the photographer in this family-lighted Christmas tree pictures are hard to take!)

8. Moose loves balls-footballs, basketballs, tennis balls-LOVES them. So when he saw the ornaments we were hanging on the tree, his eyes got really big and he kept pointing to it and saying "ball!". It must be a dream come true for him-a tree with balls on it, growing right in his living room! He and Keaton have broken 3 ornaments so far. I'm thinking putting the glass ornaments up was a bad idea this year.

He looks so innocent here-like he would never, ever crush glass ornaments with his fists-ha! Looks can be deceiving!

9. I just finished the book "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoulet. It was a really hard read. It was a story similar to Columbine but told through the parents of one of the victims and the killer. I think when Columbine happened I was closer to high school than I was to having kids of my own, so I identified more with the kids and their terror. Now that I am a parent, all I could think about was how helpless it must feel. I just wanted to hug my kids and wrap them in bubble wrap when I finished the book. I just want to shield them from the ugliness of bullies and the awfulness of trying to fit in. But I can't, my job as their Mom, is to prepare them for that stuff and give them the tools they need to overcome it and succeed. Anyway, I'm not really a fan of heavy reads like this. Make fun all you want, but the cozy mysteries that I enjoy rarely keep me up at night like this book did.

10. I'm getting my hair done Monday-woo hoo! I haven't had a cut in 3 months! I'm also going a litle darker (for winter-ha!), so looking forward to it. I'm thinking little Moose is going to be getting his first haircut in the next 2 weeks. He has really adorable curls in the back when he first gets a bath but within a couple of hours it looks like a mullet.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Ten on Tuesday Returns!

1. Welcome back to Ten on Tuesday! How fun was that video of Bryce and Jarron wrestling? We've gotten a few comments from random strangers about that video on You Tube. Too funny.

2. Moosey is quite the little dancing king these days. Anytime we turn the TV to the Music Choice channels, he stops what he is doing and starts do this funny looking sumo wrestler style dance. He LOVES to dance.

3. I think we've finally made it out of the worst of the winter sickness (I hope), all of the boys had the H1N1 flu with no complications, all of us got the stomach virus thing, and 3 of us have had ear infections. I'm pretty sure we kept the companies that make amoxicillian and Lysol in business this past month.

4. We celebrated Thanksgiving with our families last week, I wasn't feeling too hot so we didn't make it to Kentucky. We celebrated with the Lakes that Saturday at our church. There's just so many of us that it made sense not to cram everyone into Chuck's parents' house. The boys had a blast, running around playing ball.


You tell em, Moose!






5. We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family that Sunday. Chuck set up our new Blu-Ray player and the kids watched Up! I won't say who, but one of the adults (not me, Chuck, or Bobbi) got a little emotional the first time he viewed this particular movie and might have shed a tear or two. Naturally, we had to make fun of this adult; you should never give this group a reason to make fun of you because we will take FULL advantage!


 


6. I won a prize! I feel kind of like the Dad on "A Christmas Story", except my prize isn't a leg lamp. I listen to Warm 98 in the car throughout the holiday season (they play Christmas music 24/7). On the morning show last week, they had a little trivia question about the Bengals (I think we all know that I'm a bit of a Bengals fan) and I entered it via email. Yesterday, as I was pulling into work, they announced my name as the winner! Yay me!  So excited, I'm picking up my prize this afternoon-a $50 gift card to Montgomery Inn and a tabletop cornhole set. Sweet! I'm also entered into the grand prize-a new recliner and a tailgate party for 10-how awesome would that be?

7. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here yesterday morning. We got our first measurable snow of the season-which promptly melted. It was pretty for an hour or so.

8. Jarron has been saving up his money for awhile now (he wanted a hot tub-hee!). This weekend he saw a basketball game like you'd see at Chuck E Cheese for $99 and decided that is what he'd spend his money on. I'll be honest for $99, I  thought it would be a small two player hoop thing-I was SO wrong. This thing is HUGE, like something you'd see at Dave & Busters. Chuck and the boys spent 3 hours putting it together last night. I have a feeling the boys will be spending hours with this thing.


Imagine this thing in your basement-not small at all!

9. So, I'm doing this couch potato to 5K training program that can be found HERE. I was totally going to ignore the whole start off at three days a week thing, and then I tried to get out of bed this morning, and I was pretty sure my legs were going to fall off. It hurts to walk, shuffle, MOVE. So yeah, I guess they knew what they were talking about with the 3 days a week thing. But I'm determined to be back out tomorrow morning. I actually really enjoyed my walk/run Monday-it was so peaceful and the snow was barely coming down-so pretty. But the pain I'm feeling now-NOT pretty. At all.

10. We're getting our tree this weekend. I wanted to go to The Big Tree Plantation in Morrow. They have real reindeers, an elaborate train set and all sorts of fun things to do. No one else in the famly wants to go. Even the boys voted against me, so I guess we'll be going to the lot up the street. I guess the fun part for the boys is just decorating the tree. (They have promised me that we can go to Festival of Lights at the zoo this year-so that sort of makes up for it).