Christmas cookies!!

Today we had a great day making some yummy cookies. I let the kids do ALL the work this year and they even did the clean up!! without being asked!! It was really fun to just sit back and watch those three little creative minds work!! The cookies came out perfect and the kids cant wait to leave some out for Santa on Christmas Eve!!

Counting down...

(The picture is Christmas 2004)






*made my food shopping list and clipped my coupons to use

*mailed the Cards

*finished my shopping

*wrapped the gifts

*got everything done for the kids and school (now we are on break)

*cleaned out some "old" toys and gave them away

*over watered the tree and had water spill EVERYWHERE!! (no worries, fixed it)

*made some yummy peanut brittle (first time trying)

*took the kids to see Santa and sent out the letters the "real Santa"

*did all the laundry and cleaned the house

*charged up the video camera and put new batteries in the camera

*made reindeer food



Now we just wait.....wait and then stall on the day Christmas is actually here! I wish I could just make it slow down a bit!

"Jesus's Mother"

Last week Emily was in her Christmas program at Preschool and she was MARY!! She was thrilled and excited, practiced all the songs they were to sing and knew every word to all of them!! She was really excited about the boy who was going to play Joseph because "he was a really nice boy" and she made him "Crack up"!! She said she did not want to hold the baby, but she did a great job!
She kept slouching in her chair, playing with her costume and pointing at me to come and get her...no singing was done, or very little! A PERFECT preschool play!! We all loved it and my mouth hurt from smiling so much!!

Oh Christmas tree...

So this year we got a REAL tree!! We haven't had one since Jacob was a baby. We were so excited as were the kids to go and pick out the perfect one! We were going to head into the mountains but decided to save the gas money and stay close to home. We went to this place just down the road a bit that has a HUGE snowman in front of it. The first year we moved to Kernersville, I can remember Emily hating to be in her car seat and crying like crazy until....we would pass the snowman! It is still a great delight for the kids to see it every Christmas so naturally it was the place of choice for them to pick the tree! It was cold, but not that bad and we walked around the tree lot about 100 times before deciding on the right one. Now to wrap all the gifts and get them under the tree!!

Gobble Gobble...

We had a super fun weekend at home for Thanksgiving. Pete, Lisa and the boys came from Ohio and Mom and Brad were here also. We just hung out mostly, me and Lisa of course did some shopping and we took all the kids to the zoo!
Here are some pictures!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We are waiting the arrival of Pete and Lisa and the boys!! They are coming from Ohio and will be here until Sunday so we are Very excited!!
Right now John has the kids at the movies so I can get a few things done for Thursday and so he can have some fun with his little ones!!

We know that we have a TON to be Thankful for this year and hope that you do as well, enjoy your time with your Family!!

Let it snow!!

This morning we were awaken by the phone ringing to tell us the kids had a two hour delay for school...to this the kids jumped up and looked out the window...SNOW!!!!!!!
We did not know that snow was even in the forecast so we were very surprised and excited!!!
The kids were out playing at 7:15! Look at the second picture, so bright orange from the sun shining on the pretty fall leaves still hanging leaves on the tree!!

* I was super excited to wake up Emily and tell her (She slept past the phone call). She has been asking to move to PA everyday because she is convinced they will have TONS of snow! She insists we move there before "winter time"!
So...I woke her up and told her that winter had brought her an early present and she should look outside. She jumped up, looked outside and yelled "SNOW"!!!!!

"Is it Christmas?" NO HONEY NOT YET...
"Did Daniel bring this snow for me?" NO HONEY, ITS JUST A EARLY PRESENT FROM WINTER TIME!

What a wonderful early gift!

(Daniel is Emily's cousin whom she loves beyond words and I think she thinks that he has snow everyday too!)

Katelyn and Jacob spent the morning before school sliding snow shovels around the yard and filling up a cooler with snow! Emily later saved the cooler from the sun when the kids were at school and emptied it into our freezer!! HA!HA!