Pre-Christmas Shenanigans

Here's what our pre-Christmas fun has been like this year.


The first visit to see Santa:

Santa came to the girls' school, and I brought Parker in to have them all together.  The amazing thing this year was... there were no tears!  Hooray!

Taylor's crafty class:

Taylor's class does the best crafts.  I got to help out with some of them!

Making ornaments.

Building gingerbread houses... Parker got one, too!

Women's event at church:

We had a fun event at church, where we got to make crafts, hang out, and do a sock-swap (you stuff a pair of (new) socks with goodies.)  Lots of fun!  This is one of two little snowmen that I made.

Cookie making/decorating (and eating):

There was lots of this going on this season.

Parker's Christmas Program:

Grandmom and DeeDad came down to see his performance, too!

PJ Day and his teacher's present!

The second visit to see Santa:

Our neighbor graciously hosted a party last weekend, and invited the big man himself.  The kids were so excited.

Seeing Santa come through the door!

Santa! I know him.

Santa gave each kid a gift.  This is them waiting (somewhat) patiently to open them.

A beanie boo!

We've been good, too.

More Christmas cookies:

This half-eaten batch is from a fun cookie-making day I had with my friends Kelly and Lisa.

Taylor's KG Christmas performance:

All of the pre-K and Kindergartners.

Taylor's class.

Back in the classroom!

Sydney's holiday party:

Making an ornament.

They had a little surprise for the parents, and sang their own personalized version of "The 12 Days of Christmas".

Lucky Parker- he got to partake!

Taylor's holiday party:

1 hour later, we hit up Taylor's!

PJ and Polar Express day.

Taylor's teacher opening her gift from all of them!

The girls didn't get out of school until Wednesday, leaving only 4 days before Christmas to be on a chilled-out (no pun intended) schedule.  I'm hoping to cram some more fun Christmas crafts, Christmas baking, cooking, movie watching, coloring, play-dating, and relaxing in these next few days.

Project Complete! (FINALLY)

Oh lawd.

Remind me not to get too gung-ho about starting a painting project again.

Back in March/April, I had some lovely gray paint and a garage that had all kinds of marks on its walls.  It was calling out for a paint job.  So, you know me- I got started!  It shouldn't take me too long, right?

WRONG.

Goodness, you don't know how big a room is until you start painting it.  So, after my initial painting day, I maybe painted a couple more times before I started finding every excuse in the book not to paint.  It's too hot.  I'm too busy.  Oh, gotta go pick up the kids.

Spring turned into summer, which turned into fall, which turned almost into winter.  This is how our garage looked all this time:

It was getting to be a neighborhood joke.  Stephen teased me about it all the time.  I was trying to beg and plead and pay off people to finish it for me.

Finally, I decided to suck it up.  Stephen was going to be gone for 4 days straight, and I was going to surprise him.  I went to Home Depot, got more paint, brushes, rollers, edgers (an amazing invention my friend told me about! Thanks, Alexis!), plus new door paint and chalkboard paint.  I didn't schedule anything for 2 days straight.  I was DETERMINED.

And I did it.  14 hours later (!!), the whole garage was painted, along with the door from the garage inside the house and the backpack wall.

I was so sore, I felt like I had lifted weights for 5 hours straight.  Guess I need to hit up the gym again?  But I didn't care.  It was DONE!  Hallelujah.

Now, this is what it looks like.

Here's the door:

Before (with sample paint on it):

After:

Backpack wall before:

After:

Seriously... If I ever mention on this blog, "Oh, I think I might paint a room"... please comment to me- ARE YOU A CRAZY LADY?  NO! Seriously.  Thanks.

(S)he's baaaaack!

Our Elf on the Shelf returned at the end of November.  However, there was one big change this year... "Mr. Elf" became "Sophia".  (I tried to convince them to name her Caitlin, but it was a no-go.  Shucks.)  Sophia has been hiding in a different place each night, encouraging good behavior from the kiddos.  The best example of how she's changing their behavior went something like this:

Parker: (carrying on about something good that he did)
Taylor: (super sassy tone) "I don't caaa-aare."
Parker & Sydney: (loud gasp! Then a look towards Sophia)
Taylor: "I MEANT to say that... I'm happy for you."

heeheehee.

If only I had the control that this darn elf has. 

Anyways, our elf hasn't done anything too crazy.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  Sometimes she writes notes or, since she's now a girl, has been putting on some Barbie clothes or wearing some hair bows.

The kids get up and want to look for her first thing.  It's so much fun!

The kids woke up to a note hanging from the ceiling above the stairs, telling them to go find her.  This was their first sighting of the elf!

Taylor's birthday message from Sophia (covered up by little thank you notes from Taylor to the elf)

Sophia sent the girls (+ Parker) on a scavenger hunt after school.  

The scavenger hunt told the kids all about the season of advent and sent them around the house.

They were all really excited about it.

It led them to a present, with the instruction that Parker had to open it.

It's a... Lego advent calendar!  Yay!

Silly Sophia.

The girls are writing notes to Sophia (and sometimes she writes back!).  Taylor wrote this one on her own.  They're also coloring pictures for her.

Taylor's B-day Party

We had Taylor's birthday party last weekend, once again at Chick-fil-a!  Our experience last year was awesome.  We had a "waitress" the whole time who took care of everything- set up, orders, refills, clean up.  THIS year, we roll in about 20 minutes before the party was to start, and we see a lot of blank faces.  Party?  Yes, the one I set up a few weeks ago AND called to confirm two days ago.  That one.

Let's just say they whipped up the tables, balloons, and food rather quickly.  All with a smile on their faces like nothing was wrong!  Gotta love CFA.  I'm sure it was their "pleasure"!

Thankfully, the party went off without anymore hitches.  The ten kids that were able to come definitely had fun, running around, playing on the playground, hugging the cow, eating food and getting sugared-up.

The gang.

Parker and Peyton.

Cupcake and ice cream... oh my!

The next day, we, my parents, and my sister + fam met in the middle to have a Taylor birthday dinner!  It was lots of fun, lots of noise, and lots of cousin bonding.

Parker would kiss his cousins' cheek, and either really give a kiss, or spit on them.  You never knew what you were going to get.

Too funny!

SIX!

My sweet Taylor turned SIX last Thursday!

The night before, we celebrated as a family.  She got a cupcake, we sang to her, and she got to open her presents from us.

On her actual birthday, she woke up to a decorated room and kitchen!

Our elf is back!  More on that later.

Stephen went to eat lunch with her, and I brought donuts to their snack time in the afternoon!  They danced to some birthday song on the active board and sang to Taylor.  Then, it was time to sugar the kids up before sending them home.

That evening, Taylor wanted to go to Marcos Pizza for dinner.  The overcrowded, understaffed restaurant ended up not being ideal, as we waited over an hour for our food and didn't get home until 8:30!  Grrr!  But, all in all, Taylor had a wonderful birthday.  I pray that six is going to be a year with lots of growth, knowledge, friendships, and fun!