Pre-Christmas Shenanigans

Life has been a bit crazy lately... Christmas has arrived much more quickly than I could have imagined.  I'm "ready", but just don't feel like I've taken the time to enjoy the season like I normally do.

Anywho, here's some of the fun we've done in the last couple of weeks!

 Silly Taylor:

Taylor is all into "dabbing"- it was only appropriate to make her a dabbing Santa shirt. ;P

Sleeping beauty.  This makes me laugh every night.

I got to help make ornaments in Taylor's class.

Go Parker!

Found this on my desk.  Tally marks, checks, and his own attempt to spell my name! :)

Making slime in Sydney's class:

ooey gooey!

Annual cookie baking at Kelly's:

Sydney's school Christmas party:

Saran Wrap ball game

The aftermath!

Parker's class party:

Taylor's class party:

 Snow!!!

 Parker's (Sydney's friend) birthday party:

Parker's little brother ended up breaking his arm at the party on the trampolines... it was AWFUL.  I couldn't get the image of his completely broken-through-both-arm-bones out of my head for many days.  Luckily, his dad is a fire chief and is trained in all of that, and he didn't even hesitate with fixing him up and getting him to the hospital.  Whew.  It was bad.

Lunch date!

Parker's Christmas program!

Parker walked in crying.  His parapro said he was shaking walking down the hallway!

Nope.  not happening.

We are 3/3 with crying during Parker's Christmas programs!

He never made it up there... but here's his class!

Christmas fun at church!

A clashing of two of my worlds... my little boy and one of my former students!

Christmas karaoke.

I literally spent all of one rainy day doing nothing but making things on my Circuit:

Mason's and Clayton's birthday party:

 Room Mom Cookie Swap:

 I was in charge.  You were supposed to make cookies from scratch and bring your recipe.  As I was going to make my snickerdoodles (at 9:15 the night before), I realized all my baking soda was gone,  thanks to Sydney's latest obsession with making slime. ;)  Needless to say, it was a blessing I had just bought these earlier that day for Parker's class!  

Some of the goodies!  

We saw Santa!

School is now out (the kids got out 4 days before Christmas!) and I'm going to try to soak up the last few days of everything Christmas.  Here we go!

Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving break has come and gone, and it was a combination of fun and not-so-fun.  Thanksgiving Day itself was a little different this year in our household... we weren't able to travel anywhere of a great distance due to Stephen's impending back surgery (more on that later), so we had our first Thanksgiving with just... us!

Pictures can tell the story of our week!

Randomness:

I swear I had nothing to do with this!

Trying to pull her basketball shoes off.  It's a team effort!

Slime!

Sleepover

Christmas toy looking

She's baaaaack!

Parker wasn't feeling well for several days... :(

Lots of friend playing time happened this week!

Georgia Tech B-Ball game (Stephen & Taylor):

Dinner at Subway

Thanksgiving Day:

Parker had been complaining about his stomach hurting him all week, with no other symptoms (fever, etc).  I slept with him Wednesday night and he would wake up in the middle of the night, moaning out in pain.  Thursday morning, I checked the local Urgent Care and, to my surprise, found out they were open!  I made the first appointment and went in at 9.  Long story short, she found out his belly was hurting at his lower right abdomen, which is where your appendix is.  She wasn't overly concerned since he didn't have the other obvious symptoms of appendicitis (fever, vomiting, etc) but she sent us to the ER to get an x-ray to be safe.  Lots of poking and prodding and wheelchair rides and x-rays happened at the ER, but thankfully they ruled out anything bad.  Whew!

We got home to an awesome, yummy Thanksgiving meal, cooked by Stephen.  The rest of the day, we literally did nothing!  Stephen did some Black Friday shopping later in the evening at Dick's Sporting Goods, we watched lots of movies, and got to spend time with the ones I am SO thankful for.

Brunch with my high school buddies:

Jackie came in town!!!  We got to see Erica's 32 week belly!

Silly kiddos.

Dunwoody Nature Center:

I took the kids to my old stomping grounds after brunch!

Holiday Lights @ Lake Lanier:

It's (fake) snowing!

Why is it my oldest child who is always the hardest to take a picture of?

Now that Thanksgiving break is over, bring on Christmas!!  My favorite holiday!

Taylor is SEVEN!

My sweet Taylor turned 7 last week!  It's hard to believe how quickly 7 years have flown by.

It seems as if Taylor has had an extended birthday this year!  Her birthday party was a couple of weeks ago; she opened her presents the night before her birthday; and she celebrated at school and again at home the night of her actual birthday!  Lucky gal.

Here's a bit of Taylor's big birthday fun!

These next two pictures crack me up.  Parker beat her to the punch of blowing out her candles.  Look closely at the second picture.  He's such a stinker!

Success- finally!

Happy birthday to my sweet Taylor!!