Yay for Grandma & Grandpa!

For Christmas we got an extra-special gift -- Grandma M'Jean & Grandpa Gary!
Originally scheduled to get here a couple days before Christmas, they ended up hitting a freak BLIZZARD driving through Texas - of all places!
[To get the full story, you'll have to ask them. It was an insanely crazy adventure involving cars, trucks & semi-s littering the side of the road, an un-planned but required stop overnight in New Mexico, record-setting snowfall in Texas, several-hour periods of time at a dead stand-still on the road, almost getting blocked in at the Post Office where cots had been set up to accommodate stranded travelers, a little bit of luck and a whole lot of mad driving skills to be the only car to make it to the metroplex that night!]

Anyway, they made it here in time to get maybe an hour of sleep before being bombarded by the kids for Christmas morning. Ha!Ha! Merry Christmas! But they were great sports, and we LOVED having them here! We also got to have Nick, Lexye and their kids here, so the house was full and we couldn't have been happier. We spent some great time eating, opening gifts, eating, playing with gifts, eating, talking, and a little bit of eating. (Shout-out to Gommy for the AMAZING cookies she sent! H.O.L.Y.C.O.W. I don't know how many variety of cookies were in the bucket -easily a dozen. It must have taken her a straight week of doing nothing else! And yet they were consumed in less than a day! Yummy! Thanks again Gommy!)

Sadly, their time wasn't nearly long enough and soon they had to go. But not before participating in Andrea's "game night," complete with pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey (see below) -- Mom, you really were a good sport!




The kids LOVED their time with you!




It really felt like Christmas with such a full house!




They even did dishes! Hooray!




It was sooooo fun to see you! Thanks for braving the weather!
Love you!

Christmas Eve

The stockings were hung o'er the chimney with care...



as well as the wall, to accommodate everyone there.

Merry Christmas, friend!

Oh, you didn't receive yours? Hmm, maybe that's because after baking all day long some freak snow/ice storm deterred any chance of delivering them.
Lame.

Lacie-ism

Jenny: "Lacie, are you being nice so that Santa will bring you presents?"
Lacie: "No. I'm on the naughty list."

Fun with Santa

The girls were absolutely thrilled to meet the big man himself.
For Lacie's Birthday trip we looked up fun events to do and found a Baptist church hosting a breakfast with Santa. I thought Andrea was going to just die with anticipation. I guess that was to be expected, since I'd been hanging the threat/reward that is Santa over their heads since, oh, October?
I love that guy.

Princess for a Day

Happy Birthday Lacie!!



Our little princess turned 4 today and dressed accordingly!



We took a mini family trip and the girls were thrilled to stay in a hotel. Andrea was also more than willing to "help" Lacie open her presents.



Oh yeah, no jealousy going on here! Oddly enough, the item most fought over was the box... Really. I'm not even joking.



Mark, caught with his mouth full.



Hyrum dominated the remote control. All night.



The poor, sad cake makes its final appearance.

The Unfortunate Incident

You'd think we'd learn.



Never leave a cake out unattended.


Although, dress it up with candles and a princess and kids'll still eat it!

A Note to the Teacher

Dear Ms. Newton,

we have torn the house apart trying to find Andrea's folder, but it is nowhere to be found. I have sent a new folder as a replacement.

Andrea is completely overwhelmed and distressed over this tragedy.

And though I have assured her that the doom and destruction of the world is not imminent and that she should go to school regardless, if I should be wrong and the world comes to pieces I do so apologize.

Sincerely,

Andrea's concerned parent

Happy Thanksgiving!

From all the Pilgrims & Indians here in Texas, Thanks.

Days that don't go so well...

I think we've found ourselves a new budding artist.
Now if only we can find ourselves a new budding carpet cleaner.

So there, SUCKA!

Guess what telemarketers - there's a new tool to work against your obnoxious calls with your rude & aggressive behavior. It's called Caller ID. Oh yes. I can call you right back and ask to speak with you by name. Or I can talk to your manager and tell him how inappropriate you were when you screamed, "You're rude," at me and hung up because I didn't want to give you my personal information. Oh yes. I can even call all the way up the corporate ladder and tell each exec. how awful and offensive you were in your "customer service."
So you think about that next time you buy my information from some internet site and call me up insisting that I requested you to call and harass me. That's called Karma, baby!

Happy Halloween, a bit late

We had fun this year coordinating our costumes to the Wizard of Oz theme. We even had an early Halloween party where we had the opportunity to preview our attire. Unfortunately, due to bad directions we drove around for an hour and a half before we finally made it to the party -- after it was over.



One thing we did learn, though, was that poor Hyrum was so terrified of my green make-up and black wig that I couldn't wear them on Halloween or my little flying monkey would bawl just looking at me!



And he makes SUCH a cute monkey!

How should I respond

when my 5 yr old says to me,

"Mom, you ruined all my lives! I don't have any left. When you disciplined me the first time it put a crack in my first life. And then my next life after that on the next day and then the next day and the next and the next, until all my lives have been all ruined. And it's all your fault!"

?

Interesting

Ode to Andrea

We love you!!

Ten Points

...if you know who this is:




Answer? Buzz, a cyberbot from the show Cyberchase.

What does that have to do with anything? Andrea's birthday, of course!
Okay, so her birthday was back in September (19th), but I couldn't let the day go unacknowledged.
Andrea turned 5 years old (holy cow!) and received a surprise Cyberchase party. Cyberchase is her current favorite show. Its characters are stuck in a cyber-world and spend their time using math skills to defeat the evil Hacker.



As a special treat Grandma Pat came to visit! The girls spent the morning with Daddy and Grandma touring the SouthFork Ranch.









We played "Pin the wig on the Hacker."



Andrea loved her cake, loved her party, hooray! all was well!

ism

while driving along a 'lonesome' field...
Mom: "Look, Andrea, a fire truck!"
...
Andrea: "Mom! Mom! The firemen waved at me!"
Mom: "Cool, kiddo."
Andrea: "What are the firemen doing here?"
Mom: "I don't know. Driving."
Andrea: "Maybe they're helping a cow."

For a good laugh

isms

Me: "Andrea, do you know that I love you?"
Andrea: "Yes! Why do you keep saying that?!"


Me: "Lacie, come here -- I want to hug you."
Lacie: "Okay, but not too much."


Andrea: "Look! Lacie didn't fold her arms during the prayer, so I tried to make her."

Clarification

When I made that resolution to "stay on top of things" last week, it wasn't so much a promise to keep the house up, dishes clean, laundry done, & dinner ready on time as much as it was an agreement to control any urges to go out and rob a bank.

...

And with that understanding, I'm right on track. So far.

Attack!

An apology to readers who may be overwhelmed at the sheer number of posts made in the last hour.
I had a little catching up to do.

Neurotic

I freely admit I have problems. Issues. Whatever.
One is that I tend to go a little overboard on things that probably don't matter that much.
Last month's issue happened to be school shopping for Andrea.

first-time school mom + shop-a-holic + school uniforms that apparently are only sold June - August + OCD = me needing a spreadsheet to figure everything out.
And that was just to buy.

So that Andrea could "decide what to wear" I pulled up pics of each of the uniform clothes online, printed out multiple copies of each, cut them out, matched up the different outfit combination possibilities, glued them, laminated them, cut them out, and then put magnets on the back so every Sunday Andrea can pick out all her outfits for the week and put them on the magnetic calendar hanging in her closet. (see pic above)

I know. Issues.



ps. for anyone curious, there are 30 different outfit combinations not including the 2 different colored long pants allowed (since it's still way too hot to wear them); so technically a kid (girl) can go 6 weeks without repeating the exact same outfit.

First Day!

(a couple weeks late)



Andrea started pre-K on Aug. 24th. She was SOOO excited. After a year of putting on her backpack EVERY DAY and asking if I'd take her to school, the day finally came that I said, "Yes."
And like a good first-timer mom, I took a bazillion pictures, got there 45 mins early, cried, and took so long to leave that the teacher prompted Andrea to tell me that "it'd be okay; it's time to leave now."

How cool is YOUR dad?

Cool enough to randomly take you to the fire station?






Yeah, don't feel too bad for my girls that I'm whooped over their brother. Mark is obsessed with his girls.

Remember the shovels?

Seriously.

Hyrum time

LOVE LOVE LOVE this kid!



In Utah we were able to visit with my friend, Sarah (Birdsall) Huizingh. Funny enough, she has a son, Cade, who was born 12 hrs after Hyrum. Crazy, huh?

Here are the little birthday twins...





(Look how big Hyrum's noggin is in comparison! Heed!)


Really, though, this kid is an angel. Maybe he's getting extra credit simply because he doesn't have any of the difficulties that his sisters did. Don't know; don't care. I'm so whooped over this kid it doesn't really matter. Seriously - he still sleeps in our bedroom. We've even finally gotten bunkbeds for the girls so he could oust Lacie from the crib. Still can't give him up. He's way too fun to cuddle with in the mornings. Love. Love. Love.