Belated Christmas Gift

Eric surprised me with a slightly belated Christmas gift this year...he bought me a mini-van! I'm so excited about it! It is very nice, and it is my favorite color: forest green! We have been talking about doing this for a while, but we didn't think it was a necessary purchase until just recently. We found out that Eric is going to be working a lot of crazy hours because he will be covering for his co-workers who are having to take three weeks off this upcoming quarter. Crazy hours are hard for planning activities such as piano practice, church, Master Club, Kids' Club, swim lessons, etc. Now, we don't have to wait for Eric to get home from work to be able to go to all of those activities! I'm looking forward to Library trips, Zoo trips, Museum trips, and other field trips to enrich our education! Also, the kids are relieved to not be squished like sardines anymore in the backseat of our Taurus! ;-)

Love the gifts!

The kids had fun opening their gifts, as you can tell from the pics! Thanks to all of the grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, and other family members that made it such a special and fun time!

The Reason

We just celebrated Christmas, and we tried to keep the true meaning of the Holiday (holy day) at the forefront of our minds. We read about the first Christmas in the Bible and also in our favorite "Family Time Bible Stories" book. With all the hustle and bustle, it is still important to us that we pass down to our children the fact that God has given us the greatest gift of all: Salvation through Jesus Christ!

Family Birthday Party

Today we had the family birthday party for Becca and Sam! We invited Eric's Dad, Karma, Ryan, Julie, Lance, and Liam. We all enjoyed watching Becca and Sam open their gifts, and then we really enjoyed watching Sam eat his very first frosted birthday cupcake!

Christmas Dresses

Here are the girls wearing the Christmas dresses that their grandparents from Texas bought for them! Aren't they cute? They both had Christmas parties in their Sunday School classes today. They brought home a lot of neat little Christmas crafts and goodies! Christy told me that she wants to make thank-you cards for her Sunday School teachers because they gave her so many neat little gifts. I'm glad that my children are thankful and thoughtful.

Last Day

Today is our last "official" day of school until January! This morning, I was thinking about all of the free time I'll have with no school to plan, prepare, or present. Then I started thinking of Christmas crafts we could do, cookies we could bake, decorating that could be done, gifts that need to be wrapped, a big family birthday party to plan for Monday, a big family Christmas party to plan for Wednesday, all of the church activities that that need to be attended, etc., etc., etc. Then, a very needy (and smelly) 1-year-old started tugging on my leg to remind me that free time is really just a figment of my imagination. But, to be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way! ;-)

The Birthday Sam

Today is Sam's first birthday, and even though we aren't really going to have a party for him until the 22nd, we let him open some of his gifts. He really enjoyed the building blocks from his Grandma and Grandpa in Texas, the cute cars from Grandma and Grandpa in Oregon, and the shape sorting snail from his Aunt Allie and Uncle David in Texas! He is still playing with all of his new toys, and I'm glad that he has something else fun to do rather than push the "power" button on my computer! ;-)

The Birthday Shout!

I meant to include this picture yesterday, but I ran out of blogging time. We did let Becca open a few of her presents, and she was pretty excited about them, as you can tell from the picture:

The Birthday Pout

Today, Becca officially turned six years old! But we have told her that she can't open ALL of her presents yet. She still has a friend party and a family party to go to where she will open most of her gifts. Here is what she looked like when we told her the discouraging news:



She did cheer up, however, after she found out what a few of her presents were! Also, today we made the day special and let her wear her pajamas all day, let her eat some special treats that she doesn't usually get, and we kept school "light" instead of our usual schedule. She got to watch the new movie that her Aunt Allie bought for her, and she had plenty of time to play with the few gifts that we did let her open. It's hard to save the really good gifts, but we still have Christmas coming up!

A Long Reach

While I was preparing dinner this evening, I gave Sam some warmed-up veggies to munch on to keep him happy. I placed the container on the table, thinking it was out of Sam's reach, and gave him a spoonful of the veggies. I went to finish cooking, and when I turned around, I discovered that he had managed to reach the whole container of veggies! He thought it was great fun! So much for that side dish for the rest of the family...

PB & G

We had some fun this morning re-creating an 1800's type farmstead with Pretzels for the logs, Peanut Butter for the "chinking", and Graham crackers for the roofs! Originally, we had planned on only making a one-room cabin replica of Abraham Lincoln's birthplace, but the creation grew to include an out-building and pens for the animals. It was messy, but the kids loved it! Eric really makes it fun, and I'm glad he is home on Saturdays and Sundays to help with hands-on projects that enrich our unit studies of History and Science.