I only put up a few of my (as in mine, not the boys’) ornaments this year. These have always been my favorites and made the cut:
This was the angel that topped our tree when I was growing up.
I loved Miss Piggy when I was little. At some point I’ll have to post the picture of the birthday that my grandparents gave me a Miss Piggy birthday cake. The cake was of her head and I thought they had killed her. The look on my face explains it all.
You can’t have Miss Piggy without Kermit.
I have two of these ornaments. One collar says Casey and the other says Maddie.
Pottery Barn sold a set of reindeer ornaments maybe ten years ago and I bought them all. Here’s one of them.
I don’t need to explain my love of Jayhawk basketball.
Our Christmas tree is up and the inside of our house is decorated for the holidays. I didn’t take out as many decorations as usual. I figure that less is best (or safer) this year with Luke and Mac running wild in the house.
Can you believe it? I got a picture where they are both smiling.
If any of you like to make your own calendars, I want to show you this feature that Snapfish has. I usually use a different company to make mine but then I saw how Snapfish lets you put individual pictures on specific dates. If you look below at the December page, you can see that Mac’s birthday is on the 3rd, my MIL’s is on the 5th and my dad’s is on the 18th. I really, really like this feature.
Luke’s quote of the day: “You do it again and you go in time out.”
Can you tell where he’s been a lot lately?
We’re going through this lovely stage with Luke right now, full of now’s and sassing. I’m not talking about the sweet little “Mommy, can I get down now” type phase, I’m talking about the screaming, “Mommy, you get me down NOW” phase.
The other morning he went into time out twice within 45 minutes of waking up. He had asked for a banana (when I knew he wouldn’t eat it), took one bite and wanted down. I said no, he got mad and yelled “I beat you up”. Or it may have been “I beat your butt”, which isn’t any better. Lovely. Time out #1. When he came out of time out, he still didn’t want to eat the 5 bites that I had requested and yelled “get me down NOW.” Time out #2.
He’s had a few more time outs since then but that day was definitely the worst one.
I just need to remember that this stage will pass.
I signed Kenny up for bible school this year at our church. He goes for an hour and a half, once a week. I was a little worried because his class is made up of 3-5 year olds. Kenny’s a really smart kid (and I’m not just saying that because I’m his mom) so I was a little worried that he wouldn’t learn enough with the younger kids. But then he sang us this song yesterday:
Have you guys started listening to Christmas music yet? I have even though I’m sure I’ll be Christmas music’ed out by December 1st. Here are my favorite ones:
1. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan) - Eric makes fun of me because I listen to this song year round.
2. Oh Holy Night (I don’t have a favorite version) - I just love the “fall on your knees” part.
3. Auld Lang Syne (Mairi Campbell)
4. Baby Its Cold Outside (Ella Fitzgerald and Louise Jordan)
5. Santa Baby (Eartha Kitt) – sorry, this video was the only one I could find
About 30 minutes before we had to leave to take Kenny to bible school, I asked Luke to pick up his cars that were laying around the family room. Here’s how he picked them up:
1. Look at the car in question from across the room
2. Roll across the room to pick up the one car (nevermind that there were 5 other cars in the same vicinity)
3. Stare at the car and make it fly in the air
4. Roll back across the floor to put the one car in the basket where we keep them
5. Repeat 49 more times
I swear I could feel my blood pressure rising after the 25th roll.
- Absolutely nothing (and it felt wonderful). Well, that not exactly true. I did a few loads of laundry, mailed some Christmas presents, went to a PTA meeting and of course, did yesterday’s post.
What I should have done yesterday:
- Cleaned the kitchen
- Cleaned the boys bathroom
- Dusted
- Washed our sheets
- Vacuumed
- Gone to Sam’s
I guess you know what I’ll be doing today. I’ve already cleaned the kitchen and our sheets are in the wash. 2 down, 4 to go.
My friend Brook met us in downtown Overland Park yesterday to take some fall pictures of the boys. She takes amazing pictures so when she offered to do it (for free!), I immediately said yes. She got some amazing pictures and I got to learn some of her photography tricks. Thank you Brook!
Here’s a sneak peek of some of the pictures (she still has to touch them up). You may even be seeing some of these on our Christmas card:
The Sprint Thanksgiving Day 5K is coming up. Who’s in? If we can get teams of 5 together, it’s only $18 per person if we enroll before the 12th. Go here for more info on the race.
You can leave me a note on here or on my FB page.
Runners so far -
Team #1 (team Saxton)
Me – registered
Eric – registered
Mike – registered
Anna – registered
Trey
Team #2 (team McCullough)
Amanda – registered
Jennifer – registered
Kari
Erika
Ryan
Note: Crystal is going to run too if they come to KC for Thanksgiving. She’ll just sign up the day of the race if they do.
Renee and her family is going to run too. They registered together.
When all the talk of the H1N1 virus started, I had no plans to get myself or my kids vaccinated. I knew the symptoms of H1N1 could be bad but I wasn’t sold on the safety of the actual shot.
But, then Kenny’s school district sent out a permission slip for free H1N1 shots for any kids interested. That’s when the maybe’s started going through my head but I still wasn’t convinced.
Then, it seemed like everybody and their brother was sick with the swine flu. My neighbor’s son had it so bad that now, over 2 weeks later, he’s still sick. He has missed so much school that his teacher isn’t even going to have him make up the things that he missed. At this point, Eric and I talked to our doctor and our friend, Kevin, who is also a doctor. Both recommended the shot. Eric and I talked some more and decided to get the vaccination for both of the boys. Luke got his on Saturday, after he and Eric waited in line for over 2 hours and Kenny will get his at school later in the month.
Sometimes the decisions we have to make as parents are really difficult.
This Halloween was a lot of fun because #1, I didn’t have to carve our pumpkin and #2 Luke really got it. Luke had so much fun going up to the different houses and saying yelling “trick or treat”. He and I went with Eric and Kenny almost all the way around the block and then Luke was ready to go home. Between our neighborhood, Matt Ross, trunk-or-treating at Kenny’s school and the giant pumpkin cookie cake that my parents brought over, we have way too much junk in our house.
A.J. and Amanda Mario and Princess Peach went with us to Matt Ross
Good Spider-Man (and don’t you dare try to call him Bad Spider-Man)
Kenny’s class had their Halloween party today. I’m one of the room moms so Luke and I helped out. We had an hour to dress the kids in their costumes, do a parade through all the different classrooms (since they’ll miss the actual parade this afternoon), do 2 projects and finally eat some yummy treats. The hour went very quickly but I think everyone had fun.
