Preschool Christmas Program

Today was Harper’s Christmas program at school. I was really looking forward to watching him sing the songs they’ve been working on and they certainly didn’t disappoint!

I recorded some video, of course, but it was a bit dark and I didn’t realize it until it was too late. He wasn’t nearly as animated as he was at Halloween, but he sure was cute! I guess he liked the Halloween songs better, who knows.

After they sang their songs we got to help him make a special Christmas craft. Since I work at the school frequently and Tony took the day off to participate, I let him do the honors of helping him with his project.

Once the project was complete, we went into the circle room for a holiday story. Then his teacher handed out a gift to each child…a new book.

Harper asked me to read it the moment he had it open, but it was time to head into the snack area for some goodies. After eating it was time to go. I just love his school and the simplicity of these family events. I love getting to be so involved and I love seeing Harper flourish there. (I only wish we’d have been allowed to bring Dakota! She was with Mema though so she was fine.)

The Stockings Were Hung…

I’ve been wanting new stockings for years now. We had some cute one’s but I wanted some that went together, one for each family member. Well, I guess I’d voiced that aloud to my mom a few times and she decided to make me some!

I am absolutely thrilled with the adorable stockings that she made! It’s funny how well she captured each of our personalities in each one. As soon as she had them pulled out of the box, I immediately knew who’d be getting each one. I told her and then I thought I’d see what Tony thought. Oddly enough, he chose the same exact stockings for the same exact people. It was weird. Then, just to really test the waters, I had Zoe and Landon try. They got close but they didn’t make the same exact picks as Tony and I. (The letter pinned on each one is a first initial for each of us, but she didn’t have those pinned on, I got to choose who got what.)

Here they are, youngest to oldest:

Dakota

Harper

Landon

Zoe

Me

Tony

Aren’t they just awesome! I love all the details on each one, and the colors are terrific.

Thank you so much, Mom! I just love them!

A List of Reasons Why My Blog Sucks Right Now

Ten reasons I’m not blogging regularly or nearly at all:

1. I’m working on a couple super secret Christmas gifts.
2. I’m trying to make my December Daily album. I was going to skip it, but I know I’d regret it.
3. I’ve been prepping for a background check audit at Harper’s preschool.
4. I’ve been doing some Christmas shopping, online and off.
5. Dakota’s nap has gone down from a solid 2 hours to about an hour and 15 minutes. While she’s sleeping, Harper wants my undivided attention and I feel like I owe him that time.
6. My house is a wreck and we’ve got people coming to visit in the very near future.
7. I’m tired.
8. I keep zoning out and playing ridiculous games on my iPad/computer.
9. Life is so busy I keep forgetting to take pictures of things and I hate to blog without a picture here and there.
10. I’m uninspired to write even though I know I’ll seriously regret not capturing what’s going on at one of the most exciting times of year.

I need a kick in the pants as well as a chef, nanny, housekeeper and tutor for Landon. Bear with me as I have a mental breakdown.

Zoe’s 20th

So, yeah, I never did get to around to posting about Zoe’s birthday…

Well, we were barely home and unpacked, but there was celebrating to do. Harper wasn’t quite well on Sunday morning but after a few more tummy troubles, things started getting better. By mid afternoon he was eating the house down (no food in the tummy will do that to ya) and by 2pm he was back to playing around like he’d never been sick. Thank goodness!

So, with him being back in the swing, we decided to go ahead with our plans. Zoe wanted to go to Fuji Steakhouse for dinner, a Japanese hibachi place, but I asked her if we could try another place just like it, Kodo. I had eaten at Kodo with a few friends and really liked it. It’s much quieter than Fuji and the food is just as good if not better. We were the only people there that night with the exception of one guy at the bar and a few people picking up take out. We had a good time and the food was great.

After dinner, we headed back to our house for cake and presents. I picked up a tuxedo cake at Costco earlier that morning and let me tell you, it was delicious!

Of course when it came to singing Happy Birthday, Dakota HAD to be right with the birthday girl! There is nothing Dakota loves more than a “hap birt-day”! She loves to hear us all sing it and help blow out the candles and open the gifts. Lucky for her Zoe is old enough that she doesn’t mind the help! :)

After singing happy birthday and eating cake, it was on to the gifts. I thought I’d get her some Christmas decorations for her apartment, so that’s what she got from us this year. She got some moola from Mema and Meme and Papa got her some cute mugs and coffee’s. It wasn’t a ton, but a pretty good haul for a 20 year old!

Zoe and Brandon headed home after the cake and presents since it was back to real life for all of us the next day. I’m so glad we got to celebrate her big day with her even if it did seem a bit harried. Just as long as she knows how much we love her, it’s all good.

Heading Home

Thanksgiving Day was so much fun that I wish it had lasted a bit longer. We aren’t big black Friday shoppers so we didn’t get up early to hit stores, but my mom did offer to keep the kids while we went shopping for a bit, so Tony and I went. We hadn’t planned to buy much but we ended up finishing up for the two youngest, which is really nice! Now we’ve just got to get Landon done and Zoe a few things as well.

When he and I got back mom, Tish and I jumped right back in the car and headed to Carolina Pottery! I couldn’t quit thinking about these two adorable snowmen that I wanted so I just had to go back and get them!

Once we were home for the night, we spent our time packing and gathering up a weeks worth of stuff. Making sure 7 people get out the door with everything they came with is a huge task!

We were up bright and early Saturday morning to start our journey home. We stopped for breakfast at Burger King (instead of McD’s or Dunkin for a change) and it was there that Harper started complaining of a tummy ache. He wasn’t acting too out of it though so I wasn’t too worried. Turns out I should have been because the next 10 hours in the car were terrible for him (and me!)! He vomited the entire way home. What a fiasco! I certainly wasn’t prepared for a sick kid in the car and we ended up having to pull over several times for clean up and supplies. I bought a box of trash bags and made sure to have one open and on my lap for the entire ride home. That poor guy was just miserable.

Luckily, the virus was fairly short lived. He woke up Sunday morning still feeling ill, and he finished emptying his belly and then it was all up hill from there. He felt much better and it was perfect timing because we wanted to take Zoe out to celebrate her 20th birthday!

I don’t want to write about Zoe’s birthday on the same page as the one about Harper puking though, so that’ll (hopefully) be tomorrow nights entry!

Thanksgiving Games

Here are some of the game videos from Thanksgiving! We had such a great time with these and I can’t wait to find some new ones for next year!

My favorites were cookie face and chubby bunny. It was so fun watching everyone play these silly games and have such a good time! I’m lucky to have such silly people in my life!

Thanksgiving 2014, Part 1

I haven’t blogged in so long I don’t even know where to begin. I guess when things get too busy the first to suffer is the ol’ blog!

We traveled to South Carolina for Thanksgiving as we always do. It was a great trip but man was it fast. The drive down was uneventful which was terrific and we only stopped once the entire way down. We had our traditional Cracker Barrel lunch, got gas and were back on the road in no time. We made it to my parent’s house well before dinner which was nice because that left lots of time to unpack and unwind.

The week went by as it usually does. We went shopping at our favorite store, Carolina Pottery, the kids and Papa went to the movies, we watched the kids play with the dogs and came up with a million and one ways to keep them occupied. We laughed and stayed up late watching TV and talking about life. Just regular stuff that most people do.

On Wednesday my family got up and went to get our Christmas pictures made. That was a total disaster. Dakota cried the entire time. And when I say cry, I mean loudly and earnestly. The. Entire. Time. So, all of our pictures look kind of crazy, like we’re all smiling (or gritting our teeth) with this bawling child in the middle. Even Harper asked her to knock it off! The picture I chose to use as our Christmas card is okay, but Dakota has a look on her face that lets you know exactly how pissed she is. And Harper is doing something with his sweater. And, I’m pretty sure the rest of us are holding out breath and/or gritting our teeth. But, it’s done and that’s that. We did get some good shots out of the process, but I did notice upon closer inspection, that Harper has a booger under his nose on his individual photo. That wasn’t something any of us saw on the screen when we went through the 60 jillion photos they offered us. Nope, it was only after I’d paid my big bucks and got home that I noticed that dried up booger. But, like I said, it’s done and that’s that. (I’ll leave out what a mess I was the rest of the day. It’s embarrassing how much of an ass I was the rest of that afternoon.)

Thanksgiving day was so much fun. I told everyone I wanted to get our family pics done early in the day versus after dinner this year. So, as soon as we drug Landon out of bed we went outside for pictures.

It was freezing out there though so we didn’t do as many as we usually do. We always take a few pictures on the steps in the house too so we hustled inside where it was warm to do some more pictures.

And then things got crazy…

Pick Your Nose

Pick Someone Else’s Nose

Kiss Someone You Love

*Noone knows what the hell Brandon’s kissing

Do Your Best Dakota Photo Session Impression

*Doesn’t Dakota look absolutely baffled?!

Thumbs Up!

And everyone’s favorite:

The Roller Coaster

Taking these pictures has become a favorite thing for all of us. It’s funny to look back and see how silly we are!

At the last minute I decided we should play some minute to win it games. We gathered some supplies and had the most fun! I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard! But, I have yet to load the videos to you tube so I’ll have to share that post another day! Look for it though, it’s worth it!