Funfilled Christmas Weekend

Austin went on his first field trip this past Friday.  He was really mostly excited about riding a bus.  

He's always wanted to ride a bus.

They went to the mall take a picture with Santa and to make Pretzels at Aunt Annie's Pretzels.

He is such an awesome fake smiler!!

They took a group class picture.

Then he got his turn!  He asked Santa for Iron Man Lego set.  

Did you know that the Iron Man Lego set is sold out at all of our local Walmarts, Target, and Toys R Us?  And it is also sold out online at all of those places???  

Thank goodness that Santa checked Amazon because they happened to have 3 left!!  

Making a pretzel

He said he was making a snake.

And twist it like so....

Tadaaaa!!  

The most beautifully symmetrical pretzel ever!!!

Saturday morning my mom picked up the big kids and took them back to the mall to buy Christmas gifts for the Angel Tree.  They each chose a child and helped my mom pick out stuff they would like to donate.  

Of course they each got a little something too thanks to a Nana who likes to spoil them!

After the donations and lunch they saw the movie Rise of the Guardians in 3D.  

They loved it!!

Then to round out the fun weekend, Abigail was invited to a birthday party at an indoor swim arena.  Her BFF Elizabeth was there too and they had a blast!!

I love weekends like this, except for how fast they fly by!!

Crazy Town

This is the story of my visit to Crazy Town.

If you read my previous post, then you know I stayed home from work with my sick baby on Wednesday.  I know all the teachers out there reading this will agree that it is a pain in the behind to miss school.  

Every time I am out for the day, I come back to a room that is a mess, a list of names of kids who acted a fool, and something is not working.

So I shouldn't have been surprised when I got to work Thursday morning, already agitated by MY fighting children, and my desktop computer would not come on.

I did everything I could think of and nothing worked.  

At this point I can feel my face turning red and my heart beating fast and I am just getting angrier by the second.  

I rush to my coworkers room and ask her what she thinks it could be and she proceeds to tell me that the lights went out yesterday during school.  

So then I get even more mad thinking about the hundreds of student computers in the school and my desktop is the only one that ends up fried.  

I text Brent and use a few choice words.  I'm ranting and raving to my coworkers who were probably thinking I had just bought my one way ticket on the crazy train.  

I mean really, who gets this upset over a computer that wont work.  

I know it's stupid.

I get mad about the dumbest things. 

We could get in a car wreck, or have to pay some huge unexpected bill that we can't afford and I'll be cool as  cucumber.  

Then I'll lose my keys, can't find my phone, or something won't work and you would think the world was coming to an end. 

I can't explain it, but I am very thankful for the people who put up with it.

This is something I really need to work on and I think I'm getting slightly better.  This type of thing used to happen very often with me and now it's probably once every couple of months.  

Well now y'all know I'm kookoo!!

Update:  I typed this post up last Friday and then Sunday morning I had another crazy town trip when my 16 month old woke up at 4 in the morning and was crying non stop for seemingly no reason.  

So much for once every couple of months.  

The Flu

Tuesday morning Jackson woke up from a terrible nights sleep with a fever.  He probably woke up every hour throughout the night, so I knew something was up.  Brent volunteered to stay home and take him to the doctor.  

I just knew he would have a virus, or an ear infection, but was totally shocked to hear he had the flu.  

None of us have ever had the flu before.  

I had the flu shot last month and both of the older kids had the flu mist.  

I took off Wednesday to stay home with him, but it really wasn't all that necessary. 

It must be a very mild strain of flu, though because he has been very happy.  He only ran a temp once, he has constant green gunk coming from his nose, and is often coughing, but other than that he's in a pretty good mood.  

He's been grumpier on a healthy day just for no reason.  

I had fun hanging with my little man all day.

What our counter looks like right now!!

I must say he has really handled this like a super hero.   

He even wore his captain America costume around for little while.  

Love my little guy!!  

Christmas Parties

 

 We went to my Dad's company Christmas parties this Saturday.

In the morning they have the family party for kids to sit on Santa's lap and get a bag of toys.

 Jack would not sit on Santa's lap!  

He had fun waiting in line and being silly.

This picture is soooo blurry, but I couldn't resist sharing it.

He is such a stinker!!

Abigail and Austin were so good and patient as we waiting to see Santa.

Jackson did not really care to stay in line.

 

That evening the kids spent the night with Brent's mom and we went to the adult Christmas party!

We had a blast!

 

Can't wait to go again next year.

Yay for Christmas!!

broken ornaments

Jackson has only broken one ornament so far, but he's come very close to breaking several others. 

I knew this Christmas would be difficult for him.  He's only 15 months old, and so a Christmas tree looks like a huge tree full of shiny new toys.  

We even took extra precautions and put the tree and decorations up while he was in bed, so he wouldn't see us handling things.  

That didn't seem to work.

What's really frustrating is that he doesn't lay a finger on any of my mom's two Christmas trees!!!

Actually that shouldn't surprise me.  He is always more obedient and happier at Nana's house.  

I think that he thinks Nana's house is where he really lives, and that our house is the babysitters.

Anyway, hopefully that one ornament will be the only broken one this year.  Luckily it had no sentimental value, just a shiny red ball ornament.  He probably thought it was literally a ball and chucked it across the room.  I didn't see it, I only heard it shatter from the other room.  

I sort of remember having to deal with grabby baby hands with my other two kiddos, but Jackson is so much more destructive than they ever were.  

Hopefully our Christmas decor will survive this Christmas!! 

Enjoy the pics!!

 Don't let that innocent face fool you!!

 Grabby hands

 Family Tree

 Abigail's tree in her room.

Austin's tree in his room.

I stopped blogging for 19 days

Can you believe that?  

I haven't posted since November 10th.  

It's taking every ounce of energy I have to blog right now.  I don't know why.

I think it's like anything, the longer you go without something the less you want it.

I KNOW that I LOVE blogging and don't want to stop, but my heart just isn't in it right now.  

I've stayed caught up on reading all the fabulous blogs that I follow.  I just don't feel very inspired to sit down and type up a post of my own.  

I'M NOT GIVING UP!!!

This is my attempt to get back in the blogosphere.

I could post about my Thanksgiving, which was a good time, but I think we are all tired of reading those.  I'm gonna skip it and move on to now.  I'm gonna break all the rules and NOT play catch up on what I've missed.  

I think this picture is hilarious.  

He is eating noodles...like a dog.  

I don't know why, but all of a sudden he has started eating like this occasionally.  

Forget using hands, just bend over and stick your face in the food.  

It works just as good!! 

LOL!!!!

 

Thankful Day 10 & experimental cooking

It may sound simple, but I'm thankful for the food in our pantry.  Having plenty of food to eat is something I believe we all take for granted.  So many people around the world are starving and unsure of where their next meal will come from.  I think we would be surprised how many of our neighbors are in that exact situation.  So often we think that it's only the tribes in Africa, but there are starving men, women, and children in every city in America.  

I did a little experimental cooking last night and surprisingly it turned out well.  I crushed up some ritz crackers and mixed them up with a packet of ranch dressing mix.  Then I took my Tilapia, dunked them in vegetable oil and then coated them with the ranch cracker mix.  Then I baked them for about 20 minutes.  They were delicious. 

I almost forgot to take a picture of the final product, so all I have is this piece with a big chunk missing.  Brent was in the process of finishing off the last piece when I took this picture.

I'll probably be absent for a while. 

 I'm heading out of town for a couple of days for a Math conference.  

Have a Great Weekend!!