Happy New Year!

Happy New Year. We've just returned home from a night with friends. We watched the ball drop in New York City. Wow, what a crowd! It's amazing seeing all those people there. Can you imagine all the paper that needs to be cleaned up? Hope your new year is great.

President Ford

Cheri and I went to the Ford museum today to sign the condolence book for President Ford. It was kind of a neat moment. We figured that it was a historical moment that could probably never happen again. Unfortunately, we forgot to bring a camera. We could have kicked ourselves! We didn't really have to wait all that long to get in to sign either. There were a lot of people there with their kids to sign too. We walked on down the path to see where the burial plot was also. It's really a nice area that I never really knew was there. I don't know if I will be heading there next week during the funeral because I'm sure it will be extremely busy. If anybody else gets a chance, I'd say to head down there. Yes, there will be a wait these next few days, but I'm sure you will not get the opportunity again.

Christmas

I don't have my pictures ready to post yet - yes I am slow getting these done. We spent Christmas Eve day at church and then with Dave's family. At night, we always open our own family's gifts. We start off by reading the Christmas story from Luke 2 and then light a candle on our birthday cake for Jesus. Shaelyn was pretty excited by most of her gifts. She would open them and say, "Wow" and then, "what is it?" Katelyn and Chelsea received digital cameras so they were busy trying to figure them out. We got to bed pretty late and knew this would cause problems for the morning. Chelsea and I had to be up by 7:00 to get to church to play in the orchestra. So lucky Dave and Katelyn got to work with Shaelyn who was tired from last night. But they all made it there. We had an excellent church service. For dinner, we went to Dad's house. Mostly, we hung around throughout the day, enjoying pool and other games. We took the Christmas tree down at night, much to Shaelyn's disappointment but I was ready for it. Now, we get to enjoy a little vacation and hopefully some rest. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too.

Christmas party

We had a family Christmas party last night. What a lot of fun. Next time, I'll hopefully have some pictures to post. We knew this would be full of laughs because there was going to be a lot of practical jokes going on. First of all, Laura has this thing against opposums. Cheri had her name for a gift so it worked out perfectly. She found an opposum skin on ebay. She stuffed it and put eyes into it. Then she put it in a box filled with styrofoam peanuts so Laura had to dig for it. She dug and felt something furry. She didn't suspect anything because Cheri had her name. She eventually found the opposum. This was revenge for when we went to the Shack and Laura and Aaron put a dead squirrel on Cheri's van. Then it was time for Santa letters. First, I undeservedly received one about talking too much and then Dave received a shock collar to put on me when I wouldn't leave people alone. Lastly, Cheri received a letter from Santa. This, I may add, was very appropriate. It was all about teaching her to be kind to others that she may meet. I only hope she will learn a lesson and be able to be put on the "nice" list next year. We had a great time, despite Mari getting sick. After Christmas, I'll be able to put up pictures and post about our remaining holiday fun. Merry Christmas all.

Does anyone have a bed?

Here's how Katelyn found Shaelyn sleeping last night. Now you tell me how it can be comfortable enough to fall asleep in a laundry basket! I took that basket out of her room yesterday because she was playing with it. Apparently, she took it back in last night without me realizing it and decided to make a bed in it. Dave ended up moving her into her own bed later. What a goofy kid!

Shaelyn's preschool program

Shaelyn had her preschool christmas program today. This also was very cute. They sang about 8 songs and said a memory verse. Here they were singing, This little light of Mine" while holding their candles. She thought that was pretty cool. They ended with "we wish you a merry christmas". Then we headed into the other room for cookies and pop. Usually for snack, they have fruit or something healthy but today they were allowed sweets because they were being sent home with us. :)

Here she is with Grandpa in her room afterwards. He was able to skip out of bowling early to come and watch her program. She sure loved it that Grandpa came. Now she's ready for Christmas break. The true question is ,"am I?"

Shaelyn's Christmas program

Shaelyn had her Christmas program at church last night. She was in the cherub choir. This is for 3-5 year olds. They sang Away in a Manger and Glory to God in the Highest. After the singing, they recited Isaiah 9:6. It was a very nice program and she sang great. I thought she looked adorable.

Christmas candy

Today was the day we decided to make Christmas candy. Here's the girls with everything we made. Chelsea made puppy chow, tiger butter and peanut butter balls. (we still have to add the chocolate to them)
Shaelyn made pretzels with kisses and M& Ms all by herself (Well, I heated the kisses for her) and we both made popcorn balls.
Katelyn worked on white chocolate mix, a toffee cereal mix and pretzels with chocolate. I did the chocolate and vanilla fudge and sugared peanuts. Tomorrow we will be decorating our Christmas cookies. On Thursday, we're going to make a mint candy, peanut brittle and chocolate truffles. It's a lot of work but it's really fun to do together.

She's special

Shaelyn was chosen to be special person of the week for this week. Wow, what a big deal. She needed to cut out her favorite foods and glue them onto a plate. Then she had to have pictures of her family and pets. Well needless to say, we didn't have a family picture so I quick snapped one of us all Sunday night before we went to church. Then Monday morning I took some of the cats and Lexi. I had to go get them developed and of course there was a line. For my few pictures it would be and hour and a half wait because people had orders of over 100 before me. So I had to go back at night to pick them up. Then we had to find things that start with J because J was letter of the week and the "J" box needed to be filled. I had a felt "Joseph" and baby Jesus. For some reason she kept wanting to call them Moses. So I tossed out the Joseph and hoped she would remember "Jesus" She went to school quite excited this week with all her little goodies. She had fun so I guess it all was worth it.

The race is on

This is one of Shaelyn's favorite things to do with Chelsea. It's racing. They've been doing this since she learned to walk. They run up and down the hallway. Chelsea has to make extra laps because she's bigger. Now Shaelyn is starting to do this same game with Todd - my daycare boy. Except when she's with him, she has to make the extra laps. She doesn't care though because she's bigger. Ready - set- go!

Christmas cookies

Cheri and I made Christmas cookies yesterday. We tried a few different recipes. Cheri wasn't real happy with the way they turned out but I thought they would be okay. We tried some that you tie into knots and then frost. They weren't the favorites but were okay. Then we were going to do stars that you connect 2 together to make 3 dimensional. Well, they broke when we tried to put them together but found out later that they would work if we let them totally cool down. They look pretty neat when assembled. Last, we made cutout cookies. She had found a different recipe. She was totally bummed when they came out of the oven because they were somewhat cakelike (soft) but when she decorated them later, she found out that they tasted fine. So at least we've got them done but I guess from now on we'll just go with the old tried and true recipes!

It's snow fun

Here are Halle and Shaelyn playing out in the snow. Cheri and I spent the day making Christmas cookies and they wanted to go out. We were up for a little quiet so out they went. They look so stinking cute when they are working together. They were up on the slide trying to get that sled to cooperate and positioned. Grandpa would have loved to watch them manuever. The next time we looked, they were climbing a hill they shouldn't have been, trying to rescue a dead pumpkin. When they came in, their clothes were soaked - literally, we could about squeeze water out of them. We questioned them about the creek, but they didn't confess to any creek action. And I know they would tell us if they were in it! Oh well, coats will dry and they had a lot of fun.

It's back!

After a long weekend with my Webkinz being down, I was finally able to get back on today. For those of you who don't know what this is - let me explain. You buy a special stuffed animal at the store with at code. You go online to their website and put your code in. Then you get to take care of this interactive online pet. You can go play games to buy clothes, rooms and decorations for your pet. You can also go to the tournament area and play games against fellow webkinians. It is for kids but adults can also have fun with this. You don't know until you try! This was rated as one of the top 10 Christmas gifts this year!!! For some reason, they were working on the website this weekend and I was not able to do any activities all weekend long. I was having webkinz withdrawal. :( Now I am feeling better and was able to make some money again today. Hopefully, it will stay up and running now that there is going to be many more kids learning about this wonderful game. Gotta go now and feed my Fluffy a goo goo berry!

Christmas party blues

Well, I am more than a little bummed out. The Christmas party we were supposed to have tonight has been cancelled. They cancelled it before 10:00 this morning. I think they should have waited. This is always the first party of the season and the kids always look forward to it. We get to see everyone and visit again and the kids also get a present. I was just on the roads and there is snow but I thought they were drivable. You just have to take it easy. We did get a snow day so that was nice to be able to sleep in a little (although with my youngest child, I was not able to get much sleep) but that's a story all on its own! We did get her room cleaned after a long drawn out battle this morning. So we'll hope the rest of the day goes better. Enjoy your snowy day and if I may mention - I believe I predicted this weather yesterday. I hate to say I'm always right BUT......