The Rip and Tear is Over

We had a really fun Christmas. It was just the four of us and we spent the entire day in our PJ's. We recieved lots of fun gifts. It has been our tradition for a couple of years now to exchange gifts that come from yard sales or second hand stores. We have found this to beneficial in many ways as it 1) saves us all money and 2) we can give the gifts and not feel bad if the recipient throws it away. It's been fun and I was able to be finished (mostly) with Christmas shopping by September.

This week the girls are enrolled in a clay class at the local art shop Wild at Art. I will be picking up my mom, Linda, from the Spokane airport on New Year's Eve and then drive to Libby for a few days .

I hope your holiday break is as nice and relaxing as ours has been.

Happy Birthday, Annabelle!!!

Annabelle woke up to lots of presents on her actual birthday, December 21. She recieved lots of good stuff like Littlest Pet Shop, Yoshi's Island Nintendo DS game, Rodeo Bratz, a Bratz towel and washcloth and of course the ever popular...... MONEY!!!!!


Friday evening Annabelle had her birthday/ sleepover party with 4 girls from school: Abrianna, Blayne, Chloe and Cheyenne. Josie had a friend over as well. Annabelle wanted ice cream sandwiches in lieu of a cake so Nate had to hold her "7" candle above the sandwich.

For the most part the girls all did very well. It was tough to get them to sleep and by 11 pm the "Grumpy Molly" came out. I finally couldn't take it and fell asleep. Nate says the chatting ceased around 11:45 for the younger girls and Josie and her friend, Kammi, were up until 2 am. Ouch!


Here the girls are after surviving the sleepover. Parents were asked to pick up their kids by 10. At 9:45 everyone started to fall apart. Hmmm...... sleep deprivation perhaps???

The Week Before Christmas Frenzy

I'm starting to stress out. Christmas presents were bought, most of my cards were mailed, all that was left to do was finish up sewing my daughters' PJ's and I had planned on finishing that up on Friday while the girls were in school. Then we got the call. School was cancelled due to the wind storm and power outage. Cripes! The girls are old enough that I can't just lock the door to my sewing area and hope they are clueless as to what's going on. I was a tad miffed about that but put the project on hold for today. Well........This morning I jolted out of bed when I heard the toilet lid slam and an obnoxious gurgling noise coming from one of the girls. Yep, Annabelle is out today with some stomach bug. Nooooooooooooo!!!

I have a long list of 'To Do's' before school gets out: Pay Bills, Make Cookies, Clean the House (we're anticipating Annabelle's Birthday on Thursday followed by a slumber party (8 girls total!) on Friday), mail packages, I need to throw 'have a large alchoholic beverage' in there somewhere. Haha! It is amazing how hard doing chores is when you have children under foot. Yes, I know my girls aren't toddlers but they're worse, they're tweens.

Yeah, I'm a whiner. I better get started on that list. Enjoy your week!

Battle of the Holiday Bulge

It's impossible to eat healthy this time of year. What with cookie trays being passed around, holiday parties and don't even get me started on egg nog. Actually it is possible to eat healthy but by the end of season one would probably end up on Prozac from the depression of not being able to consume all this glorious food. I speak from experience. Each day I get out my little food journal and start off with a low-fat yogurt and banana but by the end of the day it's a handful of Hershey's Kisses and a big glass of Kahlua and Cream.

It's gotten to the point that our family has taken to simulating that scene from 'The Santa Claus' where Tim Allen is tranforming into Santa and he goes to the doctor's office for a check-up. His doctor says to him "So you've gained a little weight" and Tim Allen's character grabs both sides of his growing stomach and cries "Does this look like a little weight to you?!?"

I've decided though that rather than battling it out daily I will do what I can but won't stress out too much about it. If I round out nicely like Santa then so be it. I just hope he brings me a nice pair of sweat pants for Christmas.

The Week of Christmas Pageantry

This week is our busiest as far as Christmas activities go. Sunday was the church Christmas program. Annabelle was an angel (pictured left of Mary) while Josie didn't want to be in the program and watched from the pews.


Coming to a mailbox near you! This may be our Christmas photo.


Annabelle and the First Graders sing 'Frosty the Snowman'


Josie and the Fourth Graders sing 'Christmas Tree Feud'


Nate and the girls after the Christmas program. We went home and watched Superman Returns a great movie to get you in the Christmas spirit.


Tomorrow evening is the annual United Methodist Women Christmas dinner. Each year tables are festively decorated and I chose to decorate/host a table this year. I went with an Asian theme this year as the dinner theme is Christmas Around the World. It's a great event.

So far this Holiday Season is running smoothly. I've just about 'wrapped' up all of our shopping and am looking forward to enjoying the rest of the year.

Feeding The '24' Addiction

Our family loves the TV show '24'. We're all excited for Season Five to come out on DVD next Tuesday. We became addicted to it this summer when we borrowed Seasons 1-4 from a friend. We are now on our second viewing of the series and believe that watching it on DVD is the only way to. No Commericlas!

Here's the Top 100 facts re: Jack Bauer (our family cracks up at this. It also contains swear words in which case we just skip over those) If you've seen the show you'll get it if you haven't seen the show we'd highly recommend it.