Christmas is Around the Corner!

Boy do I love Christmas! Everything about it...the music...the decorations...the gift purchasing and wrapping...the anticipation...and the celebration of the birth of our Savior! It is almost a magical time of year...that is more special when you share it with your children. You should have seen (and heard) my sweeties as we decorated today.

Our Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas CD played in the background as we opened our tub of Christmas Tree decorations. It is tradition to unpack all of the carefully wrapped and boxed ornaments and lay them out on the table. We always have little discussions about when and where certain ornaments were purchased. Then each of us grabs our favorite ornament to place on the Christmas tree first. Sweet little B placed all of her ornaments in the same section at the bottom of the tree (she had three on one branch)! Too cute. Z and A took special care to place their ornaments just so. It was priceless. It is always so exciting to place the star on the top and then plug in the white lights. They oohed and ahhed very dramatically. Daddy quickly followed suit and set up the train! The boys brought out the train whistle and they played conductor for a while. Daddy was the hero of the afternoon. :)

Next it was time for the Nativity scenes. My wonderful husband purchased the Willow Tree Nativity scene for me a few Christmases back. I LOVE it. But my precious A made his own Nativity set last year in my classroom. It was made out of blocks and adorned with faces placed with a Sharpie pen. You should have seen the look on his face as he set this very special decoration out. He took very special care of baby Jesus as he set everything out on the table in our entryway. PERFECT! Z proudly placed the angel that he made last year on our dining table. She is just so pretty.

To finish the festive day, the kids curled up to watch Polar Express and topped it off with yummy Hot Chocolate (the special kind with a chocolate mint candy cane and marshmallows of course)! What a special day! I have the greatest job in the world!

A Wonderful Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always a wonderful time of year...yummy food...family around your table... But I just can't get over how much work it is to prepare (and clean up) when it only takes around 20 minutes to gobble up the tasty treats! :) But we do it anyway with joy in our hearts!

Since the boys were going to be with their mom for Thanksgiving this year, they wanted to be a part of our celebration. So...we worked on a little craft together to grace the center of our Thanksgiving dinner table. The following pictures will give you a little idea of the process and the outcome! They were very much a part of our Thanksgiving dinner.

Now that we have stuffed ourselves with the yummy food, we decided to ride our bikes to church this morning. We couldn't believe the amazingly warm weather on this last day of November. It is hard to believe that tomorrow will be December 1st! My husband has quite a set-up on his bike which enabled us to also stop off at the grocery store after church. We were able to fit a week's worth of groceries on his bike (except for the eggs that were carefully placed in my basket). We had to stop at grandma and grandpa's on our way home so that we could document this amazing feat! M was so proud! :)

So we now gear up for the Christmas season (my favorite)...there will be more about that in my next post!

I love it when my children get to celebrate. What is even better is celebrating with them! We had one of those weeks this last week. What fun!

It began with Elective Celebration at the Christian school where the boys are each taking a class. A participated in a class called Boogy Boot Camp. He sure did have a good time! The video above is of his dance premier on stage - it is a little on the long side, but too cute to pass up. He really enjoyed getting up there to show us what he learned. Throughout the class he would refuse to show me what he was learning...he didn't want to ruin the surprise. Z participated in a class called 4-H Sampler Platter. In this class he learned to cook (tortillas are still my favorite - we had them last night!), sew, and work with leather. In the picture he is posing with the kitty that he made during the sewing portion. Too cute!

Little B's celebration came in the way of a birthday! Yes, our little girl is 3 (or "free" according to her). :) She had a super Sesame Street birthday. So much fun and SO cute! One of her presents was to attend the Elmo Live performance coming up soon...she (and her brothers) are very excited to see Elmo and his pals on stage! She also has moved into a BIG girl bed...we were blessed to get a bedroom set from a friend. It came with everything a girl could need (and much, much more)! Her dresser is a large music box. Every drawer plays a different song! (Fortunately, mommy can turn this feature off.) :) Little B is in heaven! I had to include some pictures of her new bedroom too.

My sweet husband and I are so blessed to be surrounded by children that bring so much joy into our lives! My cup overflows...

Happy Veteran's Day!

Homeschooling offers so many opportunities for learning! On our assignment sheet this week, I wrote, "Surprise Field Trip" for today. The suspense just about KILLED them. "Please give us a hint," they would plead. I was strong and did not give in to their persistence. :)

Today at 11 a.m. we had a meeting on the carpet. We began discussing what Veteran's Day means. What is a Veteran? and many other questions. We learned that Americans used to observe a moment of silence at 11 a.m. on November 11th. Fascinating! So...we held our own moment of silence and prayed for the Veterans. We then were off to our field trip. We first stopped by my grandparent's to pick up Grandma. She wanted to go along for the ride. Next, we headed to cemetery in downtown Chico. The boys have been asking to go to the "graveyard" for quite some time. Curiosity of the unknown I guess.

We spent quite a while admiring the gravestones. Wondering about the lives of the people buried there, figuring out how old the people were when they passed away, and marvelling at the beauty of it all. The boys HAD to bring along notebooks so that they could take notes and draw pictures. They had a blast! I just enjoyed watching them learn.

I wish that I had pictures of this amazing learning experience...maybe next time.

Fun with Feathers and Brothers

Fun, fun, fun! Isn't it funny how our children can have fun with the silliest things? Little B found this feather and thought that it would be funny to have a "moostache". She played with that feather for the longest time! I just had to get a few pictures. :)

Her other favorite toy is her brothers! These three play, and play, and play! My heart is filled with so much joy as I hear their laughter throughout the house. That is what makes a house a home. So, here is a silly video of the three of them up to one of their playtime activities. Can we count this as P.E.?

Happy Harvest

I love to look around and see the amazing beauty of leaves changing colors. In this wonderful town where we live, we are blessed with many trees...therefore many vibrant colors as the leaves are changing...gorgeous.

I wanted to include some fun fall pictures in this post. This time of year, we are reminded to think of all of the blessings that God has given us and to give Him thanks! So, I thought that I would start a list...it would take me FAR too long to list all of my blessings, so I will just name a few:

1. A wonderful family.

2. An anniversary...B's adoption was finalized one year ago on October 29th.

3. A very creative husband. He served at the high school all-nighter on October 31st and decided to make a Rice Krispy Treat, Twinkie, and Cupcake Cake and SUSHI! (Look carefully at the sushi.) :)

4. Grandparents that live VERY close now (1 min. and 50 sec. away by bike).

5. Amazing friends.

6. A home to live in...maybe not always perfectly cleaned, but filled with LOVE.

7. Family Fun (at the pumpkin patch)!

8. Dishes to do...that means that we had a yummy dinner.

9. Laundry to do...that means that we had clothes to wear.

10. Messes to clean up...that means that I have three amazing children to take care of.

11. Phone calls to answer...that means that I have loving friends and family that want to talk to me!

12. Covers to share...that means that I have a loving husband to share a bed with!

Hopefully you are taking time to think about all that YOU are thankful for too! May God bless you as you do so!

Ever Have a Day Like This?

Sometimes there are days where you would like to just crawl back under the covers, close your eyes, and start ALL over again. Today was one of those days.

Our morning began with a tragic accident in the kitchen involving a plastic jar of peanut butter and a glass jar of RED pasta sauce. Unfortunately, the plastic jar did not fall on the floor. I wish that I would have taken a picture of the incredible mess that it made. I didn't know that glass and pasta sauce could travel that far! One jar of pasta sauce and a roll of paper towels later...

The next exciting event took place while the boys were working on school work. I had gone to check on little B who was coloring with her Crayola Color Wonder markers (markers that ONLY color in her special coloring books). She was quite enjoying herself so I left her to her coloring. Minutes (or maybe what seemed like minutes) later she came walking out COVERED in black markings. What in the world? I wanted to giggle because she looked like she had been attacked by a permanent marker...no couldn't be. I tentatively followed her to her room to find out that not only had she been attacked, but so had her bedroom. Oh my goodness... Here are a few pictures to show you what I witnessed:

Yes...that is MARKS-A-LOT marker on her wall, on the floor, on her dresser, bed, door, toy box, piano, doll house, Magna-Doodle (which she calls her Yankee Doodle), doll...need I say more? So, I called my sister, "What do I do with permanent marker?" Fortunately, the Magic Eraser is magic! It worked (for the most part) on many of the marks, but not all...daddy was not very happy when he got home. So, if you have more permanent marker advice, we would LOVE to hear it!

Then later this evening, we had SO much fun singing at the dinner table and making each other laugh. I thought that you might like to witness the lighter side of our day too! Little B and daddy were singing "My God is So Big" together. Yes, God is bigger than permanent marker.