Must Finish Christmas before February!

aka Christmas Eve!
On the day of Christmas Eve, we took a trip to Jasper to visit some of Jim’s relatives.  It was our first trip back since the Severe Cat Allergy Discovery of Aught Nine!  We did some pre-trip medicating and kept and eye on him, and this time there were no issues!  Hopefully that means it won’t be over a year before we make it back again!
 
The kids opened presents, and we had a delicious meal!  Of course, they kids’ favorite part of the meal was the appetizer course when Aunt Kathy gave them all the grapes and crackers they wanted!

We even got to play outside for a little bit!


Thank you Granny Kat, Gammy, and Aunt Kathy for hosting us so fantastically!  We had a great time!  Love you all!
After the visit it was time to head home and get ready for Santa to come!

Since we were gone all day, we weren’t able to make cookies for Santa, but luckily I attended a cookie swap prior so we were able to provide Santa with a variety of homemade goodness…probably much more than Santa really needed!
The kids were so excited they could barely be still for the picture, especially Thomas, as you can see!  At least in this shot he hasn’t jumped completely out of the frame!
Despite their excitement, the kids went to sleep really fast.  They knew Santa wouldn’t come until they did!  Yea!

Never Leave Your Droids with Reagan

Jim has been sharing bits and pieces of Star Wars with the kids recently. They LOVE it! As long as there is action going on anyway! It’s been fun to watch them pick up on the characters that Jim and I love so much and then use those characters in their own imaginative play. It has also been rather enlightening…

Yesterday, Jim was playing Star Wars with Reagan, Jonathan, and Thomas. Reagan, of course, was Princess Leia. Jim was the bad guy, presumable Darth Vader. He snatched up Princess Leia and dared anyone to try and save her. J jumped up, “I am RD2 (we’re working on the names) and I will save the princess!” and ran at Daddy. T jumped up, “And I am C3PO and I will save the princess too!” And he ran at Daddy also. Daddy Vader is overcome by the droids, allowing Princess Leia to escape. Now Daddy Vader’s arms are free, and he scoops up the droids, one under each arm. Looking at Princess Leia, he booms, “Now, who will save the droids?”

To which Princess Leia responds nonchalantly, “Well, they aren’t really my robots, so you can just throw them in the trash.”

2011 Books

Woohoo! New year, new list of books! Last year I managed to read 24 books! Not too shabby! Certainly better than the 19 I read the year before! Still nowhere close to Becky or Michelle, and I assume they both beat me at the Pulitzer race also, but that’s okay. The reading is fun no matter what!

I didn’t love the ranking system I used last year, simply because I feel the need to explain why I ranked each book the way I did, but I liked it better than writing out a mini-critique for every book, so I’m going to use it again. here it is:

1-3 I wish I could burn all copies of this book
4-6 Had a few things going for it, but definitely not my favorite
7-8 I enjoyed or got something out of this book, worth reading
9-10 One of the best, highly recommended

It will be interesting to see what gets read this year, since I have gone back to work. I predict a lot of classics because I’ll need to read them in order to teach them! As always, there will be a link in the blog sidebar, so check back every so often to see how I'm doing!

Happy reading!

1. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riorden-- For myself, I give it a 4 because I found it unbelievably predictable, but as a book for the grade 6-9 crowd, its intended audience, it’s probably more like an 8

2. The Blind Side by Mike Lewis--8--I particularly enjoyed the fact that much of the story took place in Memphis. If you enjoyed the movie, you'll also enjoy the book!

3. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley--8

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee--10

5. Macbeth by William Shakespeare--9

6. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare--9

7. 1984 by George Orwell--9--I'm certain I enjoyed this book more this time than when I read it in high school!

Visiting Santa

Last year we went to see Santa at The Bass Pro Shops and had a really great time, so we decided to go again this year. We went on a Sat afternoon with the kids all dressed cute for a picture, but when we discovered that there was a three hour wait to see Santa, we decided to come back some other time!

The next time, we planned ahead. Jim went early and got us a time slot. (There may have been some pity for the poor family with quads involved in fanagling that time slot!) We picked the kids up from preschool and went straight to BPS. Unfortunately, the kids were not all dressed cute this time, but that was okay.

Santa was super-excited to see us again this year and requested a special picture be taken so he could have one for himself!

Official Christmas Pics

Apparently I’m both a glutton for punishment and a stubborn holder of tradition because despite being insanely busy at the end of last semester, I still insisted on dressing the kids up for official Christmas pictures. I couldn’t help it. We do them every year! To not do them would have been entirely too sad!

We took hundreds of pictures (May God bless the inventor of digital cameras!) and once we weeded through all the ones where someone is looking the wrong direction, or jumping, or lying down, or poking a sibling, or making a silly face, or smiling creepy, or has his eyes closed, etc. (and most of those were Thomas) we ended up with this little gem:

And a couple honorable mentions (not many, it’s really hard to get good pictures of all four kids at once!):

Honestly, despite the frustration, I love taking Christmas pictures! Once you get a good one, it’s all worth it!

After the picture came the hardest part for me…turning over the Christmas card creation duty to Jim. I really wanted Christmas cards, but I just didn’t have the time to do them myself, so I asked Jim to, and he did a FANTASTIC job! I did carve out time to do the addresses, but I didn’t write a single thing in any of them. Okay, that was even harder than letting Jim make the card. I hate sending out cards without writing in them. Sorry everyone! I just didn’t have time! It doesn’t mean I don’t love you!

Belated Christmas Posts Begin!

This is the scene from my front window today, just one of several days of snow we’ve had so far this winter! You can barely tell where the road is. So maybe I can get a post or two done, maybe! And if school is closed tomorrow too, then I’ll try to get a couple more!