Ginger Bread house with Grandma Jeanne

Grandma Jeanne brought over a Ginger Bread house kit the day after Thanksgiving.  She does this yearly with the kids, and then they proudly display their artwork until Christmas.

Maddie and Jesus

A conversation I had with Maddie last night:

Me:  Maddie, get take that screw out of your mouth.
Maddie:  Why?
Me:  Cause you could choke and die.

Maddie: Would I go to heaven?

Me: Yes.
Maddie: Puts it back in her mouth and replies, "Well, I will come back to life like Jesus!"
Me:  *head shake*  I've got nothing……

The hopes and dreams of a nine year old competitor…..

Hopefully she keeps these dreams and hopefully these dreams keep her out of trouble in middle school and high school.  Found this little blurb in Peyton's assignment notebook a few weeks ago.

On the homework of littles

Does anyone else see the humor in Jack's school work here?!?!

It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS

The weekend after Thanksgiving we got all the Christmas stuff out and got busy.  The kids had fun, Daisy (the elf) returned, we put up lights outside, and we ended the day making homemade pizza.  Lots of messes being made that day, but hopefully lots of memories too.

Jack gets started by assembling the Nativity

While Jack was busy there, Maddie was busy decorating the hearth on the fire place.  It didn't take but about an hour, before that snowman lost an arm….Maddie just couldn't leave the breakable decorations alone.

And on to the tree……

Pooped out….

It's not a good, family filled, fun day without a couple meltdowns….

Moving on…..a little pizza making will fix it

Sleeping Beauty at school

On school days, Maddie takes her nap at school.  85% of the time she takes a nap and occasionally she does not.  I never have to ask the teacher if she napped that day or not.  If Maddie naps, she is usually the only kid STILL napping through all the chaos of parents picking up their kids.  She is still SOUND to sleep!!!  If Maddie is awake and playing, that means it was a no-nap day for Miss Maddie.  Here she is, sleeping away on her cute little cot.

Laundry, oh laundry…..

How I hate thee!

I can ALWAYS manage to stay ahead of the wash…..it's just that folding and putting away that I've had trouble with the last year or so.  Our lives have gotten so much more busy in the last year and I just can't seem to find the time to get it done…..or maybe it's just the thing that always gets pushed to the back burner.
SOOOO, my new strategy a couple months ago was to dump it all on my bed so that we couldn't go to bed without folding it.  Well, that lasted a couple weeks before we realized, it only takes 30 seconds to dump that crap right back in the baskets and put it on the floor.
Then the other night I came upstairs and Mike and Annie had taken it even a step further…..they didn't even bother to put it back in the baskets…they managed to find plenty of room for the clothes and themselves.  Thank God for the king size!