It's Me Again

All the photos in the previous post are from Nathan's camera. I found a few cute ones on mine as well...

And here is day 5 & 6. Working on 7 tonight.

To Do List:

• plan holiday visit meals
• address 150 Christmas cards
• Clean the house
• Get groceries
• Make 2 pig costumes oink, oink

Being Merry

Sprout Spot Fun

Warning picture overload but there are so many more cute ones!

I think the majority of the visit the girls were dressed like this:

Yesterday we went to a lunch with Santa.

Last night we got some snow (there was no snow on the ground when they arrived) and this morning the girls had SO much fun outside playing in it!

See that large string? Anna wanted to floss Kendall's teeth with it.

I'm So Ex-ciiii-ted

These cuties are about 10 minutes away from our house right now. We can't wait.

For lunch we are going to go to a work event to have lunch with Santa. This morning we had this conversation:

"Kendall, when Anna is here we're going to go have lunch with a special person"

"We are? Who!?"

"Well, who has been watching over you to see if you are good or bad?"

(sharp intake of breath and awed whisper....) "Jesus!?"

Santa is a bit of a let down compared to Jesus!

That's My Girl

If you don't want to hear shameless bragging about my preschooler now is the time to exit this page...

First, check out her adorable school pictures...love them! Don't worry family they will be handed out soon!

Today was parent teacher conference day! I got to bring home a handful of paperwork showing all of her achievements. This girl can cut a straight line and follow directions with the best of them, whoo hooo. Here is her little report card!

Mrs. Harris was very impressed by this fella. She said that Kendall is the only three year old in the class that does it. Only one other girl draws people and she is an older 4 year old. She especially liked the hair, hands and feet. I was pretty impressed by Kendall's ability to cut out shapes because we don't really do that much here at home (note to self: cut out shapes). She cut out a large triangle and rectangle and created a house with it! (not shown).

Perhaps the thing that made me most proud was hearing this story...The 3 year old class will be the animals in the manger in the Christmas play. Mrs. Harris is letting the children choose which of the animals that they want to be with some slight pushing towards the cuter animals (lamb, bunny...). Kendall has decided on her animal and no amount of persuasion can change her mind. She has decided to be a pig. That's my girl, you can be a pig if you want to and don't let people tell you otherwise. I volunteered to help out with the costumes so I'll make sure it's a cute pig.

Here is my Day 4 page. The journaling on the photo is just copied and pasted from my blog post from yesterday. I have actually added journaling on the back of the zebra print talking about our dinner out and the night that followed.

We had a great time at dinner it was so nice to chat with other adults! We got home from dinner the house was picked up by our super cute babysitter and she said the girls were good and had no problem going to bed. Phew. Great night, right? Yes, until bedtime. I couldn't fall asleep...I just felt funny. At midnight I started to get that feeling that I got in 9th grade when I gave blood and then proceeded to pass out in front of my algebra class....in a skirt....onto the floor (another bright and shining moment for me--quickly followed by 2nd one when I was pushed through the halls in a wheelchair while classes were changing). Anyway I'll spare you the truly gruesome details and skip to this morning when I told a bright eyed Brian that I had food poisoning and was up all night. After a little research we determined that it probably wasn't food poisoning but instead a very bad combination of nasal decongestant, zinc drops and two glasses of wine. A mistake that I will not be making again. Anyway, I was up at 7:15 and although I'm tired I feel fine now. I've slowly reintroduced some food and just avoided any and all cold medicine to give my tummy a little break!

Why?

Can anyone tell me why this kids lips and cheeks are so dry and chapped? I just can't put it together.

A mantel arrangement that only took me one year to put together. Seriously, the frames were gifts from last Christmas! To my credit, we cleared off the mantle when our house was on the market...but a year?!

I am slowly cleaning out scrapbook supplies. I won't be going to the post office until after the holidays though so I'll save the give away until then....since there seem to be such interest in it (sarcasm). But check this out, my desk was clean (for a short period of time).

Tonight we are going out without kids! Dinner with adults, too bad my taste buds are on strike. I'm slightly embarrassed to meet Brian's colleagues with a raw runny nose and lymph nodes sticking out from my neck the size of racket balls.

We're all feeling a bit of a cold here. Lots of runny noses, sore heads and necks and just a slow slow start to our morning. I've been sitting here in my pjs working on Day 3 and at one point both girls came to rest their heads on my lap.

Tylenol has been distributed all around now, hopefully that will help the head aches. Kendall has sat at my desk and stamped and Kate has walked around pouring out crayons, played with office supplies and then made her way to her favorite seat in the house. A minute later Kendall hopped down and walked off and just seconds later I hear, "Kendall, GET UP" just as clear as you can imagine. I slowly turned around to see this.

There was a short pause and then Kate says, "MOVE!". Man, her vocabulary is increasing at an alarming rate!

Here is my page for the yesterday.

December Day Two

Here is my second album page for the December Daily album. It's very Kendall focused but she is in school tomorrow so I know that Kate will have much more camera time.

This kid has been cracking me up lately. She heard the song Feliz Navidad and has been walking around the house singing, "A lease dah bee dah"

Brrr

I feel a cold coming on. Not cool, I'm consuming lots of those zinc things trying to keep it to a minimum.

Just a few pictures to share. Kendall colored an awesome picture, we shopped for a formal living room rug (we think we are going to paint the walls too), making chicken stock now for noodle soup later and my first December Daily page.

Merry Christmas

This morning I had an email in my inbox from Brian letting me know about a special rebate going on this at a local store:

The next line said, "They open at 8". I love that he knew I would immediately want to know what time they opened.

Tonight I will be working on my first page of the December Daily album. Here is the picture that pretty much sums up our day (okay it's three pictures that I put into one). I'm going to try out this bad boy for the first time right now and print this.

Love Is...

...Kate. She just walked over to me, put her hand on my thigh, looked up at me with big smiley eyes and said, "Hap-pee."

Yeah, me too.

How Do You Spell Exhaustion?

T-R-A-V-E-L. But it was well worth it. We had so much fun hanging out with some cute kids (and other family members), eating great food, and just chatting and hanging out. I have the best family in the entire world. Brian even got to go golfing with Pat and also see his brother. The kids played together really well and there was only one trip to the emergency room the whole week (poor 'King'). Kendall got very whiny and clingy the last two days but I think that her daily 4am wake up may have had something to do with that. She is just a kid that likes structure and vacations are very go with the flow and they take a toll on her eventually.

We actually ran into my bestest friend from high school in the airport on the way out!

Kendall and I had a bit of a date this morning. She came with me to my eye appointment then we braved the crowds at Target and then had a little lunch together. We have all the suitcases unpacked, the fridge stocked and laundry going. This afternoon we're taking a family trip to the local library and tonight we'll get in our PJ's and watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Since we've been home I've been admiring a pair of shoes I got there and I've been working on some clove oranges, yummy.