Merry Christmas (A little late)

As I have sat down now 4 times to write this blog I start and get up and find an avoidance task because I have no words to describe the wonderful chaos of Christmas. Christmas Eve we went to the kids and my church and it was ok. Not the usual Christmas service that I am use to the Christmas story was read in segments though out the service but his actual talk was not on the Christmas story. Kinda just felt weird. Then my parents came over for Christmas Eve and we had a light dinner and opened presents from them and to them before the real Chaos begins on Christmas Day. We finally got the kids down for Santa to come.  Christmas morning began at 7:30ish with E coming in the room to tell me We have NO MORE DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS IT"S FINALLY HERE! LETS GO SEE SANTA! so we get up and wake up K and go see santa..

Please let it be what I want PLEASE...

It is it is

Santa brought a bird set and a bird house =)

YEA! POP CORN!

HHHHEEELLLLOOOO

Santa's big gifts

A jeep and a horse for the Our Generation dolls (otherwise known in this
house as American Girl dolls)

After Santa we played a little and got ready for the rest of the day. We went to my grandparents for lunch and presents with my aunt, uncle, cousins, Sis -in -law and her two kids, and my parents. All in all there are 4 kids, 11 adults.  After some time there we load everything up and head to my in-laws for dinner and more present fun. Here there is a little more chaos as there are 8 kids (12, 8, 2@6, 5, 3@4 yrs of age) and all their parents and some others. SO LOTS OF PEOPLE. As much driving as we do we are lucky enough to have all of our immediate family living in driving distance and get to spend Christmas with both of our families.  Here are a few pics to finish out Christmas.

The beginning of mommy and daddy gifts

the clothes face

yea a camera

and a stroller

the aftermath

My niece

Most of the gang..

E's stack

More (AG) stuff

YEA BOOTS

THE AFTERMATH

Waiting patiently

K's bug gun

E's art box

a tired E

Happy for Science

trying to figure out how to play with this at grandma's and grandpa's

Saturday Madness

Our day started out with a early morning dress rehearsal for the Christmas program at church tomorrow. We then had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa who brought over this really cool Christmas book that they recorded themselves reading for the girls. After they left we tackled the rest of the leaves that the man from yesterday decided not to pick up.. (Here's a question... If the leaves are from your tree, since the neighbors don't have any trees, but are on the neighbors yard that is shared with you, do you leave them or pick them up? My thoughts pick them up they are from my tree. Apparently the guy R decided to have rake our yard decided the neighbors were responsible for them an left them. ) So anyways, our evening was spent, raking, playing, raking, playing, ,and cleaning.

ready set jump!

BEST DAY EVER!

E getting a face of leaves

Remember the pumpkin seeds.. well they did actually grow
I am pretty sure they won't make it, but the kids were excited they
grew some pumpkin plants. We had some ugly much needed
rain for 3 days, and some really cold days and I am surprised
they looked this good. 

moving on to the backyard..They really wanted to jump some more

K hard at work

apparently they don't need many leaves to have fun.. Just wait

This is the face I get for adding leaves to the pile

YES! lots of leaves

Wheee (please don't land on a stick PLEASE)

oh no K has been eaten by the leaves

SHE"S BEING SUCKED IN!!

E hard at work doing what???

OHHHH ! This gives a whole new meaning to buried alive

Where's K?

And She's free!

E's turn at being buried

HELP!

peacefull

Apparently Bella has a problem with this

Bella trying to pull E out of the leaves. 

IT's raining leaves

K getting a shower

Lot's of Fun!

This is GREAT!

Rainy Saturday

I believe today is the first Saturday that we have stayed home (oops ran to walgreens 10 mins) all day most of the day. It was a rainy and ugly kind of day. I had a couple of things on the agenda that I thought we could do and it was a somewhat productive kinda day. I have found this recipe to make peppermint play dough though my love of pinterest and decided today would be the best day to make this. It started off suppose to look like this  but I soon decided that there would be no point in having the white as it all would be pink much to my dislike. So, we made red peppermint play dough.  Each child helped in the making of their play dough. I thought this would be like all other play dough play time and only last 10 mins but I thought thats 10 mins well worth it, and I could move onto my organizing of the art cabinets. I was wrong! They loved this play dough and spent about 30 mins playing then cleaned up and about 2 hrs later out it came again for about another 30 mins.

hard at work

making cookies

 

still playing

lots of rolling and banging going on

While the kiddos were highly occupied I started tackling the art cabinet. This is something that has needed to be done for awhile, but I open it up and close it again with this overwhelming feeling. I want it to look organized... you know the one where they have 50 of the same boxes with everything labeled and alphabetized. So I did the best I could with what I had and it turned out about as good as can be expected. However, while I was right smack in the middle with art stuff strewn all around me I hear this, "mommy can I come out with you?" In my head I am thinking "NO NO NO! What happened to the play dough time?" but my heart won out and I said sure put your shoes on.. (our art cabinets are in the garage) She comes out and her eyes get HUGE! I quickly said don't touch anything... lol yes while it's bad of me not to let her explore the art stuff I didn't need another mess to clean up just yet. So she sits and watches and questions everything I am doing.. Then I hear the door and "Mommy, are you and E out here" "yes babe" "Can I come out?" again in the head I am thinking "this is going to be ugly." but I say, " of course come on". So the three of us and our many art supplies are sitting in the garage area which really is about as big as a bathroom trying to get it organized. I guess I became boring pretty quick as they grab a box and the markers and start coloring.. Humm, "E what are ya'll making?" k answers "a boat" and they continue to make this boat. Also, because it was a sm box it became a boat for K and E got the laundry basket for her boat. 

    

    notice the bottles. Apparently people on the boats need telescopes. The bowls well that's the steering wheel. In the top pic you can hardly see it but that's a fish shaped bowl and E was moving it around K's boat before she decided she wanted her own.
After the boating and organizing was finished it was time for some more play dough fun, then dinner and family movie night of Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer. Also, at some point today E pulled another tooth so the tooth fairy gets to visit tonight.