Month: December 2009

I am not sure if I should issue a warning or not before showing all of these pictures, but let me  say that all of these people are very sweet, kind-hearted and normal people.  Or at least I thought so before this party.

Last night was the second annual Tacky Christmas Party for the Sunday School Class.  Last year we had “Christmas Past” twist.  This year it was just a tacky Christmas party, and oh how these crazy folks rose to the occasion!  It was hysterical.  There was a contest and everything.  As ugly as my outfit and Josh’s were, we didn’t even touch the tackiness that was in the room.  Mind-boggling tackiness.

We’ll start with this mild outfit I wore.  Striped socks, ugly yellow shoes, “let’s raise a little cane” sweatshirt, side ponytail…..yet so mild, so very, very mild.

Sweet Coleen and her gigantic ear bobs.

Oh. my. word.  This is Josh with Bill and Melissa.  They were HILARIOUS!!  They came in looking like this and “in character.”  We all just died when we saw them.  Many of us could not recognize them at first!

This is Melissa, again, with Missy and Dana….all looking quite tacky.

What beautiful Christmas Tree shirts.  Rebekah got this from her mom’s closet.  Very funny.

“Bubba” the Snowman

Lovely duck tape to hold the table cloths in place

Josh, Merrilee and Jason.  She stole her sweatshirt from her mom’s closet, too!

Missy, Michelle, Heather, and Cindy.  I was going to crop out the trashcan, but I thought it would add to the tacky level of the picture.  Cindy must have paid a million dollars to get one of Michael Jackson’s jackets.

Gangsta’ Christmas being beautifully displayed by Guy.  I wish I had a picture of Julie with him!

Deidre & Mark with Josh.  Deidre’s outfit was off the charts tacky.  Ankle boots with red hose!  Oh my.  That’s all I can say.  Except that Mark’s sweater is very ugly.  Very.

We played a game called, “Hummdinger.”  It was fun and funny.

Chad was not a good hummer, but I think his team miraculously guessed correctly.

The Group Shot—crazy people, just crazy.

This is spooky.

We had a very fun time!  The class members are so much fun to be with and seemed to all enjoy being together.  The Party Planning Committee always does a phenomenal job, and I am so appreciative of all they do to make these fun times happen.  I am already looking forward to what next year’s theme might be!  We will have to put a lot more thought into the outfits if we are going to try and hang with these messed up people.  Messed up people that I love dearly.

These pictures were taken before we left for our visit to Santa Claus.  We should have known that Mack wasn’t up for taking pictures…not that he ever is, but still.

This is when Josh told him to step away from the girls and that he just wouldn’t get to have his picture made.  He stepped away and cried and cried.

And the girls posed and smiled beautifully

You know, Mack is a lot like Josh.  Josh would rather not take pictures of anything or have his picture made.  I feel like I am asking him to have two teeth pulled without medication when I ask him to have a family picture taken.  (maybe he isn’t that bad about, but he does not like posing for family pictures)  This morning Mack showed me this pose and told me, “This is what Daddy do.”

And he does!  He sometimes stands like that while he is talking to me in the kitchen.  It cracked me up that Mack noticed and showed me!  It was so funny.

OH, but Josh is always dressed when he stands that way.  🙂

Here is Mack showing me the start they put up on the calendar this morning.

So maybe it is illegal to show this online???  Not sure, but really, who is on line looking for illegal Santa picture scanners?  Let’s hope not many.  ANYWAY, the picture turned out great.  Mack couldn’t have made a meaner face. I am not sure if he is mad because I made him sit on Santa’s lap or mad because I made him wear that red sweater vest.  It cracks me up.  He looks soooo big here, too…probably because he is big.

The morning started early.  We left home about 8:30 to go eat at Waffle House.  The kids love that place.  They ate lots of scrambled eggs, waffle and some sausage.  Then, we took off for the mall.  We were too early for Santa to be there, which is when Molly started getting worried.  “Will he come from this way or that way?”  and “How will we know where he is?”  and “Will he come over to us?  I don’t want him to come over to us.”  Bless her heart.  She started getting more and more nervous the longer we waited, and I wouldn’t let them go to the play area to pass the time because the level of “germy-ness” over there is probably off the charts these days.  I am not a germ freak either;  I just want to do what I can to keep the flu or any other sickness from invading our home during this Christmas season….or all winter, for that matter!  OK, so Santa starts walking towards his station from upstairs, all the while ringing his jingle bells and saying “HO, HO, HO!  Merry Christmas.!”  He gave Ruby and Mack “five,” but Molly would hardly look at him.  We were the second ones in line.  They all ended up doing just fine.  No one completely refused to go up to him, so that is good.  Ruby said she wanted a jump rope.  Molly said she wanted her training wheels off her bike, which she already has, so it sounds like Josh and I don’t have to spend much money this year!

Seriously though, we don’t even do the whole Santa thing here at home.  We talk about and read about who the real Saint Nick was and what he did to help others, but we don’t go into the whole “Santa comes into our house and leaves the presents” story.  And before anyone thinks we are being crazy, we don’t think that anyone that does do this is evil or ludicrous.  We just chose not to do it.  We both grew up with that tradition and liked it.  I even thought that a cute little flying fairy came in and unlocked the door for Santa if a house didn’t have a chimney.  Josh’s dad dressed up like Santa one year and visited Jason and Josh in their room in the middle of the night.

So now you are all thinking, “Then why in the world do you get their picture taken with Santa?”  I just like it.  It is funny to see the pictures of them crying or pouting and just to see them growing each year.

HO, HO, HO.  Merry Christmas.

We are still doing school, though the month of December seems to be a hard time to stay focused on reading, writing and arithmetic.  Today we were doing addition and subtraction, which Ruby let me know that she didn’t understand what I was talking about until I said, “plus and minus.”  Those were the key words.  We also played some phonics and word family games, then got Mack safely to bed after lunch so that we could do a couple of fun projects.

We made hot cocoa and wrote down what happened to the water, the powder and the marshmallows and peppermint.   A science experiment of sorts.

Molly is going to have Kindergarten two years in a row because she already does everything that we do!  Even when I’d rather her not.

Ruby enjoying her cocoa (sort of) while she wrote the answers to the questions…she looks like such a big girl here.  I can see her as a college student ordering $7 coffee drinks with her Dad’s money.

Side note:  This is why I don’t like sharing my office area with three little munchkins!  Eaten apple just laying on my desk and a sticky mouse to go along with it.

Ruby crushed up some peppermints so we could mix them with melted white chocolate and then let it harden on wax paper.  YUM.  She is supposed to give it to someone.  I wonder if she wants to give it to her teacher????  Me, that is.

It really was a productive school day.  We went to church tonight, and I got to see her in the Magnolia Room as she sang some songs with her choir class.  She was so cute up there!  This is the same room that we didn’t go in to see Molly sing.  In our defense, we didn’t know in advance about this performance.  Molly likes to tell me, “Remember when I sang in that room?  I was looking and looking and looking for you, but you were not there.”  UGH.  That’ll make you feel like complete poop!  I explain to her that I didn’t know before hand, and she is beginning to come around and will add to her statement that, “Yeah, they should have told you.”

For the record, Molly has been great lately.  And tonight I told her that in Cubbies I wanted her to not miss me and be sad, but to love me and be excited that we will see each other soon! (She usually is very quiet and tells me it is because she misses me….I mean, we only spend 90% of our time in the same room.) She had a great night at Cubbies and Choir and the teachers even commented about it!  Gran, keep up your praying.  Gran said she prays every day for Molly to have a good time and to talk to her friends and teachers.  It worked.  Yipee!

We are glad we have already gotten our tree, decorated it and put up several other things for Christmas, but I am not sure putting something in the stockings was a good idea.  Ruby can’t reach into the stocking, but she can ask five million times a day if she can look at what is in her stocking.  “NO!!!!!!!!!”  It’s my own fault, I suppose.

All that to say that everyone is excited about Christmas.  We laugh at Mack because he is a little confused on the nativity sets.  He has heard that Jesus is God’s son, so he names those in the nativity as “Murray (Mary), Baby Jesus, and God (Joseph).”  Not an easy thing to explain to a 2 year old.

We are hoping that the birth of Jesus is what sticks out the most to our kids each Christmas season, though it is very easy to become distracted.  Josh and I were having trouble ourselves as we roamed a very pricey Christmas Tree Farm.  They had the most gorgeous wreaths I have ever seen.  There was ornament decorating for the kids and face painting.  They even had trees that had “snow” on them.  Beautiful and expensive.  Someone, evidently, buys their trees at this place or else they wouldn’t be in business…we just aren’t one of those families.

Here’s the outside of the building

Me and the kids in front of one of those fancy trees

Mack found some marshmallows to stuff in his mouth

They sat and watched some fish in a pond

This is Berry Patch Farms where we got our tree…very cute place with a fun tractor ride for the kids

Kids waiting on the tractor

Josh measuring the trees to see which one would fit best

Mack is pleased with the tree!

Mack had been concerned all day about how the tree was getting back to our house.  He said, “Daddy will drive slowly?”

We did some decorating around the house later that night.  The tree decorating would wait until Sunday afternoon.  We were tired from a full day….not to mention that we were going on four and a half full days of family time.

Here’s our “chandelier” over the dining room table.

The kid’s tree

Molly putting the angel on the top of our tree downstairs

This is a basket of books, each wrapped individually.  The kids get to open one each night leading up to Christmas…they are all Christmas-themed books.  I got this idea from a friend last year.  There will be a couple of DVDs in the mix, so that should be exciting for the kids.  Grandma’s, if you see any cute Christmas books or DVDs, feel free to send them our way.  I will give you full credit.  🙂

Forgot to mention that we did buy something from that first Christmas Tree Farm I was telling you about…mistletoe.  Funny.

Here’s another tradition I have…having the kids get a picture taken with Santa.  I wish you could see these up close because they are comical.  Somebody is crying in each of them except the one where they all three look “drugged.”  I am gearing Molly up for the event big time.  I am hoping it will happen tomorrow, but we’ll see….Molly asked if we could go in that pottery store (Pottery Barn Kids) and my reply is, “After we take our picture with Santa!”  She then will ask if she can get a slushee.  “After we take our picture with Santa!”  I am certain she is going to fall apart, but I am going to try very hard to help her enjoy the moment.  It is doubtful that will be the case.  Hopefully I will have a picture to show you tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

Ruby is definitely fitting into the mold of the older sibling.  This morning the girls came down stairs and Ruby immediately remembers that today is the day that we start putting our velcro pieces in their proper place on our “Countdown to Christmas” nativity calendar.  I told her that it would be nice to wait until Mack woke up so that he could see it being done.  She said, “Oh, but I will go ahead and do it so that he can be surprised.”  Yeah, right.  The whole time Molly doesn’t argue at all that maybe she wants to put up the first piece.  I told her that tomorrow she could put one up.  She just smiled and shook her head.  Ruby then proceeded to tell her, “I do this one, you do this one, I do this one, you do this one….”  I stopped her and said, “Hey, what about Mack?  He’ll want to do it, too.  She said, “Oh, ok.  I do this one, you do this one, Mack does this one, I do this one, You do this one, Mack does this one,” etc, etc. all the way down to the next to the last one.  Then, Molly said, “Daddy could do the last one.”  Ruby said, “Nah.  I can do that one.  It would be my turn.”  I guess she is really getting “patterns” in our math lessons.  She is a hoot and very much in charge!