Holiday happenings

I just realized how long it has been since I last posted and so much has happened. We celebrated Claire's 2nd birthday on the 14th. It is hard to believe that she is already two. She is getting so big at 38 pounds and she can already say her ABC's and count to 13. She is busy and defiant at times, but I love this age and try to cherish every moment. She is finally understanding what to do when she receives a gift and has already learning to say "Tank-ooh" for her presents. Her birthday was a rather busy day as we also were blessed to see our older two perform in our church Christmas musical called "The Christmas County Spelling Bee". It was adorable and they have been working since October, so it was really well done. After church we were able to go out for lunch and the Applebee's staff sang to Claire for her birthday. Last week was full of parties and dinners. I spent Monday with my friend from college and her kids. We had a nice dinner and gift exchange. Tuesday was my bible study Christmas party and Wednesday I had my book club at a great restaurant called Mission Point. Thursday was crazy with Haylee and Kenna's school Christmas party, Claire's party at her daycare, and my yearly cookie/ornament exchange with my friends. The kids had an early start to vacation with a snow day on Friday and we all took a big deep breath and rested on Saturday. Sunday was Kevin's family party at our house which was actually very low key and relaxing. I still have to work during the break, but I got home a little early today and we baked and frosted our cookies for Santa. The holidays seem kinda crazy as I look back, but I really love the hustle and bustle. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the last week or so. I seem to have taken a bunch with all that has been going on.

Candlelite

I really wish that I was able to take pictures of the candle lite dessert I attended last night at my church. It was just too dark to get any good pictures, but it was beautiful. Every year my church has a free event for ladies that involves women from our church signing up to do a table. They decorate beautiful table scapes and prepare a dessert for their own table of 8. There are themes and color schemes and the desserts are fabulous. There were several notable table scape ideas that I wanted to share. My favorite was the "Happy Birthday Jesus" theme complete with a birthday cake as the center piece, "Happy Birthday Jesus" crowns and stunning cupcakes for the dessert. I loved two of the tables with color schemes. One was blue and silver and the other was silver and white. There was an adorable gingerbread themed table as well. We enjoyed entertainment from a mother/daughter christian singing duo who were inspirational and spent some wonderful time in fellowship.

Traditions

Today, we continued a little tradition that we started last year and it seems to be something that everyone enjoys and we will continue as long as the kids are willing. We start out at the toy store where the children are to pick a Toys for Tots gift. We lecture and remind about the joys of giving and thinking outside of themselves at Christmas. They actually enjoy this part, but it is a bit difficult to then drop the gifts into a big cardboard box unwrapped and gone forever. After that we went to the mall to visit Santa. We were first in line and actually got to walk with Santa down to his big chair to sit on his lap.(This was a great Kodak moment for me) Claire would only get close to him if he wasn't paying attention to her, but this was more than I expected. The kids were able to then pick another gift at the Build-A-Bear store for an upcoming birthday party with the $5 off coupon that Santa gave us. (Yeah, budget mom!) We rode the Carousel and went out to lunch and we were all wiped out by the time we got home, (The late night surprise birthday party last night in Lansing that Kevin and I went to didn't help) so we all took naps while the snow piled up outside. The other fabulous tradition that we celebrated this week was truffle day. This is year number 5 and we made about 50 dozen truffles. Our flavors were mint, raspberry, coconut, butterscotch, hazelnut, and regular chocolate. The picture is of some of the great friends who attend every year after rolling some very messy truffles. YUM. I also included a picture of Haylee at her school holiday music concert. It was beautiful as always and Haylee did a wonderful job. Have a nice week celebrating your traditions.

Shopping

I know that many people dread Christmas shopping. The crowds, the over spending, and the traffic. I don't really mind these things. I love that I can shop without too much guilt during the holidays. I have always preferred to buy for others and get a thrill from their reaction. I am mostly done with my holiday purchases except for a few last minute gift cards, stocking stuffers, and wrapping paper. I am having lots of fun this year mixing my love of gift shopping with my love of a good bargain and coupons. I have 2 rebate prepaid cards burning a hole in my pocket for today's trip to the book store and I found the deal of the century this weekend. My big girls both want a digital camera for Christmas, but I don't feel that they are old enough for a good camera. They are not yet concerned about the quality of the pictures so I decided to find a small Disney camera that they could use without me worrying about them breaking. Walgreens had Disney Micropix cameras on sale for "Buy 1 at 19.99, get one free" This was already the best deal that I found, but it gets better. Kenna needed her asthma med refilled and the original prescription was at Meijer. I transferred the script to Walgreens and got a $25 gift card FREE. So I used it to pay for the cameras and had $5 left over for deodorant. I was so excited. Hope everyone has fun shopping this year.

Christmas mood

If I was not in the Christmas mood already, I certainly was after Thursday. I took my mom and grandma to the VanAndel to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular. My grandma had never seen them and loves to see them when they are on TV or in a parade, so we made the trip up despite the weather. It was great. There were so many people there and it was such a mesh of young and old. I regretted not taking my older girls to see it, but I am sure they will come back again in the future. There were amazing special effects and REAL animals. Yes, there were two camels, three sheep, and a donkey for the navity. I was truly impressed. Now I am ready to finish Christmas shopping and put up the tree. Yesterday, I took the girls to see the ballet of Cinderella. Our neighbor was in the show and the girls were able to go on stage after the show to give her a rose. They were very excited. It was beautifully done and the girls seemed to enjoy it. I loved that when Cinderella came out in her wedding dress, Mackenna gasp and said "she is soo beautiful" It was very sweet.

art

I have always loved the fine arts. I danced ballet for many years as a child and still enjoy watching a great musical. I am easily moved by great classical music and I find art galleries to be breathtaking. Today, my children were able to experience some of these great gifts that artists give us. We went to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts for their Sunday Funday and it was amazing. A young neighbor of ours is in the Ballet Arts Ensemble which is a very prestigious ballet group in the area. They performed in the KIA's little auditorium and their instructor based their dances on some paintings that were featured at the exhibit. The exhibit was called "Saved from the Storm" and was a collection of paintings that were rescued from the museum in New Orleans during Katrina. The songs that the young ladies danced to were mostly jazz and blues to reflect the New Orleans feel. My favorite was based on the painting "Dancer in Green" by Edgar Degas. After the performance, we went through the gallery and saw works by Degas, Picasso, Monet. They were beautiful and the kids enjoyed seeing names of artists they were learning about in school. They also had people dressed as some of the artists or subjects who were great at keeping in character. (Mackenna's favorite was Marie Antoinette) . Haylee, who is my little budding artist, was awestruck and asked again and again when we could go back.

Fun filled weekend

Our weekend was all about the kids. Saturday they were able to sleep in as soccer was over last week and we were all happy about that since it was quite cold this weekend. The kids spent all day asking about the time since we were off to a Halloween party at Meredith's in the afternoon. It was so much fun. There were mummy wrapped hot dogs, spider crackers, eye balls in the punch, orange frosted cupcakes, crafts, and bobbing for apples. Haylee struggled with this game since she is now toothless on the top. There were all kinds of costumes and tons of kids. The cutest costumes (besides my kids) were siblings who dressed as Peter Pan, Wendy, and Captain Hook. (SOOO ADORABLE). I have posted some pictures of my little Gabriella and Olympic gymnast and I will post a picture of Claire on Halloween because I left her costume at the party. After the party, we cam home and carved pumpkins. This was great. The kids had safety knives and did a pretty good job by themselves. Claire and Haylee just dove right into the pumpkin guts. Mackenna focused more on the creation of the perfect pumpkin face. On Sunday, I loaded 6 little girls in my van to venture out to see High School Musical 3. It was a cute movie and I think that I was just as excited to see it as the girls. The kids were happily worn out by last night and went to bed early.

Recent books

I have a few new books to let you know about. The most recent one that I finished for my book club was Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult. This is the second book that I have read by her and I liked it. I partially read it and partially listened to it on CD while I was driving to and from work. It is basically about a man sentenced to death for a murder who wants to donate his heart to the sister of his victim after his death. It is not a light hearted book , but certainly kept me interested. The book that I just started is called 'the curious incident of the dog in the night-time' and is told from the point of view of a boy with Asperger's. So far it is good, but I will let you know after it is finished. I should have the fall pictures of the girls shortly from my friend Meredith and I will post them then.

Fall cleaning

Now that everyone is finally on the mend from illness, I decided to embark on my fall cleaning spree. My mom always did spring cleaning and I think that most people do, but I also usually have an itch for cleaning in the fall, too. I feel the need to clean, purge, and reorganize before the holiday season begins and the children receive new "stuff" from Santa. I guess it is my way of getting rid of junk to make room for new junk. I am starting in the craft room/ office where we spend lots of time and it gets messy quick. As I was vacuuming up some little playdoh droppings, Claire decided to help and I took this adorable picture of my little helper. I also have some pictures of our trip to the pumpkin patch this weekend. There is a charming little farm nearby that is quaint and family run. It is adorable and the pumpkins are cheap. The kids had a blast picking out pumpkins, petting the goats and sheep, and looking at all of the cows.

Distraction

I am sitting here writing a post because I have to keep myself busy as Claire cries herself to sleep for a nap. We have had a "when it rains, it pours" kind of day. Yesterday when I picked Claire up from daycare, her provider said that she started getting fussy and developed a rash on her bottom. Due to the history of my children, I immediately looked at her hand and noticed the first little red blister. Yes, she has hand,foot,mouth. My other children got it every spring and fall when they were her age and I know it well. She had tons of blisters in her mouth and back of her throat and she was up every hour last night crying. Ok, so if that isn't bad enough, Haylee came home from school yesterday and asked to take a nap. I knew immediately that she was sick. She ran a 102 temp last night with a cough. So she is home with me today, too. Tonight I am supposed to go back to my mom's before Kenna's second dental procedure in Holland tomorrow morning so I am a little nervous for Kevin's sake as he will be on his own with a very unhappy Claire tonight. Well, I don't hear anymore noise from the baby monitor, so Claire must have worn herself out. Wish us luck and say a little prayer for quick healing. Thank you.

Princess for a night

Well we had a fabulous time with Kenna as the princess of homecoming. She got to ride in a corvette convertible, wear a pretty dress, throw candy to the passers by and crown the homecoming queen. What could be more magical for a 5 year old. I took about 300 pictures, but here are just a few of my favorites. She was a bit nervous as I first put her in the car for the parade. It did not make sense to her that her mother was actually telling her to get in a car with complete strangers since I have always taught her that this was dangerous, but she got over her fear when she saw the candy.

School has begun

We have now been in school for about a month and as you may notice, I have not been blogging much. Now that 2 of my 3 kids are in school, there is not much to take pictures of anymore and therefore not much to say. I will have some great Kodak moments tonight as my little Mackenna is going to be presenting the crown to the homecoming queen at half time at Kevin's game. She also gets to ride in a car during the parade with a beautiful white dress on. She is sooo excited. This will be a great time for her to have something good happen as she has had to go see a pediatric dentist in Holland to have some work done on her teeth. She seems to have bad enamel and our regular dentist attempted to do some repair work, but she flipped out. We were referred to a fantastic pediatric dentist in Holland who was able to do half of the work that had to be done this past Wednesday (with the help of some great drugs) and will complete the job next Wednesday. She did great, but I really think that this positive attention tonight is just what she needed to lift her spirits. I will post some pictures this weekend.

Road block of life

I pride myself on being able to juggle family, house, work, and all of my other outside activities pretty well. Unfortunately, sometimes life puts a road block to slow me down and make me detour down a slightly more bumpy road. Last week Tuesday, I had way over scheduled my life with the school open house, gymnastics, and my bible study. I had everything arranged so that I could get everyone where they needed to be on time, until at about 3 PM, I developed a fever complete with chills, body aches, and an overwhelming need to just go to bed. The only thing that actually occurred that night was that my wonderful neighbor took my kids to the open house where my husband met them and brought everyone home. I stayed in bed. This 3 PM fever along with an annoying cough continued for 4 days until I finally decided that I should get checked out. Turns out my job has an occupational hazard, pneumonia. I am finally feeling much better on antibiotics, but this kind of infection knocked me out of commission for a week. I guess this is mother natures only way of making me take it easy for a few days. I promised myself not to get quite so over scheduled anymore.

Planning ahead

Yes, I know that Halloween is 2 months away, but every year it sneaks up on me and I am not ready. Since my children have already told me what they want to be for Halloween and are pretty convinced that this will not change, I have started planning costumes. Mackenna did not hesitate to tell me that she wanted to be Gabriella from High School Musical and was sure that she wanted to wear the dress that she wore at the end of the High School Musical 2 movie. (The white one with the blue ribbon in the picture) She also was insistent that she needed the wig. Haylee has decided that she wants to be an Olympic gymnast complete with a gold medal. Claire is going to be Tigger because I still get to pick her costumes and I can get a hand-me-down from a friend. It would be wrong of me to say "What happened to plain old ghosts and vampires" because when I was growing up, my mom spent hours designing, sewing, painting, and constructing elaborate costumes for David and I. (a baseball card, robot, 50's girl, ladybug, and a box of french fries, to name only a few) I see why I feel a need to do the same for my kids. Anyway, I am proud to say that I am creating this years costumes frugally. I found a women's white shirt that I am converting into a dress for Kenna and I found a $9 red/white/blue warm up jacket for Haylee and I will construct a gold medal from cardboard. The only splurge will be the wig for Kenna, cuz I can't bring myself to buy a used wig. Wish me luck. I will certainly have pictures at Halloween time so you can see how it goes.

The first day

OK, it went well. I only shed a few tears and it was as the bus was pulling away so only the 6 other moms were there to witness. Kenna was sooo excited and seemed only a little nervous as she boarded the bus. She sat next to her best friend and that seemed to help. She, however had no tears. It felt a little strange to only have Claire today, but it will be nice to spend some time with just her. I am going to sign her up for a mommy and me tumbling class on Thursday mornings and if there ever is a swimming class at Borgess during the morning, we will likely do that as well. Anyway, here are the great shots of Haylee (my big second grader), and Kenna (my big kindergartner).

Little Chef's

Haylee had a birthday party today at a place called Little Chef's Academy. It may sound a bit snooty, but it was so much fun. The women who run the place are great with kids and they taught them so much about making pasta. Yes, 8 children made homemade pasta. It was so easy and the look on their faces when the pasta was flattened again and again was priceless. The theme of the party was Webkinz and all of the kids got a Webkinz fish at the end of the party. The pasta was tasty and I think that I may want to invest in a pasta maker. I could actually have the kids help with dinner. We also ventured to the zoo again this week and saw some more of the same animals, but also some new ones. The baby snow leopard is no longer in an incubator and is now housed with a puppy. The two of them played while we were there and they were so cute. There is also a picture of Claire that I thought was cute as she is sitting on a big metal tortoise. The other highlight of our week was Kenna's kindergarten orientation. I was so busy helping with the bus safety lesson that I didn't get any pictures, but Kenna seems to like her teacher and is so excited about going to school on Tuesday. I am just hoping that I don't cry when she gets on the bus.

School in one week

I can't believe that school starts in only 1 more week. We have purchased the backpacks already and I took a cute picture of Claire trying on Kenna's High School Musical bag. She is already to go with her baby in the car seat. Notice the pigtails. This is a new hairdo for her and I think it makes her look so much older. On Thursday, Haylee lost a top front tooth. We actually lost the tooth in her room somewhere when her friend hit her with a pillow and the tooth went flying. She wrote a note to the tooth fairy explaining that she had actually lost a tooth and I printed this picture so she could put it under her pillow with the note. Fortunately, the tooth fairy found the note and left a silver dollar anyway. The other pictures are of Haylee and her neighbor friend playing fashion designer with some of my old fabric scraps. I see some budding talent in these glamorous gowns. The last picture is just a cute one of Kenna at a birthday party we went to yesterday. Because the birthday boy had mostly other rowdy boys at the party, Haylee did not want to participate much in their pool wars, but Kenna joined right in. She is a tough little 5 year old. Last night I went with some friends to a quaint little restaurant in Augusta called "A Food Affair", followed by a night at the Barn Theater where we saw RENT. The restaurant is so close to The Barn that they have a feature menu that has items related to whatever production is playing at the theater. I can't remember the name of my entree, but the dessert was called "The Tango Maureen". I also learned that Jonathan Larsons, who wrote and first directed RENT was originally an actor at The Barn, so there was a touching tribute to him at the end of the show. It was a wonderful night. My last picture is of my latest scrapbook page. This was our recent trip to the zoo when we fed the giraffes. The paper is again Close to my Heart "Expedition" line.

25 cents

The girls decided to have a Koolaid stand yesterday with their friends. I generally say no to this as it is more work for me and the girls drink all of their product. This leads to a bunch of hyper little girls and no money to show for it. They also make a huge sticky mess and run screaming from the stand when the bees show up. I explained the rules in advance to them when they finally wore me down, I said yes.

1. You may only have 1 glass each to drink

2. Haylee is the only one allowed to pour the drinks

3. You need to come up with a charity to donate your money to

4. You need to set up and clean up by yourselves

I was pleasantly surprised when they followed all of the rules (mostly), and told them that they could have another one in the spring. The final earnings were $7.75 which is pretty good for Koolaid that costs only 25 cents per cup. They gave the money to our neighbors who volunteer at the SPCA and they are going to donate it for us. The girls felt great about their success and felt even better after they donated the money. I am proud of them. The other picture is of another completed scrapbook page. This page was made with another Close to my Heart paper pack and the pictures are of a hot afternoon this summer when the big girls were playing in the water. It is amazing to me that at 7 and 5 they still find fascination in playing in a tiny blowup baby pool.

Fresh tomatoes

At the beginning of the spring when I planted my four tomato plants, I was just hoping to grow enough to eat on some salads and sandwiches. I have not had much luck in the past with growing tomatoes. I was very attentive to my tomato plants and watered them faithfully, talked to them, and even splurged to put cocoa bean mulch over them. I watched as they grew, and grew, and GREW. They overtook my garden box and smothered my green pepper plants. I am now starting to harvest my 300 or so tomatoes. (well, not quite that many, but it seems like it.) I decided that I would probably have enough to actually make some real homemade tomato sauce. I borrowed a tomato press and have some oregano and basil from a neighbor's garden and I have some yummy garlic flavored organic extra virgin olive oil to use for my project. Tonight I played with the tomato press and these are the pictures of my before and after. I was shocked at how easy this process was and that it only took me 10 minutes. I can't wait to simmer the sauce tomorrow with the herbs and fresh garlic. I will let you know how it turns out.

Another finished page

Here is my latest finished scrapbook page. I used Game On paper line by Close to my Heart. (My favorite for paper packs and acrylic stamps). The pictures are of Haylee's B-ball last year. I loved the colors of black/blue/cream. It matched the jersey's perfectly.

33 Years

Yesterday was my 33rd Birthday. My birthday gifts were perfect. My children and my husband gave me two scrap booked pages that the children had done. The pictures on them were of Happy birthday written out in shoes and the word MOM spelled with their bodies on the floor. It was priceless. My dad and Pam sent some goodies from PA including some tea, some olive oil soap, and a new devotional. My mom and grandma gave me some money and their free babysitting services while I went out shopping at my two favorite stores: Hobby Lobby and Target. I got some home decor and some new clothes. I then met my husband for lunch and a movie. Our 12th anniversary is today and so yesterday we took advantage of the free babysitter to spend some time together. Thank you to everyone for the great gifts.