family band

Santa was good to the boys this year.

J got an electric guitar



B got drums



We've got a good start on a family band.  At least it is sounding less like noise and a bit more like music.

cowl for the teacher

B's teacher is like a sister to me.  She is my best friend since 3rd grade's older sister.  I love that she is teaching B.

I meant to make her something for christmas but didn't quite get around to it.  I went to a knitting group meeting on the 22nd and I needed something to knit.  I grabbed leftover yarn and a pattern and by Christmas morning I had this:




It was suppose to be a bit longer and have a button but I didn't have enough yarn for that. I knit until I ran out and then sewed the ends together to make a cowl.  I gave it to her yesterday on her birthday.  I hoped she liked it.

Christmas

After staying up late to watch a movie, DH & I were pleasantly surprised that the kids listened to us and didn't come into our room until 7:30.  So much better than 2:45 in the morning.

It was an exciting Christmas morning.










All we need is a microphone for A and we have a family band. I would not recommend visiting my house anytime soon. It is loud and not very musical yet.

For breakfast, we made cinnamon rolls in the waffle iron.




Gotta love an easy breakfast from Pinterest. Clean up wasn't so easy so I probably won't do it again but it was fun for Christmas morning.

DH continued with the random foodstuff presents. I got a 12 pack of diet coke, individually wrapped candy bars & this:




He did balance that out with an ipad, so all is good.

We spent the afternoon at the ILs house for a fish fry.  We ate the fish the boys caught on a fishing trip back in October.  After that, DH took the kids over to the cousins and I came home for a 2 hour nap.  That might have been the best Christmas present of all!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at S#2's house.

The kids played.









We opened presents.








After the festivities, we all went to mass and then our family went to friends' house for dinner.  We of course got home late.  Kids opened their Christmas jammies and finally went to bed.




DH & I stayed up late to watch "Love Actually".  Aside from the typical hectic time of getting everything done in time for Christmas, it was a fun Christmas Eve.

snowflakes

Yesterday was a day without the cousins.  A was not very happy and told me I had to come up with something fun for them to do.  I suggested cleaning the house so the fit she was on the verge of throwing ended quickly.

I did come up with something fun.  My friend made Star Wars snowflakes with her kids.  Now I wasn't up for Star Wars theme but snowflakes I could do.  We spent a good hour folding paper and cutting bits.  Now our windows are festive.














My attempt at a Santa snowflake. The first one was a cyclops Santa snowflake.
This one turned out much better.

christmas cookies

A told me it was tradition for the cousins to come over and make christmas cookies.  The girls are calling everything they want to do a tradition so they ensured they get to do it.  You can't break tradition, right?











I was not looking forward to the noise and mess of making cutout cookies with 5 kids, but we did it every year growing up so I feel quite obligated to do it.   I'm not the only one who feels this way.  In the middle my youngest niece said thank you to me, because her mother (S#2) would never do this with her because it was way too messy and if she did do it, she would just yell. 

For the most part they listened during the rolling out/cutting out process.  The decorating was a loud mess.  I solved that problem by leaving the kitchen and letting them do what they want.  Cookies are done.  One more thing checked off my list.

tiny santa

I'm still on my knitting kick.  After finishing the mitts for J's teacher, I got to do a project that has been waiting since last month.

A teeny tiny Santa.





with a quarter for scale




Isn't he so cute!

I bought a kit from the knitting teacher at knitting group.  I have enough to make another one.  I might try to fiddle with the pattern and make a Mrs. Claus. 

christmas mitts

J's teacher is always cold.  She walks around with her hands tucked in her sleeves.  She wraps herself up in a blanket while she teaches and does carpool line.  It's Texas and she's cold.

I had a skein of yarn in my drawer waiting to be used.  There's a pattern I've always wanted to make.  J's teacher needs something to help keep her warm.  It was a perfect fit for a Christmas present.




Details on ravelry.

Christmas concerts

This was the last week of school before Christmas.  It was filled with activities, Christmas luncheons, Christmas parties & Christmas performances.

J's performance was on Wednesday night.  He sang well despite the bad photo.





B's performance was on Thursday afternoon.  He too sang well despite the bad photo.





A is in middle school so she no longer has a Christmas concert.  However, the 5th & 6th graders played a song on recorders at all school mass this morning.  The cousins from Kazakhstan flew into town Thursday night and the two youngest went to mass with me to hear A play.  She played well despite my lack of photos.

School let out at at noon.  The kids were excited to have a break.  I'm excited to have two weeks off from lunch duty!

bearing gifts

J had a double dose of bearing gifts today.

First he was the gift bearer at the school mass. Photos weren't so good.  I was using my phone and the flash was off.  In the first picture you can see the chalice on the right.  That's J holding it.  In the second picture, that's him on the right. 








After school, J & B & I went to deliver the presents from the party to the Genesis Women's Shelter.   The ladies at the gift drop-off remembered the boys from last year and were so excited to receive another bundle this year.








You gotta check out the link above and see how grown up the boys look compared to last year. I can't believe that they are almost 9 years old!

J's birthday deja vu

J had a birthday party with his friend.  It was the same party, one year later.  We had the same game truck and another gift donation drive.  It was cold but all the boys had a fun time.  A even tolerated it.



playing Mario Bros


A in the hamster ball


J refusing a picture while waiting for laser tag


the birthday boys


the "I gave all my birthday presents to charity" present - the most desired Phiton necklace

critter

This morning I got a call from DH.  He was in the sideyard cleaning up some dead plants and told me to come see the lizard he almost squashed.

I ran outside.  I forgot the camera and had to run back in.  Luckily, it is chilly outside and that lizard wasn't running anywhere.  He was still there when I returned.








Texas Spiny Lizard, I think.  From head to tail, he was longer than my foot.  Pretty cool!

And Kristin - he was no where near the inside of my house.  No worries there!

Crawling through Christmas

After my relaxing, fun weekend with the girls last weekend, it was back to normal at home.  Busy, busy, busy.

Friday night we didn't do much.  I tried to get some work done without much success. DH & kids watched A Christmas Story.

Saturday afternoon, A had a dance performance downtown.  We decided to take advantage of the morning and visit Neiman's flagship store to check out the Christmas window.  It is a crawl-thru display.




photo courtesy of Dallas Observer

We got there right before 11am only to discover that the tunnel opened at 11:30.  We had 30 minutes to spend strolling through Neiman's.

This was the sale table piled with bags.





I perused through the stash looking for a nice new purse.   The cheapest one I found was $850.00.  Not exactly my idea of a bargain.

The tunnel opened at 11:30 and the boys got to crawl though the windows.







Afterward, we grabbed some lunch before Anna's performance.  That was a chaotic mess but A danced very well.  DH was not happy with me because he took pictures all morning long.  At then end of the performance he checked to see what the pictures looked like only to discover the message "Card missing" displaying instead.  I had taken the card out of the camera to download pictures and forgot to put it back.  So no pictures of A available.

After dance, we had a basketball game, a soccer game, and the kids went to the ILs to spend the night while DH & I went to a Christmas party.

Like I said, busy, busy, busy.

I'm looking forward to Christmas break.

weekend with the girls

Last weekend, the girls came in town.  Back in the summer, one of my high school friend found out she had cancer.  Despite treatment, she vowed to continue training for the White Rock Half Marathon.  Another high school friend started running this year and I told her that we should join her.  She passed the word along and next thing there were four of us training to run with Michelle.

I, unfortunately, got sidelined with a neuroma and couldn't run the race.  The other girls made it and completed the race.  I felt horribly guilty for inducing my friends to run 13.1 miles.  Especially when the weather was awful.  It rained plus the temperature was in the 40s and dropping all morning.

However, despite me flaking on the race, it was a great weekend.  We hadn't all been together in years.  We ate and drank and celebrated and froze and had so much fun.  We need to make these reunions a regular occurance.


The birthday girls



Ready to run with DDP in hand


Finished!

He's 6!

Wednesday was B's 6th birthday.




He was so excited to finally turn 6, to wear the birthday hat and for me to bring a cookie cake for his class.  I think it was a great birthday.