Happy New Year!!!(almost)

Well, everyone, a new year is just about on top of us. What will we strive for this year? I have some goals of my own for this year, but I am choosing to keep them between me and
God. I find that when I tell somebody that I feel obligated to that person to complete my goal and that is just not right.

On a fun note, Craig and I are heading to Orlando tomorrow for the Capital One bowl! Go Michigan!!!! We are so excited! This will be a first for both of us. I went today and had my nails done with blue and yellow accents! I think I may have lost it! Anyway, I will let you all know how it goes!!!! Hope everyone has a very Happy New Year!!!!!

Christmas Pictures

Christmas Pictures are here! Yea! I'm only posting a few, because Christmas morning pictures are just wrong in my opinion! I mean, honestly, the kids wake you up at 5:00 a.m. Does anybody look good or even decent that early in the morning??? I didn't think so. The pictures of the adults are from December 23, but you will notice that only the kids have pictures from Christmas day!

Does everybody's house look like this after Christmas morning is over with?

Kayla got lots of books! The only problem was that every time somebody else was opening gifts she would start on her book!

We love doing picture gifts for the Grandparents from the grandkids. My mom got a notebook with the kids picture on the front. It is a place to write her "Mustard" stories. One day I'll explain that for those of you who have never been graced with a story about Mustard.

Craig's Mom got a calendar with the kids pictures on every month! She was thrilled!

Ron got a tie with pictures of Kayla and Tyler on Tyler's John Deere.

Dad also received a tie with pictures of the kids.

Tyler got an air compressor like Daddy's!!!

Along with her books, Kayla got lots of accessories for her Bitty Baby, including a crib with the bedding and the diaper bag, plus some outfits.

One of Tyler's favorite gifts was from Aunt Carrie - a John Deere talking toolbelt and hat!

Me, oh my!!!!

Wow, what a weekend and week it has been. Let me see if I can catch ya'll up! Our Christmas started on Saturday with the arrival of Craig's parents. We enjoyed the afternoon and evening with them. They will be here for about 10 days. Sunday after church we arrived home to find my parents here. They had gotten up very early to travel to our house. So we had lunch and opened presents with them. Then we all went to see the Lights of the South. What an adventure that was! The ride started with a flat tire, we got just down the first row of lights and the guy that was driving missed gears and stalled and we started rolling backward, THEN, he took a hill too fast and jacknifed the tractor and slid down the hill aways!!! Needless to say, it was an adventurous ride and I would not recommend going after it has rained all day. But we thoroughly enjoyed the lights!



My parents left Monday morning to travel to my brother's house for the week. We spent the day just relaxing and watching Christmas movies. We even dared to make a Wal-Mart run!!! Yikes! Monday night we went to the Christmas Eve service at Church and enjoyed that very much. The Hyders came to spend Christmas Eve with us and we had tons of fun!



Christmas day was spent very quietly with just us and Craig's parents. It was strange but nice. It was extremely relaxing. In the afternoon we all went to Savannah Rapids for a walk and enjoyed some time away from the house.

The rest of the week has been filled with shopping and just lazing around the house. Craig had to work Wednesday and Thursday, but was off yesterday and will be off until next Thursday. We are enjoying the grandparents being here. Tyler has been having some serious issues this week and has just been generally ornery for most of the week. However, I think with a little bit of rest he is coming around! Ruth and I were able to get out yesterday afternoon for a few hours of shopping with just us and no children. That was fun and a much needed break for both of us I think. Kayla has been shopping with her daddy and her grandpa this week. They are getting ready for a hunting trip in October and have been enjoying buying their gear at the end of this season discounts. They are two peas in a pod!

Today, everyone except Tyler and I are off for a hike at Phinizy Swamp and then flea marketing. I thought Tyler and I could use a semi-normal day at home just trying to regroup. The Christmas stuff has been put up, but my house looks like a wreck! So today we will be cleaning and straightening and Tyler will be enjoying some down time.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. I'm going to try to get some pictures up in a little while!

Fun Gifts from Friends

Tyler got a "Cars" dry erase board, a "Cars" mini lunch box, and an outfit. He has not hardly put the Cars stuff done from last night! I think the dry erase board was his favorite!

Kayla received a new outfit and some lip gloss. I think her exact words were: "I have been wanting leggings for, like, my whole life." She loved it!

Cookie Fun

Last night we had the Hyders and Maxwells over for dinner, cookie decorating, and for the kids to exchange their gifts. What fun! We had tacos for dinner and then we all sat around the table and decorated cookies. I was expecting it to just be the kids decorating but all of the adults joined in too. It was a lot of fun! Kayla and Kendall are quite the artists. Tyler enjoyed licking every cookie that he decorated and yes, I will admit that some of them went back in the box. Grandparents beware: check your cookies for tongue marks before eating them. Here are some pics:

Some of our finished artwork!

This was pretty much what Tyler did the whole night: Frost, lick, frost, lick, frost, lick!

He was very proud of this pumpkin cookie!

Kayla had a blast and really did some very cute stuff!

As you can tell, even Craig got into the fun!

A Sigh of Relief

Well, I am beginning to breathe my sigh of relief! The busyness of the week before Christmas is finally starting to settle down. I have baked and baked and baked some more! Today I have made countless dozens of sugar cookies that will be getting frosted tonight. These are my mother-in-law's favorite!!! Kayla, Kendall, Tyler, and Ryland will all join forces with the adults tonight for a Christmas cookie decorating adventure! The girls will have a blast. Tyler will have more fun eating his icing than actually icing anything! And Ryland, well, considering he wasn't too sure of his b-day cake icing we will have to see how he does! I made chocolate chip cookies for Kayla's Christmas party at school today. They are watching Polar Express in their PJ's(over their clothes of course!). So I can't wait to hear all about that. I will probably do a little more baking over the weekend, but for now I am taking a break!

This is Kayla's last day of school before Christmas break. I'm excited that she will be home for the next couple of weeks!

I'm off to straighten the house up and put the kitchen to rights after a day of baking!

Christmas Busyness Has Begun!

The week is shaping up to be an extremely busy one. Shew! However, I have really tried this season to keep the busyness and stress to a minimum so that I can really enjoy the birth of my Savior this year. Sometimes it seems so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of shopping and traffic and all of those things that test our patience, and we completely forget why we are "celebrating" in the first place. I pray that everyone sets aside time for family and friends this season, but most importantly that we will all make the moments with our Savior a priority; after all, He is the reason for the season! I have heard that saying all my life, but thinking about it just now I realize that there is loads of truth in it. He is our hope and our reason to celebrate!

A Busy Weekend

Well, the weekend was a little crazy, but it was a good, fun kind of crazy! We spent Friday night at Wal-Mart, Sam's, and basketball practice. A word to the wise - avoid Wal-Mart at all costs for the next week - it was not pretty!!! But we managed to make it through and got most of what we needed for Christmas baking and cooking! Yea!

Saturday we went to Ryland's 1st birthday. It was so much fun, but also a little sad because he is just getting so big so fast! Saturday night Craig and I had a Home Depot and Lowe's date. Yeehaw! We are getting ready to overhaul our bathroom so we were out looking at our options and trying to decide where to start. More to come on that in the coming weeks! We love home improvement!

Yesterday was church. I helped with a Christmas party in Tyler's Sunday School class and that was a lot of fun! Kayla and I spent the afternoon baking. We dipped pretzels, made star shaped brownies, and peanut clusters. She is getting to be a very good help in the kitchen and she loves it! We will be doing a lot more baking this week, including Christmas cookies with some friends on Thursday. Last night was our Christmas party in AWANA and then we had some friends over for dessert and coffee after that. All in all, a busy but very fun weekend!

Today I have gotten a surprise day off of work! Yea me! We are moving offices and my boss called last night to tell me I have no computer so I might as well skip it! Hey - you don't have to tell me twice! So I will be taking the kids to school and coming home and doing some cleaning - fun, fun!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Christmas is only 8 days away!!!!!! And it is finally getting cold here!

The Art Show

Last week was the art show at Kayla's school. They always have the coolest stuff there! Kayla's class did stained glass and dream catchers. The gifted program that she is involved in is teaching her so much about art and drawing - she is definitely beginning to develop some talent in this area!

John Deere Green

Do ya'll remember that old country song from Joe Diffie(I think!) called John Deere Green? Well, that is what I will be singing from now on whenever I walk into Tyler's room. However, for those of you who do remember that song - no, I won't be painting "Billie Bob Loves Charlene, in letters three foot high" on his walls. For those of you who don't know this song you have no clue what I am talking about - sorry! Anyway, we are redecorating in Tyler's room and are using a John Deere theme. The stuff I have ordered is beginning to come in - isn't ebay great! So here a few pics....

Can you tell that he loves his new bedding?

I think this is the cutest little lamp that I have ever seen!

John Deere curtains - every boy needs some of these right!

Whew!

Well, we finished this day up FINALLY! Do you ever have those days that you feel are never going to end? Yeah, me too - today was one of those days! I managed to get two kids delivered to school, stopped and tried to help fix a Graceful Designs problem at Holly's (not much help, but I tried!), then off the work for a couple of hours, back to school for one child who refused to take a nap this afternoon. I spent a couple of hours paying bills, making my grocery list for Christmas, and just straightening up. Kayla had our neighbor's daughter over to play for a little while tonight. Craig worked until almost 6:00. Grabbed some quick dinner and finished the night out with blizzards at DQ and a short drive around town to look at Christmas lights. By the time we got home, Tyler was having a meltdown - he has a little pimple on his tongue - a lie bump, no doubt - and he was crying because it hurt. Finally got them to bed only to have Tyler get up before I even got out of his room because he needed to use the bathroom and, yes, we did make him go before we even got him in there! Got him back to bed only for him to get up five minutes later because the tag in the back of his pajamas was "scratching his hiney"! I think both kids are safely in bed for the night!

Weighing In!!!

Tyler got on the scales in my bathroom this morning because he "wanted to see how old he was"! Isn't that funny! I thought to myself, goodness, I would like to weigh 31lbs! Or even 131 lbs. I thought that was too cute not to post.

On another Tyler note, he got his first timeout at school today. That's right folks - one time out and had to eat lunch by himself because him and two of his little friends weren't listening. I can count on one hand the number of times that Kayla has gotten in trouble at school in the last eight years. Somehow I think Tyler is going to be a little bit different!!!

Funny Sayings

Kayla thought that it would be really cute to teach Tyler something new today. So she showed him how to put two balls down the front of his shirt and say - "Hey look, I have lady boobies!". Only he has gotten it confused and has now been saying "ladybug boobies!" Too funny!

The Scoop on the Poop

Well, Tyler has made a successful deposit in the toilet today rather than in his pants. We are celebrating!!!

Joining the Millions

Well, folks, I have decided to join the millions who have created blogs by creating one of my own. Craig tells me that I should write a book, but I figure that I will start small and just try to write a blog! I enjoy the blogs of my friends so much; I hope you all will enjoy mine as much! Be warned though, we are in the midst of some heavy duty potty training and there will be talk about poop! Tyler is 3 and we are in the middle of potty training turmoil! I know you all can't wait to hear about it! I look forward to having a place to log all of my daily happenings!