Christmas

Christmas!

The BOYS! Nick (8), Ethan (7), and Alex (12)

The GIRLS! Sarah (4), Olivia (2), Katie (9) and Sophia (7)

the kids at my Dad's house in Eupora....Nick, Sarah, Ally, Brett, Soph, Ethan, Calie and Olivia

We had a great Christmas with family. This year Ethan wanted a zip line for the back yard, Sarah a pink poodle and Olivia a bike (like Sarah's) and a pink pig. They each got what they wanted and plenty more. All the cousins had so much fun together! Playing in my mothers ditch is the biggest joy each time they are together. Next year we will have about an 8 month old joining the photos and fun!

Gymnastics

My girls take gymnastics through the Oxford Park Commission and we love our teacher, Mrs. Shannon. She is amazing with the kids. She has activities, dances and stories to go along with learning the gym moves. My girls practice gym many times a day using the unique and fun ways they learned from Mrs. Shannon.

baby chicks, Veterans home, buliding...

We put about 2 dozen eggs in the incubator and came out with 18 babies, that's pretty good...and they all survived! 

The Exchange Club buys blankets for the Veterans home every December and this year my kids wanted to donate $100 to help them buy the blankets. Then the kids and I wrap each blanket. We meet the Exchange Club members at the Veterans home to help pass out blanket but we take our own personal gift, a coloring page, for each Veteran. The coloring pages puts smiles on many of the faces there and it's a great feeling for the kids to have. 

Santa was there visiting the Veterans! 

This sweet guy came "chasing" us down as we were leaving to give the kids a apple juice box, that was the best part of the entire day. He was so pleased to see kids inside the Veterans home. I think it made his day for sure, as it did ours. The dog in the picture  lives there and has been there since he was a baby. Perfect dog! 

Beginning stages of our playhouse that GranKat (my mother) is giving the kids as their Christmas present. We ALL had a hand in building it. 

So close to being finished!

                                    FINISHED!

Sandbox

This week we were in and out of shops and there is a new sandbox kit all the specialty shops are selling. I looked into them because Sarah and Olivia stood there playing with this tiny box forever. 30 dollars. 
I took a good mental note and decided I could easily do that at home. So, I got a shoe box, cut the top off, put colored sand inside and filled it with different scenes (as did the stores)...we have a dino scene which the kids love, a family at the beach scene and soon we will have the Little Pet Shop scene. The kids are having a blast with it. Really a great idea if you have little ones attempting to do "school" with the others. It's a great activity for my Olivia while we are in school. Here are the pictures of the kids playing with the dino set.

Charity

The kids, Margaret (my aunt) and I all went to the Dollar Tree today to purchase toys for the shoe box charity. Tonight the kids, Nate and I went out to eat at Ajax before heading to Margaret's house to fill and organize the shoe boxes with all the goods. The kids had so much fun buying the toys and even more fun filling the boxes. Sarah loved organizing the girl boxes and Ethan the boys. Olivia wasn't feeling 100% tonight so she only enjoyed passing out the suckers, what 2 year old wouldn't - right?

Olivia fell asleep on the way to Ajax, guess the medicine I gave her made her sleepy, slept through supper and woke up when we put her back into the van. She just has a runny nose, nothing serious.

Even though we do it often, we just realized that we are now always ordering Ethan his very own meal and he usually finishes it. When we are doing this for 2 or more, we will not be eating out as a family...date nights only (not a bad thing)

The arrival of Margaret's house and the viewing of everything they got today.

this was the finishing touches, making sure everyone had enough candy

Putting tops on all the boxes and labeling them by gender and age. Olivia was having a bit of a problem with this box top. Dad relaxed in the back ground!

Baby Chicks

This morning we are anticipating the arrival of our new baby chicks. We have three that should hatch today and two more will be hatching in a few days. We can hear sweet baby peeping sounds coming from inside the egg and a very small crack (which means they will arrive today). We have a busy day yet we want to stay home to see the arrival, hopefully we will get home early enough to see the "wet" chick...they aren't cute until they are dry.

Around noon we had one baby chick arrive.

This hatching process is so much fun for the kids to watch. We can't wait on the others to hatch. We had a friend offer us a double yolk egg tonight to see if it would produce twins but we researched on the internet that they normally don't survive due to lack of room and oxygen in the egg. We decided against it.

Family Time

Our most favorite thing is spending time together as a family. The kids and I eat breakfast and lunch together every day and we all have supper with Dad at the table at night, it is our favorite time of the day. When we go out to eat we try and use signing most of the time, keeps us quiet and brings on many strange looks (especially when it's time to go and I say out loud "let's go". It's great. We love having game night at our house or art projects going. We play many games that are good for all ages. One of our favorite games is charades, it's so funny to see the kids attempt to act out (especially the younger ones). Family time is the best time for us.

We are making Fall trees with sponges and paint

Reading is the best past time! And we do a lot of it.

Being silly and loving life is what we do best!