Leaning Christmas Tree

sitting in the kitchen today having a conversation with David as he pretends to be working on his computer. lucky for me i have slow Internet so the bro-in-law conversation gets to last half the day. in mid sentence David stops and says, hey, you know your Christmas tree is leaning.  house with 3 wild children, I'm surprised it lasted this long.  sure enough tree looks like it is about to hit the floor any minute. i work as fast as i can to remove the ornaments. starting with the breakable, and collectible ones and ending with those that can easily be replaced. when all the ornaments were safely down and the tree was packed away the questioning began. i asked all 3 of the kids separately if they know what happened to the tree, it didn't just almost fall on its own. what they said is the answer that i get most often........IT WASN'T ME! the mystery continues and they all 3 are sticking to their stories. oh well......looks like we will be getting a new tree for next year.HA

Happy Birthday Jesus

i wont attempt to blog about what all went on during our Christmas. But i will say the children got most of what they wanted and had a great time. i love seeing their little faces when they wake up and its Christmas morning. i try to emphasize that this is a season of giving and not a season of receiving but they are children so my efforts only go so far. but we did sing happy birthday to Jesus before the presents were passed out. i must say Josh did good this year. i received my Rachael ray pots and pans i have been wanting for a year now. yippee for me.the day becomes even more special to me when my sister arrives after lunch. i miss her so much all the time. i love it when i can see her face. this is always a big and busy day for us. but i try to be prepared for it and take it all in to make some memories. remember everyone that the mess in your living room on Christmas morning is really a most beautiful sight.....one day they will be all grown up and open their presents neatly. how boring. ha

CHrIStmAs cOokiE TraDitiON

its the simple things in life that make life worth living. i love having little traditions i do with my kids. one thing we do together during the holiday season is make cookies for SANTA. i wore my mrs. clause apron, and Josh was here to share in our tradition this year. :) big smiles!!! i am a working mother so don't expect too much. we don't make our cookies from scratch or even from a mix. Pillsbury makes a wonderful sugar cookie dough in a neat little roll. BUT>>>>>this year we did try something new. instead of sprinkles and colored sugar, we dug way back into my grandmothers brain and pulled out my great grandmothers icing recipe.  turns out my greatgran was as simple as me. powder sugar and milk. and what ever food coloring you want. why didn't i think of that. i wanted to make this icing because its one of the things i remember most about my Mamaw Criswell. she always had plenty of cookies with a rainbow of colors on them. so here we go, powdered sugar CHECK, milk CHECK, and plenty of red food coloring for Ramsey's bowl and green for JR's bowl. they had so much fun. and all 3 of them made a huge mess putting the icing on the cookies. the best memories are the messy ones. 2 cookies on a very cute santa plate with milk in the santa glass...sugar rush for santa. HO HO HO.......good thing i have lots to do tonight and don't need to sleep to much

Light up the night

we love looking at Christmas lights. people don't decorate for Christmas like they used too. we all make our doors look pretty or cute with our solid lights and trendy netting. im not putting down, my door is decorated that way too.  pretty, cute, and modern is NOT what the children want to see. they want to see lights, lights, and more lights. i don't think they even care if there is a theme. so this year we all loaded up and made the long drive to tylertown. i had heard that the number of lights they packed into the state park there was absolutely amazing. . well let me say, we were not disappointed. the kids had their heads sticking out of the windows pointing at this and that. we drove like -5 mph trying to make it last longer. THEY LOVED IT! Josh and i enjoyed it too. kudos to all the folks that make this happen every year. this is definitely one of our new holiday traditions.

simply silly situations

SNOWFLAKES

Today Ramsey is learning to make snowflakes. This is very exciting to her. Exciting for me to if she would sit in one spot to make these flakes. But not Ramsey. She is walking all over the house with her paper and scissors. Let the confetti fall where it may. She has this bright idea that she will set up a snow flake store outside and sell her snowflakes to people that drive up for 25cents each. This would be a very cute idea if people actually stop by our house. But i cant remember the last person that just pulled in to visit. Our visitors consist of Nana, Josh, and the meter reader. I thought surely that she would give up. It was freezing outside. So after 45min of not giving up i had to make a whispering call to Nana to come over, and come armed with quarters.  Here comes Nana to save the day. Thankfully she had just enough quarters to buy out our stock. Finally we get to go inside and thaw out, and make more snowflakes of coarse! HA