My last post of the year

'07 was awesome...new baby, new friends, new hobby...

'08 promises to be great!

Here are the girls celebrating before bed:

Until next year... :)

The kids are bored...

Now that the surprises are gone, the gifts are all unwrapped and everything has been opened, the kids have nothing to do. ;) So I suggested we do a math page or two. Funny thing is, after their brains had been mushed by Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses and Barbie as Rapunzel (Christmas gifts), they surprisingly agreed--as long as they could work with their new American Girl dolls. Here's K with her doll Elizabeth:


After they finished math, they went to their most favorite Christmas toy of all...the box Micah's highchair come in! Why do we even bother creating list of fun gifts when all my kids need is some cardboard, tape and their imaginations? :)

Before I forget...

Merry Christmas!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful but the FiRe

is soooooooo delightful! (And the marshmellows are sooooooooo delicious!)

Matthew built a teeny tiny bonfire so that our highly deprived ;) kids could roast marshmellows. They had been on his case for weeks and he was stalling, waiting for colder weather. I don't think--and am very happy!--that it's not going to get much colder anytime soon.

By the way, these picts were taken with my brand new camera that my sweetheart bought for me! Not to bad for a novice like me, huh?

Our Real Christmas Tree

Last night, after everyone had finally fallen asleep, CG and I were up twirling our thumbs. Neither one of us felt like sleeping yet. The tree was still lit and CG asked if we could take pictures of it. It was dark in the living room and the pictures maxed out my little point and shoot camera (now when I get my dslr and can control aperture and shutter speeds...these will be awesome!) But you'll see the the fun we had with moving the camera around as the shutter was snapped...

Our Christmas Tree

Actually, it's our gumdrop tree, not really made from gumdrops, but from easily-obtained and cut candy fruit slices. We visited the county museum yesterday for their Christmas craft tour discussing the early 1800s traditions, and saw a replica of a gumdrop tree from years' past. So, of course, we had to make one. According to the kids, it's as delicious as it looks. :)

Finally...a typical day!

Whew! We survived the church's magnificent week-long Christmas pageant! What a wonderfully exciting, but absolutely exhausting, time we had! Now we can say the Christmas season has officially begun in the our household.

After a week away from their studies, the kids needed some structure and I needed my routine back. Of course, as anyone with a 6-month-old knows, a steady routine is non-existent. Kenna played with her doll, Mabry made clay snakes and Cayli decided to cook.

While I was feeding Micah his daily dose of butternut squash (his very favorite!) she asked if she could please use the bananas for something--something, as in anything. I told she could...if she had a recipe from a book. Truthfully I just didn't want another gross creative concoction of bananas-ketchup-egg-pancake syrup. So she found a book in one of the cabinets, preceeded to pull all the ingredients from the shelves and made a batch of yummy sugar cookies. She tells all on her blog.

Baton Class

Yesterday was open house at the girls' dance studio, so Matt and I were able to see first-hand what the kiddos do during dance class. The biggest surprise for us: K (in pink/purple) and M (in blue) are doing so well! You see, when we're at home, CG twirls and twirls and would all day long, if we let her. So we know what she can do. At home, K and M may pick up their batons a few times, but it's mainly to morph them into light sabers a la Star Wars! A baton is simply a prop for their imagination; whereas it's a dance tool for CG. We are very proud of our girlies and can't wait for the recital this spring.





Here is K preparing to throw her baton in the air, clap twice and catch it.


















Here is CG demonstrating a horizontal move. She is so happy when she has a baton in her hands.

I made the girls' day!

I surprised them with a tea party! I've been sick for the past two weeks and we didn't get to finish all I had planned for Cranberry Thanksgiving. I decided that I wouldn't like a passing holiday and I sinus infection stop us from enjoying ourselves today. Mabry and I prepared the cranberry bread using the recipe in the back of the book. As the bread was baking I washed out our tea set, found some fine china and prepared the tea. We had a delightful time. Well, everyone but Mabry--don't you see the sad drama? She didn't like the tea. :( But she did perk up when I let her fill her cup with lemonade instead. :)

While we sipped tea, Micah spit peas! :)

Twirlin' Elves

The girls marched in the Lexington Christmas Parade today. This is by far the highlight of the season! Aren't they cute? 35 twirlers participated; this was CG's second year and M and K's first. They are counting down to next year!

They twirled to Let It Snow, but the weather was far from wintery. What a perfectly beautiful day for a parade!


This is K in action!

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice and everything nice...

Yeah, right!

Cop guns: a hole buck
Scraps of fabric with pink hearts: Free (but wrinkled)
The entertaining bond sisters share: Priceless :)

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

Today Micah is 6 months old and look at what the little buckeroo is doing now: he's sitting up! Of course K and M take full credit for "teaching" him this latest trick. ;)

Our Photo Shoot

A few days before Thanksgiving the girls were involved in a casual photo shoot for the Springdale House, a soon-to-be marvelous place to hold a wedding or other gathering. One day I'll have to blog about how this whole place came to be. For the shoot, M and K wore the dresses and headpieces the wore as flower girls last November and Addison had on a borrowed tux. Cute, huh?

The funny thing about this whole set-up, is that the guys were finally available to pour the concrete porches. So we had to work around the workmen. You know, 3 distractable 6-year-olds and big men with interesting tools and dirty boots made for some unique pictures.

Now if you don't know by now, M and Addison plan on marrying in the future and living on a ranch in Texas. But to love M is to love K...so here is Addison and his girls (preparing to sing at church):

Okay, so I lied...

We interrupt our blog vacation to share these two pictures with you...

BB and the baby during their daily chew-fest...

M upside-down on the rightside-up trapeez bar...

Sorry, No Blog This Week

Matthew has given me a mile-long honeydew ;) list in preparation for the holidays. I may be checking off projects, but you can check out CG's blog to know what is going on in her world.

Until later...
Happy Thanksgiving!

A pink and plump and perfect cake...

The Seven Silly Eaters is my most favorite children's book! Mary Ann Hoberman truly understands all the work a mother does to find the right food for a picky child.

In the story, each child will only eat one item. They accidently mix these items together and viola! the have a cake for their mother's birthday.

So, of course, we had to make it! I found the recipe on the book's website; here it is for easy reference:

Mrs. Peters' Birthday Cake

• ½ cup milk


• 1 tablespoon lemon juice


• ½ pound (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened


• 1 ½ cup granulated sugar


• 3 eggs


• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted


• ½ teaspoon baking soda


• ½ teaspoon salt


• 1 cup oatmeal, quick or regular


• ¾ cup unsweetened applesauce


• 4 drops red food coloring
  

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease 10-inch tube pan.

2. Warm milk to 70 degrees and add 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice. Let sit 10 minutes until milk has thickened.

3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, blending well.

4. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in oatmeal.

5. Blend applesauce with thickened milk and red food coloring.

6. Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with the milk/applesauce mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.

7. Pour batter into prepared tube pan. Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until cake pulls away from sides of pan and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

8. Cool cake in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan. Enjoy!

They all take turns in fixing it...

It's quick to bake and fun to eat...it's Mrs. Peters' birthday cake!

We should have bought a Mac!

After 3 days of relentless headaches and constant frustration, my computer is finally working again. It started slowing down last weekend and came crashing down Monday afternoon after I grew tired of not being able to access particular homeschool-related sites. I tried adjusting the parental controls of our online security system. I thought I had the proper clearance to do so because I knew the correct passcode and I am, after all, the parent!, but the system pretended not to recognize me and began shutting down my online sites and other software programs one by one. :(

I'm a tried and true Macintosh fan and can barely tolerate anything less, so I'm always fighting this stupid PC! I mean really...who really wants to work on a blah and boring tempermental HP?

The difference between a Mac and a run-of-the-mill PC is like driving to the beach. You can take your time on the country backroads while enjoying the view or you can drive on the crowded, congested, bumper to bumper interstate. Either way, you'll get to the beach, you'll just be more pleasant upon arriving if you didn't have to fight a bottleneck the entire way.

Okay, now don't read too much into my analogy. :) Just know that Mac's are far superior and have very little problems. In all my years of using Macs, I never had to reinstall our startup software and reconfigure the registery and all the other techno-stuff I had to do to get my computer up and running again.

Baby Micah's Baby Dedication

Watch it here. It's within the first few moments of the service. There's a song, a baptism, another hymn and then the babies. We're first (gotta love the alphabet!) and Baby Micah's best bud, Baby Gage, is third. This was the first time we've dedicated one of our children at First Baptist and the church was very encouraging and thoughtful throughout the process. It was also the very first time that all of our names were pronounced correctly! :) I could write mulitple paragraphs on the spiritual implications of our baby dedication, but truthfully, we entrusted Micah to God with the first pregnancy test. We know God has great plans for this baby, and we're excited to be a part of them!

I'm thankful for...

Mabry

• She's quite inquisitive.

• She makes me laugh with her abundant entertaining shenanigans.

• Did I say she asks lots and lots questions?

• She teams up with K to keep us laughing (and worrying!)

• She approaches life with a matter-of-fact attitude.

• She the perfect poster child for the little lawyers association. She's constantly reminding Matt and I to be "fair" towards her and her sisters.

• Can you say Drama Queen?

• She loves vegetables. She'll eat an entire can of peas, lima beans or corn for lunch.

• She thinks her main responsiblity in life right now is to make sure Baby Micah never cries.

• She has a delightful mischevious streak.

She's a fun big sis!

I'm thankful for...

Kenna Bear

• She can multitask by crying and laughing and the same time


• She loves to sing at the top of her lungs


• She even answers questions with a song


• She has a refreshing child-like spirit


• She's thoroughly enjoys a great picture book


• She'a best friends to all animals and will probably run a zoo one day


• She's never met an insect she didn't like


• For that matter, she's never met a reptile she didn't like


• Her frustrations are easily remedied with a bubble bath


• She says the most quoted one-liners in our family (When CG was saying that she was finally seven-and-a-half, K piped up: "Well I'm six-and-a-whole!")
  

And you can't help but laugh when she's around!

She's always dancing while wearing the latest layered fashions!

I'm thankful for...

Cayli Grace!

• She's very helpful around the house and willingly does her chores.





• She loves to play with her sisters and is caring towards her baby brother.





• She practices hard to make beautiful music on her violin.





• She's my walking calendar--she reminds me of my daily to-do list.





• She has the biggest smile when a baton is in her hand.





• She loves her playful puppy.





• Now that she's reading, I get to share all my favorite childhood books with her, like Charlotte's Web.





• Her pen flows freely and I love reading all her writings.





• She diligently finishes her schoolwork.





• She enjoys making things and giving them to her friends.





• She loves her raggedy Curious George that she's slept with since she was a baby.

She super silly, especially when filling in her Mad Libs book!

Yep, I've been playing :)

Whatcha think about my new header?

I just discovered digital scrapbooking. Well, I known it's been around for awhile, I just hadn't taken the time to explore all the options available for the medium. But I've been feeling a bit blah and fatiqued (the baby was up every two hours last night!), so I gave myself some quiet time in front of the computer while the kids finished their math.

First of all, I downloaded a trial version of Photoshop Elements. I get 30 days to play with it. So far I'm loving it. It's basically a waterdowned version of the powerful Photoshop, which I used during my graphic design days. But PS Elements has everything you need. You can download your trial here. (I will say, though, I'm very, very eager to get my hands on a copy of Creative Memories' Storybook Creator Plus, because I bet it's even easier to use and better geared towards us scrappers.)

Then I found two sites full of great "paper" backgrounds, embellishments and font freebies:
http://www.squidoo.com/digitalscrapbookfreebies/
http://www.freedigitalscrapbooking.com/

These will get you started. Freely explore them and see what they offer. All sites sell, but many offer lots of free goodies to try.

A word of WARNING! This is seriously addictive! Go ahead and throw dinner in the crockpot before you start or your kids will be hungry and your husband will not be happy!

40 Ways to Pray (for your children)

My Sunday School class has been hearing an excellent series about praying for our children. The lessons have also awakened a desire to be more purposeful when praying for my kids since "oh, Lord, let my kids have a good day" just doesn't make the cut anymore. My little ladies are rapidly developing their own personalities and talents. I need God more than ever to help direct them.


I remembered I had seen a list years ago with ideas of how to pray for kids. I googled "31 ways to pray" and found a few lists. But those list didn't include many of the prayers that my children desperately need--prayers for patience and contentment, to name a few. So I decided to make up my own list for my children. I'm sharing it with you so that maybe you will be inspired to borrow this one or create a similar list and purpose to pray for your child(ren).

I pray that my children will...

Find salvation through Jesus
Know that God has a plan for their life
Develop Godly friendships
Be Cheerful
Show Compassion
Practice humility
Exemplify a Christian worldview
Be confident
Be content
Be generous
Find freedom from fear
Have a teachable spirit
Practice discernment
Keep their faith in God
Offer Forgiveness
Demonstrate gentleness
Devote their lives to God
Have plenty of patience
Always be honest
Have abundant joy
Show kindness
Be knowledgeable
Develop a heart for missions
Perservere
Show gratitude
Serve others
Practice self-control
Know God
Honor God
Worship Christ
Further God's kingdom
Develop solid Bible study habits
Have a good name
Focus their thoughts
Stand firm in their beliefs
Be blessed with good health and protection
Be obedient
Make wise decisons
May they find us, as parents, worthy of their following

CG's Big Day!

This morning CG played As the Deer on her violin in Sunday School. She was a bit nervous but she bravely continued playing. Her music was wonderful! And I had the pleasure of accompanying her on my violin (though I had to dust it off first :) ).

The kids at church have been studying the Fruits of the Spirit and today's lessons focused on faithfulness and loyalty. CG has exemplified both during the past week as she initiatied her practice sessions and daily focused on her music.

My prayer for her and my other kiddos is that al of them will remain faithful to their God and develop a thirst of His work...just like the deer, as CG played.

Because of today and all the practice she has done, she is interested in learning to play some Christmas songs. We'll try to add a few pieces to her repertoire.

(Oh, the cute little pigtails in front of CG belong to her friend Rachel who acted as our music stand. Thanks Rachel!)

Oh, yeah, Thanksgiving's coming soon!

My kids think this is the funniest picture! We first saw it in our church's children's newsletter for this month. After a few laughs, I realized that the '07 is coming to a close and our first big holiday is quickly approaching.


So as of Nov. 1, we've shifted gears. I know we were finally delving into our long-awaited study on explorers. But last night, my child asked me a question about Thanksgiving.

"Mom, what's Thanksgiving?"

What's Thanksgiving?????, I asked myself. What do you mean, what is Thanksgiving?

So it's official. I'm a failure as a mother. My kids don't know about Thanksgiving. How un-American is that?


But it's all soon to be rememdied! We are going to study the first Thanksgiving for the rest of the month. My kids are so excited! They know just enough to ask lots of good questions. Thanks to all the awesome books we've read every year about this time, they actually knew more than I thought. I think the question was asked because the girls are finally old enough to realize that this is a very important occasion and superceeds just Pilgrims and Indians--it's all about being thankful to God for all the blessings he bestows.


The first thing we did this morning was put up a Thanksgiving Tree. I just cut open a paper grocery bag into a freehanded tree form. Every day the girls will write one thing they are thankful for on a paper leaf. They helped me cut out many of the leaves this morning--that's my thankful sentiment for the day! We did this a few years ago, but now the girls are writing and thinking all on their own...and that's a big blessing!


Here's our bare tree:

By the end of the month, it will overflow with blessings! Here's what the girls were thankful for today:

• CG: our house


• K: Thanksgiving


• M: Mommy and Daddy

Oh, yeah, here's a sweet picture I took this morning of M and K looking through one of our new library books, Waltz of the Scarecrows.