Christmas is almost here!

Wow! It's been a whole week since I've posted! Christmastime just gets so busy and exciting. Also, both my parents and sister and my husband's parents and sister are visiting. We've been baking, grocery shopping, wrapping, making presents, watching Christmas movies. I'm still alive. Here are some pics to prove it:


The Kids' Table:

Grocery shopping:

An air matteress with a leak. The three kids sunk to the middle. It was only a matter of time before Clifford joined them:

Family Home Evening Photo with 14 people:

More to come....

Church Christmas Party

Tonight we went to our Ward's annual Christmas party. This year the activities committee went all out and transformed the cultural hall and even the chapel into Bethlehem. It was requested that we dress in period clothing and bring our taxes (a canned food item) to Bethlehem. The indoor street was lined with booths. There was a toy booth, sandal booth, bakery, pita shop, water, and cheese. After the families ate their light meal, there was a short nativity pageant. It was well done and pretty cool. Except now I smell like frankincense and it's giving me a small headache.

I totally did not want to dress up because it's like doing Halloween all over again, but Emily really wanted to, so we threw some costumes together last minute. I draped white thermal baby blankets over the girls' heads and tied with ribbon, and my husband threw a dish towel over Bradley's head with a boy scout belt. David and I dressed up too. We threw blue baby blankets over our heads, but the pictures are hideous. I will spare you.

The Case of the Missing Cranberry Juice

On Saturday I bought my husband some cranberry juice. Last night before he went to bed, he went to pour himself a glass. The cranberry juice container was not in the fridge. My intuition told me that Jason might have something to do with its disappearance. I went upstairs and Jason was still awake. I asked him where he put the cranberry juice. He immediately looked down and got scared. I told him he wasn't in trouble and to show me where he put it. He started getting out of bed and then stopped because I think he was afraid I would be mad. Jason had guilt written all over his face. I knew he knew where it was because usually if I ask, "Who did this?" (usually referring to a mess or something broken) he will fully admit and yell, "Mommy, me did it!" However, last night he just kept quiet and didn't even say, "I no know." We went to bed never finding the juice and hoping there wasn't a puddle of it anywhere on any carpet.

This morning at about 11AM Jason called me over to the refrigerator and said, "Mommy, look! There it is!" Sure enough there was the cranberry juice right there on the shelf. And no, it was not there the entire time. I know he got it from wherever he had hidden it and put it back while I wasn't looking. That sneaky devil! I'm still hoping there's not a puddle of it anywhere.

Cleaning

We've all been a little sick in the house so I let the kids crawl in bed with me this morning at about 8 AM and watch PBS until 9:30. It was very cozy snuggling up next to a feverish Rachel, although I had to worry about getting her snot in my hair. I guess I fell back asleep because the teacher on Sid the Science kid was in my dream. I totally count PBS as homeschool. My favorite show is Martha Speaks. It teaches good vocabulary even to the older ones.

I finally decided to get up and clean the upstairs and start some laundry. Sarah was sitting next to her sister, Wendy, in the hall and she wanted me to take a picture of her because I guess she thought she looked cute. I told her that I didn't have my camera handy. She told me that she would hold a roll of wrapping paper so that we would know it was Christmastime when we look at the pictures. (Sarah must think I only take Christmasy pictures at this time of year.) I never took the picture. But here is where you imagine a picture of Sarah and Wendy sitting against the wall in outfits they picked out themselves, holding a roll of Christmas wrapping paper:







My upstairs hallway is very clean. I cleared the junk, vacuumed, and even vacuumed the baseboards and where the carpet meets the baseboards. Let's hope it stays clean for another 8 days until the guests arrive. Now onto the downstairs tomorrow.

We had French Toast for dinner. It was yummy. I'm feeling better.

More Christmas Prep

Monday, December 7

Monday was not my favorite day this week. It started with this in the morning before breakfast:

I thought I had thrown that chocolate frosting out or at least put it in a good hiding place. Jason somehow sniffed it out and decided to eat it as a breakfast appetizer. He's totally proud of it too.

My main goal was to get the kitchen floors clean on Monday. I put the chairs on the table in the morning so it would force me to clean them before lunch. Well, they didn't get cleaned before lunch, so the kids asked me where they should eat their macaroni and cheese. I said, "I don't know. Just find a place." This is where and how they chose to eat it:



Jason got mad about something at lunch. I never did figure it out. I think it was because I wouldn't let him eat his macaroni and cheese standing up on a chair that was on the table. This caused him to throw his macaroni on the floor. It made a mess and I asked him to clean it up. Of course he didn't. He's three. About a half hour later I cleaned it up and he got mad that I cleaned it. I think he was planning to eat it off the floor later. It was a nasty tantrum. Later he cracked open a Sprite. I gave him some to try to mend things and he was upset that I didn't pour enough into his cup. He wanted it an 1/8 inch from the top and not a 1/4 inch. So he dumped it in the sink and proceeded to go to the fridge to get another one. I parked a kitchen chair in front of the fridge door and sat there so he couldn't open it. That made him MAD! He finally go over it.

Later that night we had Family Home Evening. You can tell my smile is pretty fake. It was a rough, long day. And you can see that Jason is throwing a fit about something. I think this time it was because we had him put a pink blanket over his naked bottom half so we didn't have any penis in the picture. Little boys!!!

Tuesday, December 8

On Tuesday I had a doctor's appointment. The baby had a heartbeat. 154 beats per minute. The doctor said he could feel that my uterus is starting to come out more. I have a retroverted uterus which means that the it flops backwards and likes to put pressure on my spine and cause lower back pain. I never knew I had a retroverted uterus until this pregnancy. From what I've read it can become retroverted after pregnancies. Just imagine blowing up a balloon as big as it can get six times. Well, that's my uterus. Nice and stretched and floppy. My lower back pain is starting to go away thank goodness.

Also on Tuesday morning Wendy woke up with a funky swollen eye. For those of you who know Wendy, she is much prettier than this:

Later in the day she developed hives on her legs, thighs, stomach and back. She's had a cold for the past few days, but no fever. I did some reading and learned that viruses can causes hives like that. I never knew that. Her other eye was swollen this morning, but the hives went away. I was so afraid that she was allergic to our Christmas tree. I don't think she is. Let's hope not at least.

Last night we began our tradition of making Christmas gifts. It was Emily's turn to make hers for her secret sibling. I can't say what it is, but it involved sewing, and it's not a bird or a plane.

Wednesday, December 9

I printed my Christmas card letter today. After 2 letters printed, my fairly new printer told me that the printer toner was gone. I knew it wasn't gone because there was nothing to indicate on the printed pages that it was even low. But the printer pretty much locks up and you can't print anything until you buy a new one. So I went online and tried to find a good deal. It was about $50 at Amazon. I didn't really want to spend that much or wait several days to receive it. To get one locally would cost me about $70. As I was reading the reviews on Amazon procrastinating and trying to decide what to do, I read a tip that said to put some masking tape over the clear round sensor on the toner cartridge and it will still work. Apparently Brother has these cartridges to send out a LED light through this sensor after so long that tells the printer to stop printing, making the customer think that they have to go buy a new one before the toner is actually even out. How awful is that? Anyway, the masking tape trick worked and I was able to print my letters. Yay! Now I just have to print my address labels. And help Bradley with his gift tonight......

It's the most wonderful time of the year! And I don't mean that sarcastically. It really it is. Three year olds can just make it a little more difficult to believe it.

Catch Up

I'm a total lame-butt blogger, but it's that time of year when the blogging gets put on the back burner and the cookie baking and wassail brewing gets priority. I'll try to catch you up to date:

Thursday, December 3

I made popsicle stick Christmas trees with the kids. It was a craft in Family Fun magazine. This one is Emily's. Some of her ornaments fell off because the tacky glue wasn't so tacky. I made one too. It was prettier, but I can't find it to take a picture of it.

Friday, December 3

Rachel concentrates on coloring a dot-to-dot.

Saturday, December 5
David and I had some training at church. I cleaned the house some. Pretty much an uneventful day. David took Emily and Bradley to Barnes and Noble with him to buy our traditional bargain books that we give each other each year while I stayed home with the young ones and watched The Year Without a Santa Claus. It was educator discount day so we got 25% off books we bought, instead of the regular 20% with our educator discount card. Unfortunatley the bargain books don't seem to be quite the bargain they've been in years past.

Sunday, December 6

Tonight was the the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. We made our traditional chocolate chip cookies. I forgot to buy the Tollhouse cookie dough this weekend, but thankfully I had the ingredients to make them from scratch and willing bakers to help.



I forgot that a baked potato had exploded in the oven on Thursday, so when I preheated the oven it started to smell pretty bad. I was able to clean out the debris without burning myself. However, while I was cleaning the oven this happened:

Someone tried to dip a finger into the creamed sugar and butter and knocked one of my favorite red bowls onto the floor. Thankfully the cookie dough was able to be salvaged and we transferred it to a new bowl and we continued to add flour. I'm going to miss that bowl. It was such a perfect bowl to eat popcorn out of, expecially at Christmastime. :(

Do you think that certain someone may have been this kid? I think a kid who can't even put an apron on correctly could very well be capable of knocking bowl onto the floor. We still love him. His nursery leader commented on how much they love Jason. I told her that if she had him for a full 24 hours that she might think differently.

Once the cookies were baked, we poured some milk and watched the devotional The opening hymn was The First Noel.

Wendy was kind of sick today. But not too sick to enjoy a cookie (or four of them).

The kids thought it was pretty cool that Sarah and Wendy were wearing the same dresses as last year when we watched the devotional. Does that mean my kids haven't grown over the past year?

Now onto week two of Christmas preparations...

Paper Chains, Ornaments, and Popcorn

Today was tree decorating day. But I had to get a few things done before the ornaments came out, so to keep the kids busy I had them make some Christmas countdown paper chains. It was a first for all of them. They loved doing it and they are hanging from their curtain rod in their bedroom (the chains are, not the kids), so that they can rip a link off first thing in the morning.

I know the colors look like we are counting down to Cinco de Mayo, but I let the kids pick them out.

Jason pulled this ornament out and said, "Tomato!" Mmm. I love tomatoes with ric rac and sequins.

During the decorating we chowed on 5 bags of microwave popcorn. I kind of combined the snack with lunch which is why we ate so much.

The kids did great job decorating. I pretty much sat and watched and fixed a couple of branches that had multiple ornaments. I also moved some breakable ones up higher. Amazingly we had no breakage. Yet....

The Smell of Pine

I'm a real Christmas tree kind of person. Growing up we had a very ugly artificial tree from the 60's I think. I never knew "real" until I was about 10 and we decided the ugly tree wouldn't look good in the new house, so my parents bought a real one. I remember going from lot to lot looking for the "perfect" tree with the whole family.

The new tradition was a lot of fun. However, we managed to wreck the beautiful live tree by draping icicles on it. It looked pretty at night when the lights sparkled on them, but in the daytime it looked like someone puked tinsel on the tree. I think we only did that one year. In later years our family started putting up two trees, a real one in the cozy family room with colored lights and an artificial one in the living room with white lights. I think my parents probably got the artificial one on sale or something after Christmas. This artificial one was much prettier than the old one. The only problem was that it was before the days of prelit trees and my Dad would spend hours putting about 1000 lights on it perfectly up and down each branch. It was tall, very bright and beautiful, and worth my Dad's effort.

Anyway, enough about my history. I've decided to keep the real tree tradition. I just love the smell of pine and the activity of going to get the tree. Thankfully we live in an area where they sell Frasier Firs that look beautiful no matter what shape and size they are. There is no need to jump from lot to lot to find the perfect tree. They also last about 6 weeks. They're awesome and worth the money. I budgeted $80 for a tree this year. It seems like a lot of money, but I consider it as my Christmas gift. I'm home all day long every day. I certainly get full enjoyment out of the beauty, smell, and tradition. The Christmas tree becomes a member of the family for at least 4 weeks.

This year the prices seemed more reasonable than years past. We found a beautiful 8 foot tree for $60. Plus we received $5 off because we are regular customers. Because we saved some money, we decided to invest in a new Christmas tree stand since last year's mishap bent our old one out of shape and it's all rusted and nasty.

While at the lot I snapped some pictures:

Nothing says Christmas like a mini candy cane.

The guy working there offered to take a family photo. He works there every year and recognizes us every year.

Cutting the netting off.

Filling the stand with water.

Rocking around the Christmas tree.

The kids watched me while I put the light on the tree. Emily really wanted to help, but I wouldn't let her. I told her that when I was little, Papa put the lights on the tree while Nana sat on the couch and directed. Emily took it to heart and was very quick to tell me where my gaps and clusters of lights were.

We explained to the kids not to touch the Christmas tree lights because they contain lead. Sarah wondered why it was bad to touch lead. Emily explained that if you touch it and put your fingers in your mouth you get dumb. Later Wendy warned, "If you touch the Christmas lights and put your fingers in your mouth, you look weird." I don't know exactly what my husband has told them, but it's been effective.

This is so fun!

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving all alone this year. Not that a Thankgiving with a family of 8 is all that lonely. But here is our holiday in pictures:

Wendy was my gravy stirrer while I took pictures. I attempted to make my own gravy this year instead of using Heniz. I've always heard stories how gravy is so difficult to make. Mine worked with no lumps. I felt very successful.

My beautiful Sweet Potato Casserole. My favorite.

My beautiful turkey cooker and carver.

My beautiful homemade rolls I decided to make last minute. I didn't think they were going to work because the dough didn't seem to be rising. But they did and were delicious.

Me. We have our Thanksgiving buffet style. There's just not enough room on the table for all those dishes. I also read online this year a nifty trick to keep the mashed potatoes warm is to put them in a crock pot. It totally worked and saved some stress of getting the potatoes done last minute to make sure they were hot.

The family feast. We get out the special glasses for the holiday and the kids think they are pretty special to be able to drink out of fancy glasses.

My plate. Clockwise: Sweet Potatoes, Mashed Potates (with skins), turkey, Stove Top Turkey Stuffing ( I learned this year that the Turkey Stuffing does not have MSG, but the Chicken one does.), Green Bean Casserole, Roll, and Jellied Cranberry (center).

And yes, I did eat it all, but a couple of bites of my sweet potatoes. I was stuffed to the max. A few years ago I bought some extra large plates on clearance at Target. I love using them for Thanksgiving.

A drumstick eater.

A wing eater.

After dinner we played pin the pilgrim hat on the turkey. It was difficult to decide who the winner was.

Bad Blogger

I know, I'm a bad blogger. I'm not even feeling all that bad, just got a little busy with holiday preparations and I was in a little bit of mourning for the loss of $860.31 to fix the car.

Today at lunch I took a brief moment to go upstairs to complete a task while my soup heated in the microwave. Bradley was curious as to what would happen if he shook a jar of hot chocolate powder with the lid slightly loose. He concluded that it goes everywhere and that he needs to clean it up quickly before Mommy comes downstairs. He failed to completely clean it up. After some coaxing, I asked him what happened and he told me. I said, "Why didn't you use your brain when you tried that?"

He replied, "I don't know. I didn't know that would happen."

Wendy said in defense of his brother, "Mommy, our brains are smaller."

Sarah said in defense of all kids, "But they are bigger than a dinosuar's"

Later that day Wendy found a plastic clip. She asked me where it came from and I replied, "I don't know."

She said, "But I thought you knew everything."

Wow! Such high expectations. I'm working on it, Wendy. It will take me a while to know everything.

Yesterday

Ok. I'm feeling better. It seems like just when I finish with the morning sickness (which happens to be evening sickness for me), I get a nasty cold that goes from sinus to chest to throat. I think I'm on the mend.

Ok, so about the car. On Wednesday I took my husband to work and then went to the stranded car to call AAA and get it towed. When it arrived at the repair shop, I told the guy what I thought was wrong and then while it was there I had them check out a couple of other things that I knew needed to be checked. We've always had a problem with our engine coolant light coming on and in the summertime, on super hot days, the car overheats. Also, the brake light never seemed to go off when we released the parking break. I thought they would be minor fixes, but it turns out that something was wrong with the breaks, the coolant sensor was broken, and, I happened to be right, and the shifter cable was broken. So all three repairs together is costing me $860.31. Lovely. But I like to think that by the car actually breaking and causing us to have to take it in to the shop, resulted in money and possibly lives saved should the brakes have failed on my husband or me one day. So it's all good. I'm not complaining. Cars are miserable. It's just a fact of life. I think it is still better than dealing with horse and buggies.

Last night I took Emily to her Achievement Days at church which is the 8-11 year old girls that get together twice a month to do fun and spiritual stuff. Last night the leader just had an improvised plan and brought some games for the girls to play. I asked her if she needed help and she invited me to come and play. We played Uno, Twister, and Da Vinci's Challenge. When we were leaving Emily was kind of quiet. I asked her if it was weird for her for me to be there. She nodded her head, but I could tell she didn't want to hurt my feelings. I guess she likes that time to go hang out and be silly with her friends without her mother around. I totally understand. I just hope I don't get called to be the Achievement Day Leader ever. She would be so disappointed!

I guess that's all for now. Today was uneventful. We attempted some more cleaning. Hopefully the car will be ready tomorrow.

Car Problems

This is going to be a lousy post, but I just have to vent a little....

My husband's car is broken :(

I absolutely hate dealing with car trouble.

My husband was helping a guy out with his computer and when my husband went to leave, the car wouldn't come out of park and the gear shift is all floppy. From my research, it sounds like the shifter cable is broken and it's not a difficult fix, but of course it still costs money. Not exactly what I wanted to spend the money from our first paycheck on. My biggest fear is that the repair shop will try to take advantage of me and charge me more than necessary. Anyway, I'm armored with my knowledge of gear shifts and shifter cables and hopefully will be able to recognize if they are trying to pull a fast one on me. The car is still at this person's house which means I get to go take my husband to work tomorrow at 7 AM, and then go to the broken car and wait for AAA to come and tow it while sitting in our van with all the kids.

The good news is that it got me to renew my AAA membership. It's been expired for 6 months. I have to wait until tomorrow to get it towed to avoid having to pay an extra $40 for the tow. Thankfully it's not a problem to keep it at this person's house until tomorrow.

Why do these things always happen right before Christmas? I was all ready to do some Christmas shopping. Ug.

Home Sick

I stayed home from church today with snotty, coughy kids. Emily was the only totally healthy person in the family, so my husband stayed with her during Sacrament meeting and then left her there and then Primary president brought her home after church. (The Primary president lives in our neighborhood.) This morning in bed I realized that we totally forgot to attend the Primary activity on Friday night. It was supposed to be a good one too. Emily cried because we forgot. She was so looking forward to it. I told her it was her job to remember these things. I seem to be very forgetful lately.

I have a sore throat and aching body. However, the aching body is not from being sick. I did yard work yesterday and my body is paying the price for it. My body hasn't experienced that much exertion in a long time. The yard looks dang good though! We derednecked it a bit. Took the toys out of the yard, pulled some weeds, pulled the dead tomato plants, mowed the weeds in the grass, threw away the old newspapers on the walkway, and edged the sidewalks. I was looking forward to admiring it as we drove past it on our way to and from church today. It didn't happen. I admired it from my window instead.

I just finished watching a sappy Hallmark channel movie, The Flower Girl. I'm a sucker for Hallmark movies.

Catching Up

Sometimes life passes us by, especially in the heat of morning sickness, and things can get a little out of control:


The past couple of months I just simply haven't cared what my house looks like. Actually, I cared, but I didn't have the energy or will to clean it. Any perfectionism that was left in me in the midst of raising six kids completely vanished. Things didn't get put away. Floors remained unvacuumed. Dust collected. Sheets failed to get washed. Dirty dishes sat on the counter. Etc. Now that I'm feeling better and with the Christmas season around the corner, I decided I was going to clean the entire downstairs today before my husband got home from work. We made progress, but only completed the family room. I considered it a huge accomplishment. I cleared the counters, spot cleaned the carpet, vacuumed the couch and chair.... My kids helped. It looks good. I hope to make progress on the kitchen tomorrow.

While we cleaned, we took breaks. This was our hot chocolate break:

Sarah was a good sister and shared.

Rachel doesn't speak much, but she is good at letting others know what she wants. Her current vocabulary:

Uh oh.

Ga gone.

Mama.

Anghhh!!! (while pointing to something)

Ehhh!!

Ehhh?

Ohh.

Ooo.

Dee.

Da.

Da?

Mmmhh.

Mmmhh?

Ba bong.

Wee-a-wee-a-wee-a.

(And more grunting noises that I don't know how to phonetically type.)

Going Public

Ok, so it's time. I'm going public. I will be 13 weeks pregnant tomorrow. My due date is May 19th. I went to the doctor today and he couldn't find a heartbeat with his handy little Doppler instrument. I was freaking out! He did a quick ultrasound and there was a heartbeat beating at 164 beats per minute. The little sucker was facing the wrong way and the doctor couldn't get the Doppler to detect the heartbeat. Despite the brief panic, I was lucky to get this great picture of my thumb sucking little guy. (I think it's a boy. Doesn't it look like a boy?) I'm not convinced he isn't missing his left arm either. At least he has a handsome profile. Hopefully he will grow an arm in the next several months.

Wisdom

Tonight I was in charge of the Family Home Evening lesson. For the past several years my husband has always been in charge of giving the lesson, but mostly because of my laziness and my enjoying being a listener. Last week we adopted a more structured Family Home Evening (FHE for short) task schedule. Here are the responsibilities:

Conducting
Opening Hymn
Musical Number
Lesson
Activity
Refreshment

We've always had these things included. It's just that now somebody is in charge of each one and and we all know a week ahead of time.

The past few weeks we've focused each lesson on a gift of the Spirit. Tonight's gift was the gift of wisdom. I bought a pomegranate this weekend out of curiousity and because of an article I saw in Better Homes and Gardens (BHG for short). I decided to try and incorporate it into my lesson. First I explained that the gift of wisdom is being able to understand things, especially spiritual things. We can pray and ask our Father in Heaven for understanding if we earnestly desire it.

I asked my audience of midgets to pretend the pomegranate represented wisdom. Bradley was confused as to how a pomegranate is wisdom, but my husband told him to just keep listening. It was an analogy. I handed the fruit to Emily and told her that I just gave her wisdom because she asked for it. Then I asked her to put the pomegranate on the cutting board. I proceded to cut the fruit as my BHG magazine instructed me to. Inside were hundreds of little juicy seeds. I explained that these seeds were further knowledge and wisdom. I explained that wisdom can continually be poured out to us if we seek it. The kids were so excited to pick the seeds out and taste them. Sarah exclaimed, "Look at all this wisdom!"

(Unfortunately I have no picture to show.)

Thankfully they enjoyed the taste of the juicy seeds and hopefully will have a desire to seek the real deal. I think it may have actually been a successful lesson. And it was all because I was curious to see and taste a pomegranate. Without the lesson, the fruit would've surely sat on my kitchen counter and rotted over the next couple of weeks and I would've missed out on all that wisdom.

James 1:5-7
5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

I just think it's really cool that we can ask in faith and receive understanding. We can pray to understand specific gospel principles and come to know that they are true and real. It works.

Traditional Fashion

First of all, let me just say I have an awesome husband and children. I went to a church activity from 10AM - 1PM on Saturday. Since it was in another part of town, I told my husband I was going to do a little bit of shopping at the mall because Emily recently alerted me to the fact that she has very few pairs of pants to wear and that she is cold. Since she is my oldest, she doesn't receive a whole lot of hand-me-downs. I wasn't all that successful, but I made good use of my time alone and browsed the mall, ate a pretzel, and savored a Barq's root beer. When I returned home, the kitchen was a disaster (as I half expected), toys were all over the playroom, and the house didn't look much different than when I left it. I gave my husband three jobs to complete when I was gone. 1) change all the analog clocks to the correct time, 2) vacuum the HVAC air filters (They should be replaced but I didn't have new ones.), and 3) wash out the three empty 6 gallon buckets that had been sitting in the yard the past week. Although I was disappointed I had dirty dishes to wash, I was happy to see he completed his tasks. Then I went upstairs to change my clothes and get Rachel up from her nap. When I reached the top of the stairs, I nearly fainted when I saw that the hallway and my bedroom were immaculately cleaned!! My husband even took down the princess poster and pictures that had been hanging on our wall since the bedroom switch last January. The kids' room and bathroom were also clean. They just left one hallway with some junk that I am in charge of finding places for. Anyway, it was awesome. I was so impressed that my husband was able to round up the troops for 5 hours of intense cleaning. It was a true lesson in service for them, all to make Mommy happy. And it did make me VERY happy.

That evening we took the kids to McDonald's to reward them for their good cleaning with ice cream cones. While at the shopping plaza we went to go search for some good deals at Kohl's for pants for Emily. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of deals on good pants in the size 7-16 girl's section. I don't like paying more than $10 on a single item of clothing except for dresses. I'm also disappointed in the selection of jeans. I just want some decent denim without all the bling, peace signs, skulls and cross bones, and other unnecessary decorations. Of course Walmart has some basic Faded Glory selections, but I'm trying to deviate away from my children having an entire wardrobe from Walmart. Anyway, I found 2 pairs of black yoga pants at Kohl's for $6.60 each on the clearance rack. Yay.

While we were there, I also browsed the holiday dresses. Emily is advancing to a size 8 and I never seem to mind spending money on church dresses since I have 3 more girls to wear them. However, the selection of dresses is often disappointing beyond size 6x. I'm just not ready to dress my little girl like a hoochee (nor will I ever dress her like a hoochee). My mother never let me wear black dresses as a child or youth. She told me that I would wear enough black as an adult. I didn't understand then, but I understand now. I wish I could still wear a pink dress with a poofy mesh lining and sash. I think it would look silly if I wore that to church at age 33. My mom was right. Emily pointed out a dress that I found unattractive. I think she liked the glitter. I told her, "No. That looks skanky." Then I wished that I hadn't used that word because I didn't want to have to define it. But then she simply replied, "Yeah, it does smell pretty bad." No definition required.

So I think I am going with this one from Sears.com. I just love online shopping. There's a much better unskanky selection.



When we arrived home and got out of the car Sarah looked like this. She denied picking her nose. Her denial was unconvincing. I think she dug a little too deep.

Artwork of the day.

At least it's on himself this time. Not that I encourage self-destruction and tatoos, but it should come off easy enough in a bath or two. Yesterday I caught him standing on the kids table drawing on my white cupboard doors that disclose my TV in the family room. When I said, "Jason, no!" he so innocently replied, "But Mommy, I teacher." My cupboards were his whiteboard.

Bradley's Birthday

Bradley made his own cake.

Little Sister always loves to watch present opening.

My parents gave him a Zero Gravity Nano. Now Bradley has to think of something new to ask for from Santa.

I decorated the cake. The last polka dot cake of the year.

7 years old.

Rachels is trying to figure out how to get all those Mini M&M's off without anyone noticing.

Rachel licked the #7 candle and took a bite. It didn't taste good.

It was a good birthday!