Gingerbread fun

We are blessed in our town to have a library that still has the funding to be able to provide fun and exciting programs for both out adults and kids of all ages.  I feel so blessed to have the library programs to be able to take my daycare kids to during the day but I decided to try one of the programs they offer for bigger kids at night and so I signed my kiddos up for ginger break house making event.  They listened to Miss Rachel read a book about gingerbread houses then they each got to make a house while listening it Christmas music.  It is a fun memorable night.

Story time

Getting ready

Base done

Picking out a plate of decorations

Time for the fun part

Oh my think she went a little overboard

Banana didn't want his picture taken so decided to make weird faces since I insisted

Final product

5 months

Five months off the ticker today!!!  I can't believe it is the Christmas season already and time is moving by so fast.  I do have slight reason to hope that we may not be in for as long of a wait as originally expected for our referral but don't want to get my hopes up too much.  The wait after referral has gone from 3-4 months to 4-6 months so we still have a long way to go.

Band and Beer (Root Beer)

No, I am not letting my 10 year old and 6 year old have beer but kids get such a kick out of drinking Root beer in the old fashion bottles.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of hearing Banana play his trumpet in his schools winter concert.  It was short and sweet so we took a special trip to the Cracker Barrel for some Coke-a-cola cake and root beer....yes that is a lot of soda....and yes I did pay for that.  I normally don't experience my kiddos bouncing off the walls from a sugar high but last night Carrot was as high as root beer could take her.  

It must not have been that caffeine free root beer :)

j

Here is to accomplishments

Last night I was the proud mama of two very cute little actors.  Both kids participated in our churches Christmas program this year and I think they did fabulous.  Banana has been in a performance before so I was confident that he would do great on stage but this was Carrot's first time so you never know how they will react in front of 100s of people.  Apart from turning her back to the audience a few times she nailed her part and was more dramatic than she has been while practicing with  me at home so it was awesome.  

The story was about a "Christmas Town" caught up in making huge displays to celebrate Christmas and  in the end they were reminded that the message of Christmas is a simple one that God sent his Son down to earth as a baby who would be a Savior for us all.

Great job to all the kids and leaders who worked so hard on the production.  It was awesome.

You will also see in the picture that Carrot is wearing the scarf I made  original scarf post here.  I was so happy did not give up on learning and I was able to finish this project and see her wear it in the program.

But mommy said you were the coo-coo (cocoa)vendor

The set was awesome!!!  

"Joey" the mayors assistant

You still have a My Space page????

Suzy and Max have just reminded us that the gospel doesn't need decorations, and the incarnation doesn't need to be packaged in order to be life changing.  We've been paying so much attention to the packaging that we've forgotten:  we know a secret - JESUS, the one true Light, was born in a manger

Suzy and Max won the contest for reminding everyone what Christmas was truly about.

She finally did the "big eyes" that I wanted her to do so bad when she was handed a parrot in stead of cocoa...wished we go it in pictures.

Wish I could keep her this cute and little forever 

Tired????

Sometimes your just tired and can't quite make it all the way up

Cheesy but fun

 A few ago we decided to give bowling a try for some Friday night fun.  It certainly isn't the classiest place in the world but after you get used to wearing used shoes, the smell burnt nachos and cigarette smoke from before that was banned in public places in the 80's, and the array of Carhartt clothing it was actually very enjoyable.

Halloween pictures (better late than never)

I am still playing catch up and adding in the Halloween pictures.  Carrot was Mulan this year and Banana was very determined to carve a pumpkin on his head as his costume.  I fought the idea for the longes time and then decided to just let it go.  I was totally right it was cold and wet and heavy.  He had to take it off his head almost after every house and carry it but he was right too and it was cool.  He got tons of comments asking if it was a real pumpkin and that it was the best costume they had seen all night.  Lesson learned - they are growing up and I need to let them explore their own ideas.

Banana's pumking

Mom and Carrot's pumpkin

Thanks to the hurricane and the delay of trick-or-treats the mulan wig came in the mail in time

 All ready to go

 Happy Halloween!

Playing catch up

Since I was without my computer for such a long time I am playing catch up.  Below are some pictures we took from a Sunday afternoon hike back in October.  The kids had play practice and we only had about an hour to spare but we decided to take that special hour and enjoy the day and it was so worth it.  The kids even found a baby snake at the end of our hike which was really cool