Happy Birthday Grandpa!!!

Happy Birthday to my Dad! I hope you have a wonderful day!!!

Merry Christmas!!

I hope you all had a merry Christmas! We had a great time hanging out at home. I tried to post something on Christmas day but Blogger was having issues.

More later!

Fun on Vacation Time!

It certainly does not seem like a TUESDAY around here in FamilyOf5 Land! We are enjoying the day playing games, laughing, and having fun. I made Smoothies for lunch - something I would never do on a "normal" day. We had a fire in the fireplace last night and it was so nice and warm and cozy. It reminded me of our Iowa days. Even the cats loved the fire!

I love vacation!

Photo Story Friday - Snow in Texas!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

A long, long time ago - 5 years ago to be exact, it snowed down here in Texas. This was not just a little dusting of snow. Nope, this was the real thing. We got a couple inches of the white stuff, and we had enough snow to make a real, live snowman!

It was a Saturday morning. I remember clearly that the Prince (7 month old Baby Prince) was still not sleeping through the night. My first thought, as my husband gently shook me from my precious slumber was "It is SATURDAY. Why are you waking me up for SNOW?"

I grew up in Iowa where snow is not exactly uncommon. It took a few minutes for my groggy mind to wrap itself around the fact that my kids had the chance to play in snow that day. I recovered, bundled up my 2 1/2 year old and my 7 month old and out we went with Daddy.
One big benefit of growing up in Iowa was learning the correct snowman building technique of "pack and roll". Our native Texan neighbors were making vain attempts to create big snowballs by merely packing snow into the ground. THAT is not the way to make a snowman, my friends. First you make a little snowball. Then, you put that snowball on the ground and roll. The snowball picks up snow as it goes and, before long, you have a snowball that is the envy of the neighborhood!

Here is Princess sitting on my masterpiece!
DadOf3 made a good middle for our snowman, and Princess and I made the small snowman head. Before long, our little snowman had been assembled and was ready to greet the neighborhood!
We had hopes of getting snow last week, but just like the 5 years that followed this fun day, the chance passed us by.

But we will keep waiting and anticipating until the conditions are just right to make another Texas Snowman.

Thursday Thirteen! 13 Things I LOVE about ChristmasI!

I finally rememberd the Thursday 13 Meme on an actual Thursday! Ha ha!

Here are my Top 13 things that I LOVE about Christmas:

1. I love making Christmas cookies. My sister, my mom, and I always had great fun making Christmas cookies when I was growing up. We made lots of cookie cutouts. I am from Iowa - a state that gets a lot of snow. And we had a dog when I was growing up. Therefore, my very favorite cookie to make is a snowman cookie with a little bit of yellow at the bottom of the snowman. It is in honor of my childhood dog!

2. I love buying and wrapping presents. It is neat to go shopping for someone else with the purpose of putting a smile on her/his face.

3. I love Christmas songs. I make myself wait until Thanksgiving to turn on the Christmas tunes, and I love them more every year.

4. I love putting up the Christmas tree. It was fun to have help from my kids this year. I think they love it as much as I do!

5. I love seeing family. We usually travel right after Christmas, and I love to see everyone and hang out and catch up.

6. I love going to the kids' Christmas programs. It is neat to see that they understand the true meaning of Christmas.

7. I love that I can use Santa to make my kids behave. It does not always work, but it is nice to have that little gem in my back pocket. I also love how excited they get about Christmas presents!!

8. I love sending Christmas cards. I keep our Christmas letters from year to year and keep them in my stocking. It is really nice to be able to look back on past years and remember when...

9. I love getting Christmas cards! I love to see what people have been up to. I love seeing pictures of kids growing up, family pictures, birth announcements, all Kodak moments!

10. I love the anticipation of Christmas. I grew up Methodist and I love the advent candle ceremony we would have every Sunday before Christmas. We don't do this at our current church so I am getting my own advent wreath for next year with my kids.

11. I love to see Christmas lights through falling snow. I don't get to see this very often anymore, but I love to see the blurred lights through the snow.

12. I love the quiet in an early morning right after it has snowed. There is absolutely nothing as peaceful and quiet as this.

13. I love that DadOf3 takes the week of Christmas off work so we can all be together. Usually we are traveling, but this year we will be home so I am looking forward to some good family bonding time!

Wordless Wednesday - Reading by the Fire!

(Illegal words: It does not get cold enough to have a fire down here very often. This week has been frigid! DadOf3 and Prince did their nightly reading by the fireplace last night.)

Christmas ideas!

Check out Mom Generations for some fun Christmas ideas!!

I am way behind in my blog reading. So I just saw this today.

Enjoy!

Weekend Update!

We had a good yet very busy weekend. I was hoping to get a little bit of resting in but that was not to be. Here are the top 5 things we did this weekend.



1. Friday afternoon we had AB over to play. It was really nice outside, so we took everyone out to play. They biked, scooted, drew on the sidewalk, blew bubbles, and had all sorts of good fun!


2. Saturday morning, I took Princess and Prince to Basketball evaluations. They played basketball last year and really had a good time. I decided not to put them in a sport for the first part of the year because I wanted to see how they were doing at school first. I had heard that 2nd grade was a big transition year, and with the Prince starting school for the first time, I wanted to give them both plenty of time to adjust. Since they are both handling things really well, they get to play basketball!


3. AB and his family invited Princess to go see a live nativity scene on Saturday night. She went and had a blast! AB's mom said that she took some pictures, and I cannot wait to see them!

4. Sunday - we cleaned all day. We cleared out our two front rooms. There is nary a toy in sight in either room now. We moved all the toys up to the kids' rooms except for the truckload we took to Goodwill. Yes, I said truckload - but to be fair, there were things other than toys we donated. It felt so good to purge like that. We went through toys a while back and the kids were really good at deciding what they wanted to keep and what they wanted to give away. I really stressed to them that some kids would really love to have the toys they rarely play with.

5. Sunday night I watched the season finale of Survivor - guilt free since we had worked ALL DAY LONG! I won't give away the ending, but I was really happy with it except I thought the one who was in third place should have gotten 2nd.

Photo Story Friday - Movember

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Have you ever heard of Movember?

I hadn't until this year when DadOf3 participated. Some guys got together at his workplace and grew beards/mustaches for charity. It is an organized effort to raise money for the fight against prostate cancer. A lot of the guys went out and solicited donations for the hair growing efforts. DadOf3 lucked out this year. Each participant paid some money to join in on the fun. DadOf3 won two different drawings! He donated all of his winnings back to the cause. The night before judging, DadOf3 had to cut back his beard to some sort of mustache. He liked the beard and he was sad to cut it.

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If you are a guy, don't neglect to get your PSA numbers checked at your annual doctor appointment! And if you don't get an annual check-up - this is a great time to start!

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Here is a picture of the full beard look. I think he looks very much like a professor!

Cut #1 - just a little off of the chin.
Cut #2 - a little bit more!

And a little more!

And the final look!

He is currently re-growing the part he shaved!

Wordless Wednesday - My Little Elf!

Photo Story Friday - Oh Christmas Tree!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

We put up our Christmas Tree on Saturday!

Here is the Christmas "trunk":

Princess and Prince helped me put up the tree this year. That was a first. In the past they have helped with ornaments but not with putting the branches on the tree.
We put the lights on as we go. We can pack on more lights that way!

The kids had fun playing with my Christmas decorations. They have not seen them for a year so they are fun again!

Pretty Tree!
Daddy puts up the angel!

This tree was given to us over 10 years ago from DadOf3's parents. We put this tree up in our first house in Iowa. The only year we didn't put it up was 2000, after we moved to TX and the tree was still up in Iowa.

Princess's Silly Class

I went to Princess's school yesterday to take their class picture. This is a requrement for all room parents. We have to take the class pictures and then submit them to the yearbook committee. I actually really enjoy doing this. The kids were very excited and they did a good job of being still....

...because I promised them that I would take a silly picture when I got a good serious picture!

Aren't they cute?

Wordless Wednesday - If Mommy and Daddy won't buy you a horse, MAKE ONE yourself!

Countdown to Christmas

Check out my new button on the Sidebar! Shana over at My Three Wiseman's is doing something fun for Christmas.

I am going to get more in depth on Friday, but one thing that my kids and I have done to get ready for Christmas so far is to put up our Christmas Tree. I don't know about you but I like a LOT of lights on my Christmas tree. It takes about 2 hours to put up the tree with all of my lights and this is before the decorating can actually begin. The kids were getting really anxious towards the end. They were ready to decorate for goodness sake! They really did a nice job putting up the ornaments. It is fun to go through the ornaments each year and explain where we got each one. It is a nice walk down memory lane. Come back on Friday for all of the "putting up the tree" photos!

It sure is Monday!

We had a nice weekend with RR. We drove him back to college yesterday.

I am really dragging today. I have lots to do to get caught up after all of our weekend fun. Laundry, groceries, lunch with the kids, book fair at the school, keeping the Knight entertained.

It is going to be a busy day and I could sure use a nap!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!!

Photo Story Friday - 7 Year Old Photographer!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Our photographer for this Photo Story Friday is Princess! Keep in mind that she is 7 years old and it was pretty darn dark outside while she was taking pictures!

Here is Princess's first attempt at taking a picture of DadOf3, RR, and me.

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Poor DadOf3 lost his head!

Attempt number 2 - poor RR lost half his face!

RR had to sneeze this time around and he still lost half his head!

SUCCESS!!!

Not too bad for a very dark night!

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Thanks Princess!

Thanksgiving Thursday 13

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are all enjoying your day! I thought it would be appropriate to make my Thursday 13 list of things I am thankful for this year.

1. I am thankful for my family. I feel truly blessed to have my husband and my kids. We have had a great day of playing so far.
2. I am thankful for good health this past year. Our illnesses have been minor so far, and for that I am thankful.
3. I am thankful for my husband and the job that he has. It makes him happy, he is very good at it, and in the economy, those are indeed great blessings.
4. I am thankful that I can continue to stay at home with my children. It is an honor and a priviledge.
5. I am thankful that we have RR here for Thanksgiving this year!
6. I am thankful for our families back in Iowa. Even though we are separated by 1000 miles, they are close in our hearts and we love them all very much.
7. I am thankful for new friends I have made this year. I am so happy to have a friend who is fun to hang out with and who loves my kiddos too.
8. I am thankful that Princess and Prince are doing so well in school this year. And more than that I am thankful that they like school!
9. I am thankful that the Knight and I have had so much one on one time this year. He is a remarkable little guy. He amazes me every day.
10. I am thankful for our kitty pets. They are sweet little animals who put up with a lot of nonsense from our kids.
11. I am thankful for the work we have been able to do on our house the last few years. The deck is DONE except for being sealed!!
12. I am thankful for our expected arrival, and I pray that he will continue to grow big and strong.
13. I am thankful for you, my blogger community. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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I hope this day brings you fun times with friends and family!

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My sister and parents sent this beautiful bouquet.

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We wish we were in Iowa with you all today!

Now it's time to decorate for Christmas!

Let the holidays begin!

Wordless Wednesday - Daddy and the Knight have a Special Day!

Spear Painting!

Here is Princess just starting to paint her African Spear! That her first color was pink does not surprise me at all! :)

Princess painted AB's spear too. He and his parents are in China this week! Isn't that exciting?? Notice how she is staying away from pink? She told me that Auden does NOT like pink. Pretty cute!
Here are the finished products! They will get spear tips and feathers once they dry.

This school does a great job of studying other countries. The Prince will be studying about China in December. The coolest part about that is that AB will be coming to speak to his Kindergarten class once his family gets back home in about a week. The Prince is SO excited!

Thanksgiving Pressure getting to you?

Is that Thanksgiving pressure to be perfect getting to you? If so, hop on over to The Zen of Motherhood for a reality check! You won't be sorry!


Happy Thanksgiving!

International Study

Princess's class is studying about Africa this year. Today I am headed to the school to help the kids paint their African Spears! It should be a very fun and creative adventure! Princess is excited that I am going to help out. I just need to be back in time to get DadOf3 to work by 9:00.

Paint like the wind, 2nd Graders! :)

Photo Story Friday - Turkey Trot for Prince and Princess!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Running is something that is near and dear to my heart. I started running in January and it gave me such a sense of accomplishment. I ran my first 5K in April and plan to continue with my running starting in January of this year too.

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That is why I am so happy that Princess and Prince's school encourages running! Every day before the kids can go to the playground for recess, they have to run the track that circles the playground. At first this sounded a little mean - keeping kids away from their swings and slides, but in reality, it is great for them. It helps them run off excess energy and makes teaching in the classroom a whole lot easier!

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Here are some pictures from yesterday's Turkey Trot! The kids get to show off for parents and run around the track. The track is 1/3 of a mile. When the kids hit 3rd grade they have to run it twice. My kids only had to run once. :)

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Of course there had to be Turkey!

My little Prince is ready to race with the Kindergarteners!
Here he is running his little heart out!

Run like the wind, my little man!

No time for pictures! I've got friends to talk to!

Daddy came to cheer on Prince and Princess too! The Knight was so happy to see Daddy!

The Kindergarteners ran first, then First Grade, and then it was Princess's turn to run with the 2nd Graders!

Run, Princess, Run!

Princess ran her fastest!

The finish line was adorned with balloons!

Prince's class had already gone inside or he would be in this shot too. My little Knight is yawning but he did NOT nap yesterday. Too much excitement!

What a fun day! The kids were proud to show off their running ability, and I was very proud of them!