PNW

We arrived in the pacific north west this week and it's so nice to be where it is green, to see snow covered mountains and be with family and friends.
I have looks of photos from last week that I need to post and perhaps will get to that later this weekend but for now,
Merry Christmas!!!



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Nana is doing Great!

Just a quick update on Nana. 
She came through surgery just fine and they found no cancer cells in her lymph glands. Yay!  Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

Prayer Request

Dear Blog Readers,

I would like to ask each of you to think, meditate and pray today for Nana (the Man's mom).  Nana was diagnosed with Breast Cancer several weeks ago and today she is undergoing surgery to remove a lump the size of a pea.  During this surgery they will be testing her lymph glands for any signs of cancer cells.  Please pray that there are no cancer cells, that she does well during the surgery, and that she bounces back to normal soon. 

I know there is a God, I know Him personally, I know prayer works and I know the more prayers the better.

I'll keep you posted.
Thank You all for being there for M.E.

Saturday Fun at Home!

The Buddy had a very early basketball game this morning, so he and Dad took off at 7:30  and were back by 9 and Buddy was in a great mood.
His version of the game was that they won (but they don't keep a total score), that he stole the ball 10 times (the Man said 6), that he rebounded the ball a bunch (the Man said 5) and that he score 1 basket (the Man added he took 15 shots).  Love it.

So I suggested he play with his brothers for a bit before turning on the tv or wii, he agreed and they got out the blocks for MONSTER BABY. 

LG and Buddy build towers of blocks and then have Babe knock them down. 

Babe is pretty mobile now days and can army crawl all of the house, so coaxing him over to the towers is no problem.

LG builds a tower.

Here comes Monster Baby.  

There goes the blocks.  This is fun now, but in a few months or every in the years to come it will likely not be fun for Babe to knock there things over.   Babe better enjoy it while he can.

Silly big brother!

'tis the season...

for the company Christmas party.  And this was super special because the Man and 6 friends would be the opening band for the live band that was to be the entertainment for the night. 
The guys had practiced about six times and put together 4 songs and were a nervous wreck leading up to tonight.  The Man was especially nervous, but it turned out fabulous.  It was very shock to say the least, at how good they sounded. They were a real band.  I was also very proud of the Man, this is not something he's ever done before and I was kind of surprised he agreed to do it.  Very proud indeed.
The pics are from my phone and it was dark, but you get the idea.

That's the Man on the far left playing rhyme guitar. 

He did tend to hide behind the tower of speakers.

But it was super cool. Very cool indeed.  The Man's a rock star.

Snot Bubble!

no explanation needed

PreSchool Christmas Program

One of my most cherish and favorite things in the whole wide world, the PreSchool Christmas program.  Fact: It is impossible to not smile or even cry when the little ones come out in their costumes to sing songs.  Its just too much.
This year LG being in preK was part of the Nativity, a towns person as a matter of fact.

I couldn't help but think of Linus on Charlie Brown with his blankie on his head.

His class sang, We Wish You a Merry Christmas. LG sang We Miss You a Merry Christmas.  It was hilarious, as he practices all week.

Then it was time for the Nativity to start.  The townspeople looked around for the star and angels.

They would also see brother and his friend who got excused from class to come see their siblings perform.  Not sure if LG ever saw Buddy, but Buddy was happy to be there.

The townspeople looked hi and lo for the little Babe.

There He is with his mom and dad.  That's our great friends A  and Luke as Mary & Joseph (they were both at LGs Darth Vader party).  I was so excited for A to play Mary, she is very mature for her age and really was in tune with the role she was playing.  Too precious. 

Merry Christmas!

Makin' & Bakin'

I'm happy... Want to know why?  I've been home making and lovin' it.
So after the Great Sock Discover of 2010, I got to crafting. I made a couple of Christmas presents for a special little 5 year old niece. She's is going to love them. I really wish I could show pics but I want everyone to be surprised.  So I'll wait until after Christmas. 

But I can show these.

My homemade bears. Girl Bear and Boy Bear.

Aren't they adorable.  The Man asks, why? Um, just because.  I mean why buy Babe toys, when I can made them. Right? 

I've been reading alot online about homemade toys and green things for kids. So this was my first of many attempts.

He seems to like them. Well, boy bear that is.

Is this not the most precious picture ever.  I love him so much.

So while he played with his bears and I cleaned house, I discovered three bananas about do disintegrate.  So I decided to stop everything and make Meredith's Banana Drop Cookies. Yum.

We all love these cookies and I needed to take some cookies to school on Wednesday anyway. So yay!

But while bakin' which is something I love to do, but haven't done in a long time, I discovered that my cheap little plastic measuring spoons have disappeared/broke, leaving M.E. with nothing to measure with.  So I wound up using this.

Medicine cup.  It worked pretty well, but I couldn't scoop very good with it.

And I remembered seeing these in a catalog and love them.  They are metal, fancy and so not M.E. but I love them anyway.

http://www.anthropologie.com/

They are expensive but just so cool. I think I'll put them on my Santa list.

SOCKS!

Back story - A month or so ago the Man had some words to say about the lack of clean socks in this house.  I loudly explained that if the socks are in the playroom, under the couch, in the scraproom, under beds, outsided, where ever the boys decided to toss them, basically anywhere but the laundry basket they don't get washed.  End of story.

Well, today I wanted to get in the scrap room to do some crafting. I'm so in the crafty mood with Christmas coming and having spent last weekend with D, it hasn't really stopped.  I will say this, I've not actually done much in my scrap room in months. there is a spare bed in there that the kids play on, the Man sleeps in (when he is snoring or Babe is in a mood), the spare tv is in there, I throw all crafty stuff in there and its generally one giant mess.  MESS!

So I decided to just straighten up, scratch the surface sort-a-speak.  This is what I unearthed on my first go at it today.

16 socks!  YES, 16 individual dirty socks.

15 white and 1 lone red one.

Photographic proof of why there are occassionally few clean socks in this house.

PS. I also found 2 pairs of shoes, three shirts (2 boys, 1 the Man's), a pair of pants, several lego men, 2 empty cups, and various other toys and trash. Oh my. I need to get in there more.

Babe and the Tree

Babe has seen LG playing with the tree almost daily. The ornaments have be arranged and re-arranged.  Today, Babe couldn't stand it any longer and army crawled and scooted on his belly until he was within reach.

 It was so cool to watch his expression as he finally made it over there.

 I wonder what he thought it would feel like and what he really thought about it.

He didn't try to put in his mouth which is unusual.

But once he saw the lights he started after those.  He is so curious and wonderful.  I can't believe how big he is. Where is the time going?

Basketball has begun!

Sorry I havent' posted in a couple of days, Babe has been sick with a virus/cold and we have had little to no sleep. Wednesday night he was up every 45 minutes. I twas horrible. I took him to the doctor on Friday just to make sure his lungs were clear before we headed into the weekend and he was good. Doc said, just to let it runs its course. Can do!

So today was Buddy's first Basketball game of the season. Woo Hoo!  We have had only had 3 practices and they were chaos, so I was alittle nervous about losing big time. 
They divided the kiddos up this year, so that there's 6 kids on a team, so they have a lot more playing time. And it was nice, but I miss some of the other parents and kids.

Buddy gets some last minute instructions before the game starts.  He's so ready. 

Heading to the basket.  What do you think of the new haircut? 

First quarter we were down 6 to 5.

Come second quarter they started over at zero on the scoreboard. What?  Apparently some parents complained last year getting beat by 20+ points and requested no scores. So they came up with scoring each quarter individually. I don't care much for it, but it'll work.

Buddy's not tall, this is no secret, so he decided today to take a bunch of shots from 20 feet out. What?  He would manage 1 basket today.

Half time.  We were down by a total of three for the two quarters.  After this I would need to hold Babe and not get anymore pics or keep up with scores. 

Buddy did get a ball to the mouth and bust his lip, but other than that it was a great first game. I was impressed indeed. 

Around the kitchen

Just thought I'd share some things from around my kitchen today and I'll warn you my kitchen is a mess.




So Babe is eating a full serving of baby food each night and while I'd hope to make all his food from scratch, I'm actually only making about 30%, the other I'm buying. It's all natural and organic at least. But my point us this- I now have all these cute little containers that I can not throw away. It is near physically impossible for ME to toss things like this in the recycle bin because they have such function. So starts my collection of small containers to go in the pantry along with all the gaterade tubs and towel paper tubes. Someone, someday will have a need for such things and I will have a stash ready. It's already happened twice, so I'm completely valid in keeping them. Right!!




In hanging our stocking this poor penguin stocking hook got his head knocked off. I've got to glue him back together. And by not using a stocking for the Man and ME, we only needed three.




This is a wall hanging that spells SNOW with a tree dangling on the end. LG was very concerned that this decoration was not hung up yet and was swinging it around, asking repeatedly to hang it. My response - put it before you break it. Followed immediately by - oops, I broke it.
Thus something else to glue back together.




Buddy's native American teepee made at cubscouts a week ago. Still wondering what to do with. I'm hoping to convince him to put it outside for elves and fairies.




I'm trying to establish a filing system to get organized and eliminate paper clutter, another goal of 2011. I'm not a hoarder, really.




These things were in the van for over a week and now they've been sitting in the kitchen for two days. They will eventually get put away. Maybe when we run out of diapers but they will get put away.
So there's the kitchen minus the dirty dishes, multiple backpacks, and dirty floor.
Happy Wednesday!

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