Caroling, Caroling, Here We Go A'Caroling!

Tonight instead of regular Awanas, we went caroling at the local nursing home. The Cubbies just sang in the dining room with the whole group and while they walked the halls the Cubbies made Christmas cards!

Anna has great teachers that she loves!

Yes, she's wearing a bracelet (actually two of them!). What a girl!!

They've got a nice group of kids for Cubbies.

Considering Jacob is, well, Jacob...he did pretty good! (Aaron had to work, so it was just me & the kids) It really helped that there was a little bird sanctuary (is that what it's called?). That kept him occupied for quite a while. After all the carolers got back, several kids had specials. Jacob really enjoyed listening to those and clapping!

THIS is not cool. You see that outside temperature?! That's without the windchill!! And it's not 57 degrees inside--this clock is on an outside wall, so the inside temp is always a bit colder (or hotter) than the actual temperature. Although with these drafty windows, it feels much colder than even 57!!!

This is my last decorating project! It's actually been done since the mirror garland, but I forgot to take a picture. It's quite bright in here with all these Christmas lights!

Christmas from Alaska!

We got our Christmas package from Alaska yesterday! But first, here are some other pictures...

Any guesses what he's watching?!? :)

Anna's Little People nativity. She was very excited to get to set it up in her room! (I think her babies are excited, too! hehe) And she obviously thinks Jesus' birth was in Alaska...maybe we need to brush up on geography?? ;)

One more (and I think the last!) decoration I threw up. I had extra garland and ribbon and this mirror was begging for Christmas cheer :D

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And now for the Alaskan Christmas! :)

Hmmm....what exactly is this???

YAY!!!! It's a puzzle!!!!!
The coolest wooden puzzle nativity!

Anna was excited to get another Alaska doll!! She promptly named her Smiley because "she's smiling, Mom." Look at Jacob's face! He's plotting how he can torture his sister by stealing that doll when she's not looking!

And Aaron and I got some Hawaiian chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Oh. My. Goodness. We love these. They are so good. Good doesn't even come close! As you can see, Aaron was excited.

He's pretty serious about these things. You don't mess with him and his Chocolate covered Macadamia nuts! ;) He shared with everyone. And...they're gone already!

Thanks Erick, Jicks, John & Toby!!!

It's Beginning to Look...

...a lot like Christmas around here!!! We finally got our tree, lights and decorations up today! There's still the aftermath to clean up. But the lights are beautiful and the kids love it all.

I thought Anna would be more into helping me decorate the tree, but they both got sidetracked with the tree box. As always...the boxes are more fun than the toys! :) Jacob was peeking through a hole and giggling like crazy while Anna meowed at him.

Then she would pop out and they would both shout with glee!

The tree:) Yes, the star is crooked...I tried forever to get it straight! I switched over to white lights this year and I really like it. I wasn't thinking and picked up white lights on white strands. At first I thought it would look bad, but I kinda like it. Makes it even brighter. It's possible that I put 7 strands of lights on the tree:D I am my mother's daughter!

I also got some new blue and silver ornaments. And I decided to try wrapping the tree in ribbon. I really like it.

Aunt Cheryl made this for Jacob. He found it right away and he loves it! :)

It's a bit blurry, but our decorations on the bookshelf. Finally have a place/use for those crystal hurricane glasses! (they're on the top shelf...I put beads and cinnamon-scented pine cones in them)

My Willow Tree nativity set. My in-laws have given me a few pieces every year for Christmas. I think last year was the final 'installment' (except for the creche (is that how you spell that??) which I told them to wait on til I have a mantle to put it on!). I love Willow Tree. And although the kids are NOT to play with it, it's nice that they're not porcelain or glass so if they do (and I don't see it) they won't easily break!

Our outside lights...I thought the B/W was kinda cool looking.

You can't see our tree through the front windows this year b/c of how our living room is arranged now. Aaron braved the roof to put up the icicle lights and I did the colored lights on the porch. I understand why people spend extra money for lights that when one bulb goes out the whole strand doesn't go out!!! Good grief. I musta spent at least 45 min. trying to figure out which bulb was out on which strand to get them all working. I just gave up and went with what was working already. Grrrr!!!

Again, Dollar General! :) I glued 2 bows together. One of these days I'll have a wreath on my door, but until then... :)

So now I have a DISASTER to clean up...but not til tomorrow!

Thanks Uncle Windell!

I've barely started my Christmas decorating. Tomorrow we're getting everything out and done! Anna and I are so excited!!! :)

New this year, courtesy of Dollar General (I love that place), for a grand total of $7! :)

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Uncle Windell sent Anna's birthday package yesterday (a bit late, but logistics got in the way:)). She was super excited! And even more excited when she saw what was in the box!

These are her twins :) She changes the names every day, so I'm not sure what she's calling them! Yesterday at nap time she informed me that her twins were sick and she needed to put them to bed. :) She's taken them to school and every time we go to the store, they have to come along! She also got a Cabbage Patch Kid and several outfits, 2 of which had bottles with them. Those have become the twins bottles. Which, by the way, one is a girl and one is a boy. Just so you know. Last night, she couldn't come eat supper because she had to feed her babies. And today, she didn't want to come into the store with me "just in case my baby gets hungry. Because she probably will."

Jacob attached to the boy twin. It was so funny. He carried it around everywhere, rocked him, patted his back, and even took him to Awanas Wednesday night! Of course, once he got there and saw other toys, he dropped the baby... :)
So thanks for all the dolls, clothes and books Uncle Windell!! :)

Lights, lights, everywhere!

Missed a few pics and I'm not going to take the time to redo the whole post!!

On the front porch--another new project. This one Mom did mostly on her own. Cheap decorations! You can buy the glass blocks at a hardware store for a couple bucks, drill a hole, stuff in lights and add ribbon!

New lights along the fence, too. The grandkid trees and Dad added rope lights around the crosses this year.

More cute blocks! We found different shapes and sizes. And a cute teddy bear:)

Dad carved these crosses from a dead tree. They're awesome and look really cool with the lights.

Jamie putting lights on the last tree.

It took quite a while to get all the holes drilled and then the lights on, but they turned out great.

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Papa had most of the Christmas lights out already, but there were a few new projects Binga had for him to do! He said it's funny how she comes up with all the ideas and he has to do all the work! :) I told him we know how to work things. hehe

Anna helped Papa drill some holes. He's got an ingenious way of putting up lights...he staples them to these boards, then screws the boards onto the house/fence. They go up fast, come down fast and store easily! He's so smart!

The front porch. The blue lights/trees are new this year.

Whole front view. He made the 18' tree and star. Pretty cool.

One of Mom's new projects this year: little trees for each of the grandkids! Made from a wooden rod and dowels. We wrapped them in lights and painted some wooden stars gold and put the kids' names on them!

I couldn't get him to look at the camera.

Until I said "Jacob...I've got ice cream!" HA!!!

No troubles getting Anna to look at the camera!

Or this one! Hudson is a complete and total ham! And a darn cute one, too!!

Surprise Trip to Iowa :)

So we took a surprise trip to Iowa this weekend. Dad always puts up all sorts of lights up outside and Mom does the same on the inside. Life got busy and they hadn't had the time or the energy to get it done. Well, when Dad said "They're just not going to get put up this year" I said NO WAY ;) So we decided to go surprise them and help with getting decorations up! They didn't have a CLUE we were coming! It was great. I even called Mom a couple times on the way up, pretending that we were going to town to go Christmas shopping, asking questions about what she'd gotten people or what she thought I should get someone. Anyway, we got there about 8:30 I think Friday night. I sent Anna up to ring the doorbell while I hid behind the porch railing. When he opened the door, she said "suhpiiiize!!!" :) I forgot that the door opens the wrong way to get a good picture, but I could see Dad walk up to the door and he didn't have a clue who was there. He said he thought it was Girl Scouts selling cookies! haha

I think it took several seconds for Dad to realize it was Anna!

We left right after lunch, so Aaron had to make a delivery on the way. The door barely fit and the way we had to angle it, Anna couldn't see the TV screen (heaven forbid!!). So Jacob watched Dora on the TV (I actually don't think he ever even noticed the door!) and Anna watched The Tangerine Bear on my laptop! HA It was only an hour from home to where we dropped the door off. They are spoiled!

There was a leak that Anna & I discovered in the bathroom, so she helped Papa fix it! When I found the water, I told her to go tell Papa that there was water all over the floor. She RUNS out the door, frantically hollering "Papa! Papa! Dhere's watah all ober the bafroom!!!!!!" It was cute. I walked by the first time w/out my camera and Anna even had a little plumber's crack goin' on! ha

A complete switch from last year, Anna LOVES playing in the snow now! She begged and begged to go play in the snow. So we bundled her up and she went out and played around while Dad & Aaron got all the lights down and ready to go. Did I mention that it didn't get above 20 degrees all weekend? And that doesn't factor in the wind chill! Poor guys nearly froze to death! But they got all the lights on the garage and roof up (about 1/3 of what usually goes up!).

When she got too cold (or too bored from not having anyone play with her!), she came in and helped decorate the tree. She did a great job. She had the most fun getting ornaments, climbing up the step ladder, and handing them to me:)

My camera is not very good with night scenes :( Mom & Dad got a bunch of LED lights this year to add. They are so pretty and brilliantly bright! The gold ones on the tree are the new ones. The purple ones are regular lights.


In case you couldn't tell, Mom's color theme for the living room is purple and gold :)

And then Saturday evening after a DELICIOUS supper of Famous Dave's, Aaron & I went Christmas shopping while Papa & Binga babysat! We got it ALL done!!!!!

For unforeseen reasons, we ended up leaving quite late. Anticipating a horrendous trip the last 3 hrs., I let them open a Christmas present early...
A new Veggie Tales movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)
I have to say, they did amazing on the trip home. We didn't get home until 11pm, Anna never slept, Jacob only slept for 30 min, and we only stopped once! It's a 7 hr. drive with stopping once for 30 min. And of course when we got home, they caught a 2nd wind and were up for another hour! At least they were happy, and they went to bed very easily and slept pretty late. Whew!

Any time there's a dishwasher open, this boy high-tails it over and climbs aboard! He is just completely fascinated with the wheels and seeing how the racks go in and out. Isn't he just so cute?? :D