Quiet Night

Tonight Ross has gone to spend the night with Papa and Nana, he was so excited when I told him that Nana was picking him up soon earlier today. He helped pack his clothes and he made sure to take a few toys and Winnie and also Big Winnie. He said that he needed to take Big Winnie (large Winnie the Pooh) so Winnie could sleep with and keep Papa warm tonight (Because Nana has to sleep with Ross). Ross also told me to stay warm tonight (since I would be sleeping without him). He is so sweet and thoughtful!!

Jax and I played and he went down to sleep. So sweet!

Me, quiet time.......Sweet!!!

Ross' Artwork

This is a Duck

This is a Dolphin


Really good artist!! And he is only 4!!

December & Christmas Spirit

December 1st.....and I am so excited about Christmas. I am not sure if it is that we are celebrating for the first time in our new home, or that the boys are so excited about it, or if it is the spirit of the holidays that makes it such a warm and happy time of year. Either way, I am loving it!

Tonight I fixed breakfast for dinner: eggs, bacon, and pancakes. It was a new recipe for the pancakes and they were great! Ross said "Mommy, Your pancakes are good they are my favorite, and Nana's" Jax & Ross ate alot tonight and were actually quickly to fall asleep tonight. They LOVE pancakes!! Did I mention that earlier??

I am watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation on TV and that movie is my all time favorite Christmas movie!! Funny!!

Our Thanksgiving & Thanksgiving Weekend

This Thanksgiving was good, we ate too much of course! We started out at Nana & Papa's house for lunch and visited with them for the afternoon. Jim and his Dad then went hunting and the boys and I went to my parents for dinner. After Jim finished hunting we then ate dinner. It was a good day filled with great food and wonderful family. We are truly blessed. But the weirdest thing, Jim said when he was coming in from hunting it was lightening outside! In November??? but yep it was and then it began to rain...hard!

Saturday we attended the Christmas Parade in Locust. It was so good and the boys had a great time, they loved the police cars, fire trucks, and of course Jax liked the tractors. Ross picked up lots of candy and we even had cookies from the Fresh House! I was surprised the loud sirens did not scare Jax, he did not mind one bit!

Sunday we hung Christmas lights outside on our small bushes and we decorated out mailbox too. Ross enjoyed helping and he suggested that we have at least one twinkle light, so the small maple has twinkle lights on it.

I cannot believe it will be December tomorrow. Am excited about the month ahead and all the fun things to do with the kids. I have also almost completed my December Daily album, so I can put together all the things we do and a picture from each day into the album so the kids will have an idea of what we did during the month later down the road. Nice keepsake.

Thankful-Day 3

Today I am cleaning the house and that I am thankful for, because that means that I have home to clean and care for. I am even thankful for my sink that is full of dirty dishes, because it means that we have good food to eat and warm clean water to wash our dishes in.

During this time of year it is good to reflect on what you have and what you are thankful for, even the small things.

Today, I am even thankful that Ross called me "Bad" for making him sit in time out. That means I am getting my point across that his bad behavior will not be tolerated. :)

Thankful-Day 2

Here are a few more things that I am thankful for today:

1. Jim-he does many things that go unnoticed around here, little things, like this morning when I got in my car to take Ross to preschool, I noticed that Jim cleaned my car out last night when he put the carseats back in my car, all the trash was gone and all was neat. He also took all the Christmas decor back upstairs and straightened up the garage. He works hard for us and sometimes I fail to tell him "Thank you" but I have to remember that even the small things are worth acknowledging.
2. Naptime-Ross is getting out of this stage I believe, but for now he stays in his room and plays or "rests" quietly. Jax takes short naps which gives me a little time to get a few things done.
3. Cookies-these are my saving grace somedays, when the kids get rowdy or playing rough, I just say "lets have a cookie and some juice" and they are ready to sit for a short time. They stay put and enjoy their cookies while I can finish what I started. Jax has a "cookie dance" it is so cute!!
4. Scrapbooking-I am hoping to complete a December Daily album this year. I love to scrapbook and it give me the chance to tell the story of our kids lives and our own for the boys to enjoy later own. I am a little behind ok, alot behind, on their albums but I will catch up soon (I hope). But the daily album will be nice to document our lives during the holiday season and be able to include things that I normally would not include in their own personal albums. Like what our tree looked like and decor around the house and what we did together, cookie baking, crafts, etc. I am excited about this!!

Thankful-Day 1

Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I thought this would be a good time to look at what I am thankful for at this time in my life. We currently have a "Praise Board" in our kitchen sitting on the counter and I am going to ask Jim and the boys what they are thankful for and write them on that board to look at during the week ahead. But first, I wanted to put a few things down that I normally don't think twice about on a daily basis:

• Lotion-My hands are hurting so bad right now, I bet I wash them 100 times a day!
• My car-I love my car and that it gets me where I am going.
• My ability-this is my ability to do for our family, like laundry, cleaning, cooking.
• My eyesight-to see our boys and my hubby and all the beautiful things on this earth.
• Option to change my mind-I mean, like mood, when things seem to stink or nothing is going my way I am totally in a sour mood, I have the option to change how I feel, it is up to me, and that things are not always going to go the way I think they should go, and I need to concentrate on the positive around me and what I do have, not the negative and what I don't have.

These are just a few and hopefully I will add more tomorrow or so, it is my plan up to Thanksgiving.