Thursday, December 17, 2009

Christmas at our house

I saw this on Kami's blog and I thought it was fun, so here's a little about Christmas at my house:

About the TREE....
1.When do you put up the Christmas tree? sometime the 1st week of December
2. Real or fake? Real. Mark and I wanted to get a fake one this year, but Emily was adamant that we get a real one.
3. Lights? What color? Multi colored and white
4. Garland? Yes, we have silver garland.
5. Theme or no theme? No. We have a lot of snowflake ornaments, but mostly kid-made ones are on our tree. We have started to buy personalized ornaments at the mall every year. We love those.
6. What kind of topper? A star,
7. What's your favorite ornament? The one I bought this year. It is a Christmas tree with 6little faces on it. Each face is wearing a Santa Hat with our name on it.
8. What does your tree skirt look like?It isn't even visible, but it is blue and silver.
9. Where do you put your tree? This year we have two. One is all white and pre-lit with multi colored lights. (Target 90% off last year) That is in the front window. Our real tree is in the family room.
10. Who decorates the tree?we all do.
11.What's "under" the tree?Presents!
12. Do you put candy canes on your tree?No. Katie is a foodie and would be asking for them all the time.

About the FOODS....
1. What's your favorite Christmas cookie? I like Mrs. Lopez's Christmas cut-out cookies with her delicious frosting. (Is that too specific?)
2. Do you bake cookies and give them away? Yes! We will be working on that tomorrow and Saturday.
3. Any candy or food you only have at Christmas time? Not really
4. What do you eat Christmas EVE? We are having family over for Christmas Eve, so we better figure this one out soon!
5. What do you eat on Christmas day? Ham at mom's house!
6. Do you like Eggnog?no!
7.. Do you like candy canes? Yes! I

1. Where do you hang your stockings? On the plant shelf in the living room.
2. Do you put lights on your house? Yes. All blue this year.
3. Got any outside lawn decorations? No
4. Do you put up a nativity? Ours broke and we haven't replaced it. I would like to get a Willow Tree one.
5. Do you hang mistletoe over the door? yes
6. Got a wreath on your front door? Two. One for each door.
7. How long does it take you to decorate? A week. We do a little each day.

About the movies
1 . Favorite Children's Christmas TV show/cartoon?Hmmm Not sure
2. Favorite Christmas Movie - Elf!


1. Do you go to church on Christmas or Christmas Eve? 6-7pm on Christmas Eve.
2. Have you ever gone Caroling? Yes, but no plans for it this year. I may wrangle up some friends and family and go this yera.
3. Favorite Christmas Carol? God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
4. Do you believe in Santa?Not sure what this one means?
5. Do you leave Santa cookies? Yes
6. Do you make a "list"? a list of what to buy everyone-yes. I make lots of them.
7..Do you shop on Black Friday? Are you kidding me? One of my favorite days of the year!
8. ARE YOU READY FOR CHRISTMAS? Yes, but I want to enjoy every minute until it gets here!

Friday, December 4, 2009

Google Books

We are starting a new unit in Science next week and I need a copy of John Audubon: Young Naturalist. I neglected to order it over the summer and just found our library doesn't have a copy of it. We need the book for 4 weeks of Science.

I was telling the girls of the dilemna. Emily so wisely suggested I check online as you can read lots of books there. Lo and behold, one quick google search and a click later I have an online copy of the very book that I need.

Isn't technology amazing!
http://books.google.com/books
Lovin' Google Books for now!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Where have I been?

I love blogging, but lately I just can't seem to find time to work on it. I know that I don't have to stay up to date and included every single thing we do, but it still seems hard to get on here.

I don't want one of my New Year's Resolutions to be: I will blog more often....so I'm starting this week and getting back on track.

Here are tons of pictures from our past month or so. They are probably totally backwards. I could rearrange the order, but I'm going to let them stay the way they are.

Our neighbors got a new dryer and Mark ran and grabbed the box. With all the wonderful weather our backyard has been used a ton! The neighbor girls have some sort of alarm set up. The moment our slider door opens they peak around the corner. I'm so happy that we have the 'fun yard' to play in. (They know how to spell Skyline, but Emily wanted to avoid any copywrite violations.)

Our homeschooling group has been really, really busy lately. We did a Christmas Card making class. Lots of fun for our young girls and the moms too.

This past Saturday was our last weekend of games. Emily's team won the U12 Girls Championship. We were so impressed with how hard Emily worked and improved this year. We love watching her play. Ty had a good time at soccer too. The U4 league players are so cute. You never know how many are going to get out there and play.




This was at his last game. After halftime he pretended like he was a robot and marched around the lines on the field. He thought it was hilarious.


We had an awesome field trip to Shell Point Retirement Community to see their Train Room and Stamp Room.
The Stamp Room is a wonderful ministry. The workers collect cancelled stamps. They trim, organize and sort them. Then they sell the stamps in various places. The money is used to buy Sunday School materials to countries in South America. It is a wonderul ministry.
Ben and Treva Crump are a wonderful retired couple from our church. They are both so intelligent and interesting people. After an explanation of how the whole process works they let the kids try. They loved it and kept asking for more stamps. If you don't already, save your stamps! We would be happy to collect them and pass them on to the Shell Point Stamp Room.

The Train Room at Shell Point is a huge area and the tracks make up the State of Florida. Many of our state landmarks are included on the layout. There are many interesting details to check out. Ty loved seeing all of the trains. He wants to go back next month and see it decorated for Christmas.



Cake Boss is my new favorite show. I'm hoping for a road trip to Hoboken to buy a scone. Yum!
This show has prompted many hours of Playdoh work. Emily and Sarah even coerced Mark into a midday Walmart run to pick up new Playdoh.


Did I mention we had a lot of soccer games recently?

We were able to reschedule the Super Hero Party and it was huge success.


We had a super hero obstacle course. Here is Ty in motion with the Hulk gloves and getting ready to knock down the brick wall!




Katie loves to twist her hair. At first I thought it was cute, but now the back of her hair is incredibly uneven. I know she will outgrow and of course we need to document. :)


With the fabulous fall weather we have had the cousins over to play. Katie things Logan is incredibly funny!
Sarah wanted to go to Golden Corral for the birthday. She is 9 years old now.She invited some friends over for a party. We did crafts, played games and ate. She wanted a cheesecake and it was delicious!


We had a scavenger hunt to find the cake. They had to open all the green balloons and find clues.



They had to put a puzzle together for another clue.


Ready for a meal!


Earlier in the morning, (remember these are way out of order) we went to SunSplash. This was one of the last days and the weather was very chilly. Luckily the water temp at SunSplash was great! The park was nearly empty and we got to go on all of the waterslides that we wanted to. We had a wonderful time for Sarah's birthday weekend!


Just cute and needed to be posted.



We love our Fall Festival at King's Kids. Mark and I enjoy setting up the games and making the plans. The people that we work with are so wonderful. It seems like whatever crazy idea we have they just join right in.
Here we have some guest booth workers! Mark decided to put his parent's to work and they both ran a booth. Katie liked going to people she knows. Grandma was doing a sucker pull games. Katie eneded up with a lot of suckers!
Here is mom working her booth!



For you northerners--This is how we get into the season. We buy bales of craft hay at Michaels and spread it around the floor. The kids throw it around, make piles and jump in it (like leaves) and then they make hay angels (similar to snow angels). Our younger group loved playing in the hay.

I love all the happy faces!
Halloween! Here is our Trick or Treating group!


Emily-artist
Sarah-movie star
Ty-policeman
Katie-genie








More soccer..... (yes, I take pictures at every game. ) :)




Aren't they a tough looking bunch!
Pumpkin carving time!
I tried to get everyone to pose with a pumpkin. Katie seems to have her own ideas. She is really developing her own personality more everyday. Katie loves to talk and is quite good at it. I think she just says things to hear her own voice. When we are making pumpkins she would say, Mom where my pumpkin go? (She is standing there with her hand on it. ) Then a second later, "Oh! There it is! Where you go pumpkin?




We went to Hunsader Farms to see the farm and petting zoo with some of the homeschoolers.


Katie talked to all of the animals. She loved them.


2 sisters with their younger sisters! I just love this picture.


I also love this picture. Sarah got a camera for her birthday. She uses it ..... alot! I love that she is into photography like me. Emily also loves to take pictures.




We also went on the Halloween train at Lakes Park. Actually, Mom, Katie, Emily and Sarah went. Poor Ty got sick moments before we going to go on it. That started a string of 2 weeks of off and on illnesses at our house. Fortunately, we are past that now.

Starting this week, I will...
-post once a week at minimum
-not feel the need to post every event in our lives
-read other blogs