Drinks

In our house, we do not do a lot of juice or what I refer to as sugar water (IE Kool-Aid or Tang etc.). I usually try to have water and diluted down caffeine free tea in the refrigerator especially in the summer. I do this for a variety of reasons. It is healthier in so many ways. My kids rehydrate themselves without consuming sugar, or caffeine. As far as the argument that a 6 oz serving of juice equals a fruit, I prefer my children to eat their fruit, again, because it is far healthier and it is a nice dessert. Health concerns aside, I found another reason to avoid sugar drinks as I was cleaning today, STICKY FLOORS!! It seems the sugar in the drinks dries like a glue trap so every speck of dirt in our place is attracted to it and as many of you know, we have truck fulls of dirt here. Now, I have dark spots all over a freshly mopped floor (ok, not so fresh now, since I try hard to only mop nightly with spot mopping done during the day). I am pretty sure we will not be serving any more sugar drinks except on special occasions this summer since I am do not think I can keep up with the mess!

Happy Birthday Seth!

A little late but thats what happens when your internet does not work. My baby is two! He is losing the baby look but he will always be my baby! Happy Birthday and I love you, Seth!

Resting

Our house is in a bit of turmoil right now so we will take a break until Feb. We need to move and things are a little too hectic right now. But soon and very soon I will be back to tell/brag about the boys!

Peanut Gallery

When my brother and I were growing up, my parents would tell us "No comments from the peanut gallery," especially when one of us was in trouble. I agree and our kids are told the same thing or at least something to the same effect. Sometimes the reasoning is not for the typical but the atypical. I sit here writing this with two kids in the corner since no will admit to opening the door and are blaming it on each other. I have asked them repetedly "who did it" to no avail. I try again, "Does anyone want to cop to who opened the door yet?"

Before anyone can answer the peanut gallery aka Seth my one-year old answers, "No."

I burst out laughing before I can stop myself and everyone joins in. While the teachable moment was not quite lost, it was drastically delayed.

Gifts

This is the first year we have split up gift giving into a few days as opposed to planning all of our festivities on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

This was sibling gift day.

This is Nana day.

I forgot the camera the other days but the kids liked having 5 days of Christmas instead of the normal 2. I liked it because I was able to remind them numerous times about the etiquette of gift giving and receiving. It also made for a much more relaxed Christmas for Brad and I. This is a tradition we will be continuing!

Our New (to us) Table

This is it. Do you know how many more people can fit on benches than chairs especially our little guys. Trust me when I say a lot! It even has a little storage under the benches on the sides.

I am so excited! I have wanted a table like this for a very long time.

Yes that is our old table with way too much stuff on it in the corner!

See the plant. I give it 24 hours before it gets knocked over.

Anybody want to take me on?

Gingerbread Houses

Last night was Gingerbread House night at Awanas. We were invited to bring friends and family to help build and decorate gingerbread houses. This is the second time we have done this and it might have to become an annual tradition. Last year, Erik was the Sparkie. This year, Erik "graduated" into TNT so now Jeremiah is the Sparkie and absolutely loving it. All this to say we brought in our crew plus the kid's Nana to make some gingerbread houses.

Jeremiah's pitched roof fell so he resigned himslef to a flat roof quite well. (It was easier to decorate a flat roof.)

Matthew and Nana's gingerbread house. (Their roof did not fall.) Seth trying to get in on the action.

Matthew telling Seth not to touch his creation.

If you can see, Daddy helped build a second house to be an in-law's quarters. Then it turned into a outhouse,(Daddy's influence), then an office. Oh, that extra frosting on Matthew was Daddy's help too.

This was Seth's contribution to the night.

Daddy keeping Seth occupied or at least trying to. Seth was not going to buy it for long because...

this is what Seth really wanted. He found out he is tall enough to pull this off the table. I could not get a picture of him trying to reach everything on the decoration's table because I was constantly grabbing the bowls of candy from him!!

During all this Erik was in his class at TNT.

Erik's class at TNT (The girls were told the boys had their rabies shots but even with that encouragement you can tell they are not convinced of that fact.)

All in all, a fun night but I am glad it is an annual tradition instead of a monthly tradition. I am worried about next year when Seth will be able to reach all of the candy decorations!