Merry Christmas!!

HO! HO! HO!  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Santa and all the shiny presents came to our house this year, must mean we were all good:)

Santa brought Baby R her first tricycle. 

And other fun things:) 

Santa spoiled Little R too! 

Oh, the Go Go Walkin' Pup.  Santa brought this to Little R last year but the stupid thing never worked right so we sent it back to Santa to exchange it only for it to be completely out of stock till this past fall!!!!  We figured Little R had long forgotten about it since we couldn't get it until it showed back up on her letter to Santa this year:)  And whadayaknow, Santa fixed her dog and brought it back;)...Only to have Baby R adopt it as her own and REFUSES to allow Little R play with it.  Baby R screams and yells, "MINE!" when Little R comes to play with it.  It'll fade and Little R will get her dog back just like the Princess Vanity from last year;) 

G was under the weather this Christmas:(  He woke up Christmas Eve with a fever and really red cheeks.  The only thing open was the stupid Minute Clinic that we spent over 3 HOURS at to finally get an RX.  It was a nightmare!

Little R with her Miss Piggy that she quickly ran over to G's gift below to give him lots of smooches.

Oh, Kermy!

Baby R with her "magic wand" that g'ma and g'pa gave her.  She refuses to use it right, but boy does she love this thing:) 

G opened this Angry Birds t-shirt from his grandparents and immediately said he was going to go get dressed, he couldn't bare not waiting till gifts were finished.

And Little R with "PINKALICIOUS!!!!", she loved this gift! 

Mr. D's buddy, Brian from MN contacted me to surprise D with a gift.  Brian got Mr. D hooked on the show "Sons of Anarchy" and so this is where the shirt hails from.  Mr. D just laughed when he opened it:) 

G was enjoying his gifts he was opening despite being sick until he opened his new coat.  He wasn't real thrilled, funny:)  Not every gift will be toys G:) 

Funny story: That evening as I was helping Little R put her new things away and get ready for bed she told me, "this was the BEST day of my WHOLE life!".  You can't help but LOVE this girl:)

Baby R kept disappearing all morning.  Every time it was her turn to open a gift we'd look around and she was gone.  I did get a few of her thankfully:)

It was an Angry Birds Christmas this year for G, he loved it!

Mr. D bought me another lens for my beloved camera, I had lots of fun testing out it's features.  Kinda cool, it blurs things in the forefront while putting objects behind into focus.  Fun, right? 

And done!  Mr. D spoiled me rotten as usual, I have a couple of gifts I'm super excited about, one not so much but he laughs and tells me I have to "face my fears", but more on that at a later date.

I hope your family had an amazing holiday as well and Santa treated you right:)  Can't wait to read your blogs to see what all your families got too!!  Merry Christmas everyone!!!

UPDATES!!

Ok, so yes, I am WAY behind in blogging. So, bear with me today as I post after post after post. If you have nothing better to do today, I hope you enjoy reading along as I'm hoping to get caught up:)...... Don't forget to click on "older posts" when you get to the bottom of the page today, oh yes, there is more!  I told you I was WAY behind!

So here is my updates:

1: I have officially "unfriended" people on FB that I'm sure I will NEVER talk to again in this lifetime and I'm ok with that.

2: I have started the process of getting G looked over by another professional who has a lot more experience when it comes to Autism but that will take us out of state.

3: This is the biggy, if you feel so inclined, we are asking for MEGA prayers right now.  Baby R, if you remember was born with a severe form of hip displaysia.  She was casted for the summer of 2009 and then placed in a brace for several months after that.....Anyway, she was doing really well and at her last appointment in 2010 her Orthopedist felt she could go a year until her next x-ray.  Well, we did that on the 13th of this month and her x-ray showed that her right hip is loosening and beginning to slip again.  The hip angle is at a 25 which means it is at the last number before being considered abnormal.  At this same time last year both hips measured at 20 which is well within normal.  The left hip has stayed at 20 (yeah!!!) but the right hip isn't staying strong.  The ortho did tell us that it is possible for it to correct on it's own as well as stay strong at 25 but the fact that it has loosened may not be a good sign and she may have to go under the knife for a surgery that may or may not correct the problem.  I hate hip displaysia. 

In short, we are asking for a miracle here.  We don't want to have to cast her again as she is such a busy little thing and it would break my heart to see her go through all this all over again.  She would not be able to walk in her cast, she would be bedridden and to ask a 3yo to stay in her bed for weeks upon weeks isn't fair.  Please have her in your thoughts and prayers, please.

We will do another x-ray in June of 2012 and if it has loosened anymore, we have to talk surgery which I don't want to do!!!  Please, pray for this little girl, she doesn't need to go through this and neither does her mama.

Sorry to end all my postings on a downer but it is what it is.  Enjoy your families this weekend and I hope Santa is very kind to you all:)

Ginger{bread}.

It's tradition.  Can't have Christmas until we decorate a gingerbread house:)   My kids are SUPER excited this year.  Things they have put on their list include Angry Bird soft friends (aka stuffed animals), Barbie, pink Legos, Transformer voice changer, Transformer sticker book and the Cars 2 movie.  Santa arrives tomorrow night so I hope he packs these things on his sleigh as they have all been very good this year;)

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa everyone!

Just {Playing}.

My camera has some fun features.  I've also been learning a lot about shutter speed/aperture stuff too which clearly explains the last two photos where one is much darker than the other.  I LOVE my camera!

Teacher {gifts}.

If you remember, I had posted a little while ago that I didn't want to give my kids teachers a bunch of junk food for the holidays.  Just like me, they would like to lose a few and it doesn't help having 16+ families giving them holiday goodies.  So, I set out and found these adorable homemade notepads.  And where did I find them, on Pinterest (I curse you Amy for making me sign up on this site!).  They were super cheap to make and I had a lot of fun assembling them.  Want the directions?  Here you go....

5x7 plastic stand frames ($.95 at Wal-Mart)

Sticky Notepads

Scrapbook paper (cut into 5x7)

Embellishments

Stylish Pen

Basically, slide your scrapbook paper into the frame, take the back paper off the Sticky notepad and adhere (squish it on) it to the front.  Decorate with any embellishments of your liking:)

And there you have it, cheap but fun notepads!

Oh, Christmas {Tree}.

I'm SOOO happy Baby R is old enough now that when I say, "don't touch the tree", for the most part she listens.  If you go back to this posting you'll remember how horrible our pathetic tree looked as it was not only a tree that was falling apart but also all the ornaments started half way up the tree.  We've come a long way! 

Plus, it helps that I have a "real" camera now and I can take better looking photos of our tree:)

THAT I can [do}.

Earlier in the day I was preparing to assemble a craft project I had spent HOURS on, thinking I was in the home stretch and maybe even have it in the mail by that afternoon.  OHHHH, contraire mon frere!  I had it all laid out only to discover I had done the WHOLE THING WRONG!!!  My heart sank, my eyes got big, a couple of cuss words came out and I smacked my head against the floor in despair.

Well, I hate that a craft project didn't get finished so Baby R and I hopped in the car and drove to Hobby Lobby.  I had seen on Pinterest some adorable felt trees and thought, "easy-peasy".  So we bought a bunch of felt, spent around $10 and while Baby R napped I threw this adorable felt tree together. 

I thought it came out pretty darn cute!  My kids have enjoyed decorating and re-decorating this tree.  I'm glad I made it:)  It put me in a much better mood after my other craft mishap.  Hopefully I'll figure that one out and I'll beable to send it out for another holiday:)

Happy {Thankday}!!!!

It's true Baby R turns 3!!!!  And if you didn't catch it by the title of this post, Baby R turns 3 ON Thanksgiving this year!

Opening a few presents to start off this double holiday:)

Happy as a clam with her new "rocket" g'ma gave her.

Later that day cousins showed up to not only celebrate Thanksgiving but to sing Happy Birthday as well!

G and his cousin Ben.

They are both "boys".  I don't know if I'll ever understand why boys still insist on making the sound of the gun when the gun itself is making noise as well. 

Getting ready to blow out all those candles as cousins look on!  And in case you were wondering, yes, this too is a GFCFSFEF cake and even the non-allergy people loved every last bite! 

Silly Cousin Ryan.

Happy Birthday Baby R!  You are hilarious, adorable and the world is always so much more brighter when you enter the room.  We love you forever and always! 

PS: If you noticed kids in jackets, it's because 5 minutes (no joke, 5!) into our Thanksgiving feast G pipes up and says, "I'm all done can I go outside?" and before any adult in the room could say, "not right now", we had 10 kids all clambering to go outside.  So, they did.  We had a very quiet, adult only Thanksgiving basically.  It was dark and cold but all the laughter and screaming coming from the backyard proved the holiday was a success:)

Happy "Thankday" everyone!

Kindergarten Thanksgiving {Program}.

Little R was an adorable "Indian Woman".   She was so proud of her pink feathers she got to decorate her headband with:)

Lookin' good G!

Mrs. Noble, the school music teacher.  She does awesome with all these Kindergartners!

Little R saying what she is thankful for..."Blythe". A friend in her class;)

After the program they had the Kindergarten art displayed. This is Little R's "abstract" art. Too fun!