Christmas

Paul worked 1/2 a day on Christmas Eve and then we drove up to Jackson to Uncle Dave's house to give him his gifts. By the time we headed home it was getting late so we just picked up some dinner on the way home. I recently heard about someone's Christmas Eve dinner tradition of getting all sorts of take-out food. I think we'll try that next year. By the time we got home Lana was fast asleep so there was no reading of "The Cajun Night before Christmas" or opening a Christmas Eve present. Neither did Paul attempt the whole sleeping by the Christmas tree. I think we were all a little pooped from the drive.


The kids woke up bright and early. The first thing out of Lana's mouth was, "Yay! Santa came!". Tanner was a little apprehensive about opening gifts. I think it was because I caught him trying to open a few gifts that were stuffed in a closet a few days earlier (think unhappy mommy moment). It took him about 1/2 a day to finish opening his gifts. Lana kept asking him if he wanted help opening his presents since she blew through hers in about 20 minutes (and then she asked me to wrap some more presents because she wanted to open more).



The one thing she absolutely wanted for Christmas was a purple pony. Her specification was it had to be bigger than a regular my little pony and my specification was it couldn't be a living/breathing one. Amazingly I found one.



Tanner was all about Lightning McQueen, Thomas the Train and tools of any sort. He has been toting around his Handy Manny Hammer and banging it on the brick wall. I have been sweeping up brick dust multiple times a day. Better, I think, than having to patch holes in the wall.

Later that night, some friends of ours braved the bitterly cold evening to go see the red-neck Christmas lights with us. I'm not trying to be derogatory when I say "red-neck", I'm just tellin' it like it is. Besides, I like the red-neck Christmas lights. What would we do on Christmas Day evening if there were no red-neck lights to see??




See, they have the Keebler Elves. We tried to get them to throw us some warm, fresh from the tree-oven cookies but they wouldn't comply. Perhaps they are bitter about the whole Christmas/Elves perception.



Then we have Santa and his reindeer chasing down the angels proclaiming Jesus' birth.



And Paul getting all chummy with Santa and a random snow man.




Here you can see Santa has kidnapped a few children. Uh, Santa...I think you're supposed to be dropping off presents not taking children out of their warms beds. Do their parent's know they're on the roof with a stranger?



It takes about 30 minutes to walk through the entire yard and take pictures.



We forgot to ask the owners if they leave it up all year round or if they take it down.






This is supposed to be Tanner posing in front of the Thomas the train display. Really it just looks like Tanner has humongous ears.

Merry Christmas!!

It's a Christmas miracle!...

...Either that or I just ruined Christmas. I got so tired of Lana being terrified of Santa. She has talked about Santa everyday since I pulled out the Christmas decorations. Santa-this, Santa-that. Pointing out all of the posters of Santa in the grocery store. It was non-stop Santa. Plus our Santa Claus just so happens to be one of her Sunbeam teachers (who she absolutely loves). So...I told her who Santa really was. I know. What a crappy mother I am. Possibly spoiling Christmas for my sweet little 4 year old. But you know what? It worked. For the first time since her 6 month old picture with Santa, she is not crying hysterically. And I don't think I ruined it completely because she still believes that "the other" Santa came to her house on Christmas and brought her a purple pony.




Tanner on the other hand, would not even let go of me to take a picture with Santa. So we took a picture of him crying hysterically. You know, just for the record.

Lana's Preschool Christmas Party

Tanner and I went to Lana's class Christmas Party yesterday. They had a "Christmas at Home" theme so everyone was encouraged to come in their pj's. Tanner was super excited to be able to wear "Elmo" all day.


He also made himself right at home with all the other kids. Whatever they did, he did too. I think he is ready to go to preschool next year.



Lana was so excited to find me and Tanner in her classroom when they returned from watching a movie (Strawberry Shortcake's Christmas). She made sure I sat on her carpet square and introduced Tanner to everyone.



Lana and her best friend at school, Gracelynn.




Singing "Happy Birthday to baby Jesus" and blowing out the candles on baby Jesus' gigantic cookie.


Lana's entire preschool class with their teacher Mrs. Monika. We've really enjoyed having Mrs. Monika as a teacher. She loves each one of her students and it shows. She also makes sure that Lana doesn't get lost in all the craziness. Lana's confidence has really grown since starting school. She loves school and her school friends.

Rainy Days

So we've had a lot of rainy days lately. There were about 5 days where there was no sunshine at all and just a constant rain fall with hardly any breaks. Sometimes one got the feeling of thinking maybe this was how the flood in Noah's time began.

These may be still shots, but the water is anything but still. This is water gushing through the front yard.



This is water gushing through the side yard.


And of course, water gushing through the back yard.

Finally, Wednesday, we saw sunshine. It was amazing and fantastic and I wish it would've lasted longer. I spent as much time outside with the kids as we possibly could. I even bought them more sidewalk chalk (the last box was thrown in the garbage after Lana refused to put the chalk away after she was finished playing and then Tanner drew all over my the screens on the back porch. Thursday we saw the clouds come back and the rains come tumbling down once again in the evening. It rained pretty hard throughout the night, so hard that it kept waking Lana up and she finally came into our room to sleep. The radar this morning shows that we're done with the rain for a while (hopefully) so I'm hoping to stay dry for a while and enjoy some sun this afternoon.



Tanner will most likely kill me for this picture when he's older, but he seemed to be enjoying dressing up with Lana. I found it humorous watching Lana put the clothes on him because Tanner kept saying "It tickle!" and laughing and kicking his legs so she would have to start all over. She was pretty persistent and Tanner was a good sport.

Lana's Christmas Program

In the rush out the door, I completely forgot the camera so we only had Paul's small work camera to work with last night at Lana's Christmas Program. Better than nothing but we didn't get any good still pictures. Just 2 video clips.

Lana was so excited to be in her program tonight. She kept asking me when we were leaving and if it was time to change into her program clothes.



The program included dinner which was a taco bar. While we were waiting for our food, Lana's best school friend Gracelynn and teacher Ms. Monika came and sat with Lana to chat. Ms. Monika was happy to report how much progress Lana has made just in the last few weeks. She's finally started to come out of her shell and participate in being class leader when it's her turn. She can even recite the pledge of allegiance (with a little bit of help). We've also noticed here at home how much more talkative she is. When she goes to bed at night, she likes to have long conversations with us. They always start out "Hey mom (or dad), I want to tell you somethin'." Last night it was a couple of somethings. I love those conversations. They are my new favorite part of the day.

The program itself was cute. Poor Lana was squished in between Gracelynn and Ava and at one point in time gets pushed down. She also got really sad toward the end because she had been looking and looking for us and was never able to see us. In her defense there were a lot of people there last night and we started out on the wrong side of the room and had to move to get a better view of her which put us in the very back. Next time I will think to ask her teacher where she'll be sitting in the program. They'll have an end of the year program in April so I'll be sure to be better prepared for that one!

Once there was a snowman...

and he lived for 24 hours in Hattiesburg, MS. I hope he doesn't return until next year because my toes have been freezing cold for the last 3 days. The kids really enjoyed playing in the snow. Lana fell asleep watching the snow fall outside her window and was excited to see that it lasted through out the night so she could play in it again that morning.













Happy early white Christmas! According to the forecast it's supposed to hit 70 on Wednesday.

Family Home Evening

It's always nice to have visitors on Monday nights. Paul's sister Karen, her husband Karl and their baby Daniel were here. We had a lesson on the story of Lehi and his family leaving Jerusalem and living in tents in the wilderness. For the activity we did miniature gingerbread houses. Not exactly tents, but they are a type of dwelling. And I wouldn't want to live in a tent or a really tiny gingerbread house.



Tanner prepped himself for the icing mess with spaghetti mess during dinner.



Lana helped choose our activity and a good choice she made. This kit was a step above the usual nasty tasting stuff. This one came with powdered sugar and you just mix up the icing. It even came with bags and piping tips.


Prepping supplies.


Mmmm, icing.



Yum-O!



Chomp!



Tanner thought it was so good he took a couple of big bites out of his house. He didn't even want any of his Strawberry Malt that Paul made for dessert.



When all was said and done he was pretty much covered from head to toe in frosting.



Our little village. From left to right: Lana's, Karen's, mine, then Karl's. Tanner's was completely demolished and Paul made the strawberry malts while we decorated.

Happy Birthday Tanner-manner!

My baby is two. Sniff. Sniff. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The nice thing for me about having kids around major holidays is I never feel the need to have a kid party. We're usually around lots of family. This time around we housed 16 people in our house for Thanksgiving weekend. (And not to forget Paul's parents who stayed in a motel.) Thought it was going to be crazy but it wasn't as stressful as I anticipated. Note to self: 4 cheese balls insufficient, next time have 6 or more. At least 2 pans of fudge and 2 chocolate pies. Buy 2 pumpkin pies from Sam's Club and the Sam's Club Rotisserie chicken was wayyy better that doing a turkey.

And now, onto the "party" which was mostly the opening of presents and that's about it.




Hey bud! After 2 years, I still love to squeeze your cheeks (on your face).



Opening a dump truck (thanks Grandpa Jerry!) When the postal lady delivered the package she said "Uhh, this one makes noise...".



Tanner's toy of choice lately have been Thomas choo-choo trains. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be drowning in choo-choos for the next 10 years.




I love Lana's reaction in this picture. She's actually saying "Hey, it's a choo-choo train!"



Hmm, I wonder who will get more playtime out of this toy?



Oh, and happy birthday Tanner! We bought a new car for you to ride in! Woo-woo! You can see additional pictures and details here. Sadly it won't be here until Wednesday.

Ever had one of those days...

...where your kid(s) cause a deep desire in you to build a sound-proof, padded room to lock yourself in?





Both above pictures courtesy of Tanner. The screen happens to be my screen porch which I hung by myself. I took it a little personally. You can't see all the holes because quite frankly it's hard to take a picture of a screen so you can see it, but there are about 10 places where he's poked a hole. Nice huh?

It's been a great opportunity to practice my counting.

A monumental owie

So Sunday night while Paul and I were in the garage moving stuff around so we might possibly fit a vehicle in there, Lana and Tanner decided to play tag on the driveway. Both had wrapped themselves up in blankets. This was the end result. (picture taken the day after with my new phone camera)



I'm not sure what distressed Lana more, me cleaning the wound (thankfully there was no rocks or anything large embedded in her face) or seeing herself in the mirror.



I kept the poor girl home Monday to watch for infection. Thankfully none. Then Tuesday she was adamant about not going to school because she didn't want anyone to see her owie.




So we spent the day making special beds on the floor of the family room and watching some favorite shows.

I finally had to force her out the door Wednesday and wrote a note to her teacher telling her what happened and hoping DHS wouldn't show up on my doorstep. But she made it through the day and everyone was so caring. Her teacher even sent back a note saying they'd make sure to be more sensitive to Lana about her owie (she is still a little self conscious of it).

I am amazed at how quickly her wound has healed. You can see considerable progress each day. Now we just keep our fingers crossed that she won't have much (or any) scarring.

Free child labor at its cutest

An after church conversation with Lana

Today, because of our ward Relief Society Visiting Teaching Conference, Paul taught Lana's Sunbeam class third hour. When we got home from church this is how our conversation went:

Me: Hey Lana, how was Sunbeams?
Lana: Fine. (standard answer for everything)
Me: Who was your teacher today?
Lana: Daddy!
Me: What did you learn in class?
Lana: (Shrugs her shoulders and does the I-don't-know hum.)
Me: Okay, what did daddy tell you?
Lana: To sit down and be reverent.
Me: (Dying of laughter) I turn to Paul and he says, Well, the lesson was called"I can be reverent".

Halloween

Oh Halloween, where are the days where you had a parade of costumes at school and then went door to door in your neighborhood to get candy and that was all? Now we have a Halloween season, there are so many things to do. The pumpkin patch (there are atleast 2 around here that I know of), Boo at the Zoo, Trunk or Treat and our Ward Festival, one of Lana's classmates had a dress up birthday party, people handing out candy everywhere, our neighborhood had a party at the playground (bbq, hayride and trick or treating) and a friend of ours had a party at her house (sorry we bailed Manda! They were little maniacs after all the candy they ate.). It's a little crazy what Halloween has turned into, but I love it. For me it just means the holiday season has been extended another month.

On to the costumes. Do you think Tanner enjoyed his costume? You be the judge.








I can just hear him now, "Mom, why on earth would you put this ridiculous/torture contraption on me?"



Lana on the other hand was excited to be a pink fairy. I never did get a picture with her complete outfit. She had a crown, necklace and a magic wand. You can't tell in the picture but I made her "Tinkerbell hair". She doesn't really like me to do her hair other than one pony tail with a clip on the side. So when I want to do something different I have to make up a story like "it's Tinkerbell hair" or "Princess hair" or something to that extent.



These kids have thoroughly enjoyed Halloween this year, we have so much stinkin candy.



And on a random note, this is a typical picture that you will find multiples of on my memory card. Atleast his hands are clean. My kids have the greatest facial expressions. I wish I could capture them all on camera.