Carpet Cleaning 12/21

We have the most beautiful shag area rug.  It is green and cream colored.  Apparently, Silvester thinks it is grass because he is constantly thowing up on it.  It smelled so bad that we put it in the garage.  Today we are having it cleaned along with the bonus room where the kids will be sleeping Christmas Eve. 

I told the guys cleaning the carpet that it was super important to have it cleaned, deodorized and sanitized because my sister-in-law is coming and she is allergic to cats. 

Take a look at it now.  It is so clean and you can just smell goodness.  We have taken to rolling up the carpet at night so that Silvester cannot get to it.

Santa!! 12/20

We went to the mall tonight to see Santa.  We had seen a Santa at the Otter Creek Clubhouse, but he wasn't the real Santa and was pretty bored/tired.





See what I mean?  I told my kids we were going to see the REAL Santa!

I had invited another family to go with us.  They have a 9 month old and a 3 year old.  To be fair, I warned them that there would be a long wait.  We waited in line for over an hour because Santa was at dinner when we first got in line.  All the kids were starving so Victor went downstairs and bought dinner.  The kids were eating Chic Fil A in line.  When we finally got to the front of the line, some raggedy looking guy offered my friends $5 to let him cut in line.  The guy did not even have kids with him.  Must have been a bet?!?  During the hour and a half wait, Victor informed me that William and Jonah have practice tonight at 7:00. It is already 6:50 and we have not seen Santa yet and we do not have their clothes.  Victor wasn't too happy about that. When all was said and done, we had missed practice but - this is what we came home with:

                                                           Ahhh, that is sooo much better. 

I also got inspiration from our friend's house.

Pretty cool right?  I am going to try it!

Hair! 12/19

My sweet, sweet husband took off today because I did not realize the kids would be out of school when I made the appointment to have my hair done.  The last time I had all three boys with me while I was getting my hair done, William cracked his head open.  He was  jumping from bench to bench and fell.

I like the way my hair is, but wanted to kick it up a notch. 

Not my best picture, but deep black on the longer hair and a black street on top. 

Painting 12/18

We have paint burning a hole in my garage, so we decided to see if we could knock out the dining room.  It was all hands on deck.

We taped everything.  Then William, Victor and I started painting.

So here is the dining room before:

Here is it now decked out for Christmas:

I need to get something different in the planters, but other than that, what do you think?

Shopping! 12/17

I bought a lot of decorations for my tree this year.  When I got home I used them sparingly to see if there were some I could return.  Today we went to Target and I returned $81 in decorations.  Then we hung out in the toy department so we could get some gift ideas for the kids.  Look who we bumped into:

Mrs. Captain America

We also bought a fish tank for Jonah's fish. Then it was home to decorate the tree.

William did not want to help.

Me & William 12/16

Today is the last day before school is out for Christmas.  Robbie has finals and Jonah has a Read A Thon that he is excited about.  That left William.  William's teacher is not going to be at school because she is grieving the loss of her boyfriend's brother.  Since she was not going to be there, William decided he wanted to stay home.  Hey, I always love a shopping buddy.  Off we go. 

We went to North Little Rock to Bed Bath and Beyond, we went to the mall and we went to Hobby Lobby.  When he started getting tired, we came home and he started building with his blocks.

He was so good today!

This is a cute picture that I got of Jonah and Silvester:

Here is William when we got home from picking up the boys from school.

Poor baby.  I really wore him out.

School Christmas Parties 12/15

Jonah and Gracen

Jonah's class had cheese dip and a chocolate fountain.

William and his classmate

William's class had pizza and decorated sugar cookies. 

Funny story, I got the truck stuck in the parking lot.  I was trying to squeeze through and realized too late my truck would not fit.  I ended up blocking all thru traffic because the car in front of me had their butt out so far I could not pass.  Reverse was not an option for me (it's not my best gear) so I spoke with the assistant principal and asked him if he could move my truck to allow people to leave when they want.  He went out back with me to assess the situation and decided that there was no one who could move my truck without hitting a car. 

Later, when the assistant principal was paging parents to move their cars to alleviate the traffic jam, I was standing outside and some women were standing behind me steady talking about the person who parked their truck in the middle of everything and now nobody could move.  I turned around and said, "that is my truck.  I cannot move.  I even asked Mr. Robkin to move it, but he said it wasn't possible."  They were stunned that I was the one they were talking about.  I was not bitter or ugly to them, I just explained that I knew I was in the way, but could not do anything about it.  Let's be honest I would have been talking about me too, if the shoe was on the other foot.

Pampered Chef 12/14

Today was the last day for CBS.  Some of the moms gave us gifts.  One mom gave us note cards with our name on it, another gift was a Christmas ornament and yet another was homemade goodies. 

I also received my Pampered Chef order.  One of the moms has two girls in private school.  Their big fundraiser is Pampered Chef.  They were running a special where if you spend $60 you can receive either measuring cups or a Classic Batter Bowl for free.  You would not believe how long it took me to decide what to buy.  My friend wanted to purchase the can opener, so I already had $20 spent, only $40 more to go.  I decided to buy the egg slicer because mine is broken in two different places, a cutting board (mine is made of marble and very heavy, plus someone said it dulls your knives) and a Classic Batter Bowl. 

Do you have a batter bowl?  They are very handy.  They have a pouring spout and a lid.  Great for making muffins or pancakes because you can pour in the batter.  Plus you can easily store leftovers. 

When the order came, instead of getting the free measuring cups, which I need, I received another Classic Batter Bowl.  Two in one order.  No worries.  You really can't have too many right?  Right.

Band Concert 12/13

Robbie's first band concert was tonight right in the middle of finals week. 

Turkey 12/12

Today I got up early to make a turkey.  Well, I was supposed to get up early.  The turkey did not get into the oven until 7 am. Our church had a special Food For the Hungry Christmas Dinner.  My turkey weighed 20 lbs. I took it to the church at 1. It was late, they were supposed to be there before noon.

I came home and undecorated the tree to replace a string of lights at the very top that were not working.

Christmas Concert 12/11

This is the first Christmas program Jonah and William have ever been in.  We left our old church just as Jonah was old enough to participate.  Our church now does not do Christmas programs, until now.

I helped out by making cookies and setting up, replenishing and taking down the cookie tables.  This is the table that we came up with:

The theme was simple gifts.  Each of the gifts on the table represented a simple gift: a kind word, a listening ear, a smile, etc.  I should mention that I love this wrapping paper.

Robbie had a speaking part.  The other two sang.  I cried.  Yes, cried.  It was powerful hearing Robbie's deep voice read the Word.

                              .Jonah


Robbie

William




Hopefully, someone else got better pictures of my kids than I did.  I forgot my camera and was using Victor's phone.

Buffet Table 12/10

I have become really interested in estate sales.  I have made two purchases.  This is one of them:

The leg is missing and there are also two knobs missing, but I still saw potential.  I was going to use it as a buffet table.  I found a company in Cabot who came out to the house, picked it up and within the week dropped it back off totally redone,

After.

She cut off the rest of the legs and put something on them so that it will not scratch the hardwoods if it is moved.  I really like how it turned out!

Cookie Party 12/9

A friend from church hosted a Cookie Christmas party at her new  house.  I took a brownie mix and put it in a muffin pan with Reeses peanut butter cups in the middle.  You are supposed to use a mini muffin pan, but I don't have one.

 
Our hosts.                 

Robbie's Recorder Concert 12/8

Tonight Robbie has a concert that he must attend because it is part of his grade.  His music class teaches the kids how to play the recorder.  He is having a recorder concert in the cafeteria.





He did a great job!

Robbie's music teacher was so excited to have a concert that she went smooth nuts.  The recorders played at least 5 songs.  Then she pulled up the 6th grade choir.  They sang about 10 songs.  No joke.  William fell asleep in my lap.  My leg started twitching with a cramp because of William's weight and how long it took.  Then the ensemble group sang and then came the 7th and 8th grade choirs.  It was an hour and a half long concert.  We were sitting in the benches of the cafeteria tables.  Most uncomfortable.  It is a mandatory class.

Work Party 12/7

So my sweet friend Lisa is keeping the boys for me so that I can go to Victor's work Christmas party. Then it snowed.  Lisa's car does not have enough seats for all of her kids and mine (she also has three boys).  We were going to trade cars and she was going to take the kids to AWANAs.  She was already nervous about driving my truck- and then it snowed.  I knew she was not going to want to drive my truck in the snow.  Around  2 o'clock Beth calls to say,"Lisa just called and I am going to take Robbie after school and he can go to church with me."  It was a production, but I made it to Victor's work party and all the kids were looked after and ended up at church.  Victor and I picked the kids up from church and then went out to eat with another set of friends that we bumped into at church.  It was a long night for the boys and a lot of work for my friends.  It makes you thankful for your true friends who will help out even when it's not convenient. 

Inspiration 12/6

Today I went to Silks A Bloom for inspiration decorating the tree.

Later I picked up all four boys and we went to the doctor for a follow up on Robbie's toe.  Then we went to eat dinner and went back to Robbie's school.  The 6th grade parents were asked to come for a meeting that would help them better prepare for next semester.  Jared's parents were there and I had my boys sit with Jared's dad to give myself a moment of peace.  Eventually, Victor made it to the meeting and took William and Jonah to basketball practice. To top it all off, it started snowing!  Crazy night.

Baker Bizarre Setup 12/5

I helped with William's booth for the bizarre.

Another mom came up with this creation all on her own.  It looks great.  Jonah's class is selling goldfish.  A lot of us thought this was the most crazy idea ever.  All of the fish died that were initially purchased and someone had to go all the way to Conway to purchase new fish.  However, I got a call at 5:00 asking me to work the booth at 5:30.  When we arrived, there was a line waiting to purchase fish.  The line stayed long for a solid hour.  We actually ran out of the decorated mason jars that they were placed in.  We then started selling fish in ziploc bags.  It was mind boggling!

 Jonah did not purchase a fish in time and ended up getting two fish in a ziploc bag.  Fortunately, Robbie had purchased a mason jar full of gum and we used that mason jar instead.

Cleaning?!? 12/4

The boys cleaned their room.

Isn't it impressive how clean this floor is?  They did a great job. Right?

 Let me just check and see if their hamper is full...

Oh my, that explains a lot.

Hunting for a Christmas Tree 12/3

Today we went to the Tree Farm to chop down our Christmas tree.  Usually, we go much later in the season, but they never seem to have really big trees by then, so we decided to go early.

Tractor ride to the trees.

Searching, searching

Wearing down

We found it!

Everybody gets a chance to help cut down the tree with a saw.

Victor starts and finishes cutting it down.

Then we were able to pay back friends for doing us a huge favor by letting all three spend the night so that Victor and I could go to a costume party.  We kept two of their kids for a couple of hours so they could spend some time together and get some Christmas shopping done.