Day 365--Its cold outside

It took poor Daddy a little over 2 hours to snowblow and then shovel the driveway clear...the kids liked watching him though! LOVE IT!

Day 364--Hit the Bag!

My awesome FIL got us a heavy bag for Xmas--we got it hung yesterday (it was a process) and everyone had a bit of a go at it!

Guess who liked it the most?!?!

Day 363--Its outta here!

Well actually it only made it out to the back deck...but, still its out of my living room as are 5,689 of its 8,000+ pine needles. I am sure I will be cleaning them up (as per usual) until Valentine's Day! I'll never understand how they remain despite my repeated attempts at eradicating them all!

Day 362--Loofus the Doofus!

I was sitting there, he was sitting there...

Dy 361--Its late

Sorry, it is late, I am tired, this is all I could muster.
At least there are only 5 more days.
Also I got the S-700 for Christmas, I have to take it out of its box and play with it, I am expecting to up my game soon! :)

Day 360--Merry Christmas

Christmas morning came and went without that anticipation that we expected from our 4 and 6-year old. In fact all of the kids slept in...at least for them, so a Merry Christmas morning for Mom & Dad as well :)

I am annoyed that I never took my camera out after the first big round of present unwrapping, it was just too busy for me in the kitchen...the girls and Leo looked super cute in their outfits, I will have to put Leo in his again just so I can take a picture:)

Day 359--Christmas Eve

Man, we made out this year:) The tree, loaded up:)

A horrible iPhone shot...but a fun Christmas Eve PJ party tradition:)

Day 358--Christmas Eve Eve

Day 357--Christmas in CT

On Saturday we traveled down to CT to visit with Daddy's family...tons of fun and low key, just our style:)
The kids made out like bandits in the gift department!

The girls received Dazzling Princess, which is just the Disney-fied version of Pretty Pretty Princess from my youth. The girls loved it, so I'll bite my tongue at gender marketing to girls re-enforcing the idea that the most important thing for a girl is to be pretty. I am as guilty as everyone else of the buy-in; but it is really starting to get to me.

Rowan's favorite gift might have been the stocking stuffer bubbles!

Leo loved his new blocks and his new guitar and especially the perfectly Leo-sized chair by the fire.

A good shot of Kaylee

Not a particularly good shot, but look how excited Josh is about his frog flip!

Day 356--My Deers

A family of 5 deer including a buck and a fawn ambled through our backyard...less than 40 feet from the house. Creeping quietly but quickly, I grabbed my camera and headed to the porch and opened the door. They definitely knew I was there and I had no shoes and it was raining and I forgot to check my settings before I started snapping...but still this was just very cool. I really like deer, and there is a water source directly behind our home, I hope I get more opportunities:)

Day 355--Kids Care Club Caroling!

Kaylee was one of the winners of the Box Top Competition at her school so she got to spend the day as "Principal." She had a great time in the office, doing a few tasks and even "checking on the kids at recess." She was so excited for this.

After school, our Kids Care Club was going caroling at our local nursing home. So the kids got all dressed up :)

They did a really good job! Yay, Kids Care Club!

I snapped this with my iPhone, but non-FBers didn't get to see it, I found it funny to walk in on this...it looked like some serious business was being done. "Ground Control to Apollo, you are good to go."

Day 354--Kaylee's Polar Express

I love this picture Kaylee made in art class on her impressions of the book "Polar Express." I might even have it framed. I am very proud of her effort and the layers she put in!

Day 353--Christmas Around the World

We went to the library on Tuesday for an event called "Christmas Around the World." There were 6 different crafts from different countries, Rowan had a blast--and Leo did pretty well too!

Afterwards there was a little sing-a-long that Leo really loved too!

Day 352--Thematic beds

Do you notice an overall theme to the things that adorn my children's beds?

Day 351--From the outside

From the outside, at night, these are our decorations! :) I like the pic with the flash that shows that its SNOWING!

Day 350--Last Day of Hanukkah!

We invited friends over and taught them how to play Dreidel, we lit the Menorah for the last time this year and then I made latkes for the first time from scratch...they turned out not-too-bad actually!

Day 349--Fun Friday!

Rowan had her friend Delaney over after school on Friday. They watched the Barbie Nutcracker movie with their dolls...when the rat king was being mean, they protected their babies! So cute!

Later that afternoon, our MOMS Club had a holiday craft event, lots of fun!

Day 348--Now they all have hats!

A Hanukkah present for Leo! Now they all have animal hats. I ask again, will the lion theme ever get old for Leo? Not yet........

Day 347--Zinger again

Sorry for the repetition, but late last night after we remembered to move our elf, I also remembered I hadn't taken a picture, so since his 'hang out' is rather cool, I decided to document it!

Day 346--Our Christmas Mantle

Taking pictures of Zinger on our mantle made me decide to make a little collage of all the other things the adorn it!

Day 345--The elf on the decoration!

Zinger made his home on our wire tree!

Day 344--Prep & Landing!

Two days in a row, I've posted my picture on time, each day! Are you shocked? I kinda am :) Tonight we let the girls stay up extra late, even though it is a school night to watch both of the Disney Prep & Landing specials. Some things are just worth it:)

Day 343--A Holiday (and timely) Pic!

Today was a mixture of holidays.
We went to a Holiday Fair at Kaylee's school, we bought, set up and decorated our Christmas tree, we taught the girls to play Dreidel (and eat Gelt?). We read 3 Christmas stories and 2 Hanukkah stories (one of which was more graphic than I thought it would be considering the kiddie corner I plucked it from in the library) and we lit the Menorah at sundown and said the Blessing. Not everything happened in that order...but it was all done today. The girls are very proud of their decorating job, and so are we!

Day 342--I hope this works!

So I made this thing. I found (on Pinterest if you can believe it) a really cool and easy way to make a felt board, which I did for Leo, with all sorts of shapes and colors so that we can work on those in a fun way. And then, I thought, "ding ding, I can improve upon this." So I made a Christmas tree felt board with presents and ornaments that I am sort of naively hoping will distract him from tearing apart our actual Christmas tree when we put it up tomorrow. Well, I don't know about Leo, but Kaylee freaking LOVED it. So anyway, until tomorrow, here's Leo's tree!

Also, this was just cute! I love that I can ask Kaylee to read to Leo and she will. I also love that Leo loves to pretend to read his own book while he is being read to:)

Day 341--Not my best day!

Wednesday was a difficult day for me, some things happened. They sort of happened later in the day...Thursday was difficult, because I still didn't understand what I was going to do, nor did I have a plan. I hate not having a plan. I am a planner!! Anyway, Thursday bore the brunt of Wednesday's phtphtphtpht, and I really didn't pay attention to taking good pictures. The kids had a rehearsal for the Carol singing they will be doing later this month at a Nursing Home. I took maybe 20 pictures, and this is the best of them...seriously, that's how much I wasn't paying attention. Still, a shot was taken, so here it is.

Day 340--Thank you Pinterest, again!

My first attempt with instagram and its collage maker...sorta fun, sorta don't have time to really experiment with it right now...

Day 339--Loofy got a bone!

Day 338--The Many Faces of Rowan

Day 337--Advent, day 2

We were looking for a fun advent to do with the kids, one that preferably didn't involve candy. So a friend of mine had this great idea...wrap up your holiday books in plain paper (newspaper or whatever is around) and number them 1-24 and put them out of order in a basket. It didn't cost us anything because between the books I already had and borrowing a few from that same friend, we made it to 24. The kids love it, because they only see these books 1 month a year so they seem new, and it is something we can do together as a family! (And it is extremely budget friendly!) Score! So today, I tried to snap a pic, but Kaylee really can't handle the front flash :( Oh well, the real flash has been ordered, I get it on Christmas, yay!!!

Day 336--December 1st; Home Depot Trip

The first Saturday of every month, Home Depot has a free Kids Workshop. We try to go whenever we can, because the girls really like it. Usually I stay home with Leo, but we needed a few Christmas decorations for the new house so we made it a family trip.

And guess who visited this particular work shop? The big guy himself "Well, its probably only one of his helpers," said Kaylee, "afterall this is busy time of year." For on the fly, not a bad picture!

And of course its always fun to try on silly hats that we would never actually buy...except for Rowan, its not fun AT ALL for her!

Day 335--Leo endures the mall

I hate the mall, all the time...I really do. Just walking through one of its many entrances drains life from me like that Princess Bride machine. I hate the mall even more from Thanksgiving through New Years--I think I'd rather have a root canal. OK, maybe not, those suck, but you get the point. Anyway, I had to do a return and pick up something for Rowan for Christmas so I had to do it while she was at school so off Leo and I went. He was so good that I let him play at the playgroup for a while, he had a blast!

Day 334--Bus stop & Pinterest!

All 3 of my kids sat on the rock as they waited for Kaylee's bus to pick her up, came out not so bad, especially considering it is an iPhone pic!

We did a Pinterest project today too, my mom might not have realized it yet, but she's getting the 2nd 8x10 of this. Each one has 18 thumbprints from each child...I don't know, I kind of like it:)

Day 333--Frozen

Letting the dogs out in the morning has gotten dangerous!

Day 332--Farm Equipment

Expect this rust bucket to become my new lantern, it lives in the jungle where it can't be seen during the summer, but I can see it now, and there is something I can do with it, I know it, I just don't quite know what it is yet, stay tuned!