Christmas has finally arrived!!!!

Well, that is what our boys said anyway! They have been so overly excited about Christmas that I honestly think it caught them off guard! We have had 4 Christmas celebrations so far a still have 2 more to go!

Gingerbread House!

We normally don't do a Gingerbread House at Christmas (we usually do a Haunted Gingerbread House at Halloween) but this year this little house was so cute I couldn't pass it up. Also, our boys LOVE to "construct" them :-) They love to get all messy and really get into the design.

More Pictures!!

As I was looking through all of the pictures that I had taken of the boys for Christmas cards, I didn't see that "perfect" picture. So, me being me and with the help of Liz (thank you!!!) I finally, after two more sets of pictures, decided on my favorite picture! I am posting several of the ones I took in the process!

The Christmas Elf Tradition

I don't know how many of you have this tradition but in our house it is looked forward to as much as Christmas morning. If the boys are good during the day, at night the Christmas Elves will come alive and put candy and small toys in their stockings....if they are bad, they get nothing. You may wonder why I took a picture that clearly focuses on starbursts and not the elves themselves. You may also be wondering why there is one poor little elf with no starbursts in front of it. The starbursts in front of the two elves are from Ian and Orion (they wanted to share the joy with their elves). Of course James had to be the unusual one (have you noticed a trend with that one?) James did not put his starbursts in front of his elf because there was clearly not enough room to put the numerous starbursts out. You see, James decided that not only did the Christmas Elf need several starbursts but he felt it wouldn't be fair to give the Elf starbursts without giving the Elf's girlfriend some starbursts too LOL therefore his are in his stocking! (Please ignore the mirror, I have no clue what Steven cleaned it with but it streaked it)

Wow! That Wasn't So Easy After All!

This weekend has been all about getting pictures taken for Christmas cards. It sounds easy enough but it seriously isn't when you have three boys who are bound and determined to cut up and drive me crazy! lol I took the first round of pictures Friday afternoon by a local lake. The boys were all for picture time until I decided that I needed the perfect picture. Let's just say with them cutting up that wasn't going to happen Friday. I didn't say anything else about pictures until late Saturday night. The boys decided they would cooperate if they only had to change their shirts. I was just tickled they didn't go and hide! I tried everything under the sun to get them to show me their sweet little angelic faces perfectly posed by the Christmas tree (cue the sound of a record player scratching your favorite record) now that we are back to the real world let's just say that I had to do quite a bit of editing and I'm still not sure which picture I am going to use. I posted some of the ones that made the cut to put on facebook and send via email and some of the ones that barely made it to the "maybe list"

What a Week!!

This week has been a whirlwind already! The boys are back in school and I am trying to take care of Steven and work as much as possible. In my quest for multi-tasking I decided to do James' homeschool activities when Ian and Orion are doing their homework. This seemed like a good idea initially but everyone that has met James knows that he is destined to be comic relief when things starting getting too serious or too quiet....which is what happens during homework time. I don't think he was trying to be funny but he cracked Steven and me up!! James was working on his school work and he said "Mom, come here, wait let me erase this because you have to see me do this!" Of course I start getting excited because he is excited about school work then he said the following while explaining the way the firetruck should go through the maze to get to the burning house in the exercise. "Mom, do you think the firetruck would go this way (he then proceeded to draw out the shortest route with his finger)?" I said "yep that's it" He said " uh, no Mom there is no black road the firetruck would have to fly through the trees" I said "James you are suppose to pretend that it is a black road like we drive on" James said "well, we better stick to the flying theory Mom so they can get to the burning house quick and save the girl...Mom, there is ALWAYS a girl in a burning house...just saying". LOL and in typical James fashion he went on to another exercise in the book until Orion came over and said "wait a minute...what?" The picture I have attached is of James in the process of explaining the situation. I have also added pictures of them individually doing their school work!