Christmas Eve

Santa Picture

This is a picture of a picture. I don't have a scanner, so the quality is not perfect. However, this is 2007 Santa visit! They were so sweet!

Our Extended family Christmas gathering!

Christmas Parties and Santa Clothes

The last day of school before break the kids had their school Christmas parties! Joseph is in Kindergarten so they still do alot of crafts and singing. Isabelle had a secret book exchange. They drew names and then bought bought a book less than $6 for each other. We went to see Santa after school and it only took 4 hours!!! They dressed up and we took pictures on the front porch and they were goofy in every single one of them!

Neighborhood lights!

The kids and I drove around the neighborhood one night looking at all the houses that were lit up with decorations. The best house wasn't lit up that night, but I hope to get it tonight and I'll add the picture in. It is very hard to take pictures at night. I didn't want to use flash because if you do it's too brights, but you really have to prop your camera so you don't get handshake. The shutter speed slows way down when you don't have flash at night. Anyway, it was fun to see. We have lots of families and they all like to decorate. The one house that is really lit up though is the home of a very older woman!

Mentos and Diet Coke Experiment

The kids have been begging to do this experiment, and when Isabelle saw the mentos at the grocery store check out today she really wanted to do it! So we did! It starts a geyser immediately.

An evening with good Friends!

The Koenig's came over Saturday evening. It's always a treat when we can get together with them. We live on different sides of Atlanta, so it is an accomplishment when we can arrange to get together. We've been friends since we had our first babies and met in baby massage class in Decatur! Wish we knew more wonderful families like them. Brendon had been wanting to cook paella, so he found Emirl's recipe on the food network and went for it. (We figured if it didn't go well we could always order pizza.) But!, it went so so so deliciously! I took several pictures of Tyler, but they didn't come out, but he is in the kids table shot. He is about 18 months and cutie, running around with super energy! Isabelle and Madison are peas in a pod. It is so funny to see the two of them together. And, Abi and Joseph are fun kids to hang out with.

(Push the music button on the snowman to turn off the music if you want.)

Rain!

Well...it is raining!

For those who don't live in GA..we are having a serious drought..it's really a crisis! That is why we all talk about rain all the time.

Sunrises

Yesterday it was very foggy
This morning it was very red..I hope that means rain!

New Paint

We finished painting. It was very foggy this morning

so it was hard to get a good picture.

Can you do this?

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g2/puzzler.htm

I can't even do the easy one!!! I get it all except the two top right hair blocks!

I am almost up to 5000 on a dog for all seasons! If my space bar didn't stick all the time I could do that game!

I don't sit around doing this all the time! At breakfast and after I put the kids to bed! It's fun!

The Dog ate my homework kind of afternoon!

Yesterday I had a nice lunch with another Mom. Then I headed off to carpool. While waiting on the kids I found out about bully in the classroom. I had heard about a few things from Isabelle, but now I've found out more! URghh!
Then Isabelle came to the car and all the sudden she's freaking out! Her homework fell out of her backpack..folder, composition book...everything! So, we stay till all the cars leave and go hunting everywhere for it...never could find it, but got some extra off the teacher.
We drive home and I pull in the driveway and see two girls from the neighborhood dragging my Border Collie across the neighbors yard and they are telling me Sarah is running around the neighborhood! Yep! We finally get the dogs in and the gate shut.
After that we are calm for awhile and have snack and do homework. But, later Brendon calls and someone has broken into our cabin and torn down the door, stolen the tv and two of the comforters off the king size beds! Luckily we don't have renters this weekend so we can get it fixed before next weekend.

After all of that, I actually felt ok, but did not cook dinner! You know...any excuse will do to not cook dinner! LOL Bread, and chese and chicken from the deli!!!

Yesterday the kids had a half day of school, so we went bike riding on the greenway with another family after we picked them up! It was fun, and I can't wait to go again!

Did this yesterday morning for the first time. Not too bad!

This is what it looked like our first Christmas as parents! It hasn't snowed at Christmas in GA since then (Dec 2000). Brendon's parents came to visit. It was their first winter Christmas, so it was really neat that the weather gave them White Christmas too!

Whining

I feel like whining today. I'm not up for the holidays yet and just want to relax! I would like to nap until after New Years! So, in honor of napping here are pictures of my favorite nappers!

Joseph 1st day home

Isabelle's 1st day home

Decorate..paint first

Well...we could not live with the yellow in the kitchen and keeping area anymore. The yellow is fine as a color, but definitely not in this room. I forgot to take a picture of the cabinets, but I will and you can see why it's just blah blah blah with yellow. So, we tried a neutral terracotta color and several greens. We chose shagreen by sherwin williams for the walls. For the keeping room I plan to paint the ceiling cottage cream also by SW. We are going to put bead board up on the bar and paint it the cottage cream too. Oh, I have got to post a picture of the cabinets, because there's on section of them I think I'd like to paint cream too...but that's kinda scary!!!! One day (that'll be when we sell the other house) I want to get custom slip covers for the couch and chairs in the keeping room and some sort of window treatments...roman or something shades for the windows. That mantle, seems like it would be great, but it is a real real pain to decorate and because the mantle is rock everything sits wobbly. Urghh! So, this is a beginning to decorating and as the weeks (months) go by I hope there will be yummy, delicious and pretty progress!