Happy Birthday Jesus!

I wrote this post a couple of months ago and never published it :)

We had our second annual birthday party for Jesus yesterday with our friends.  It is such a special time for both the cute kiddos (11 of them!) AND their mommas.  We read the Christmas story, sing some Christmas songs (this year included silly Christmas songs), sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus, decorate/eat sugar cookies, and finished with the VeggieTales Christmas movie.   We moms enjoyed some conversation time, cookies, hot chocolate, and coffee while the movie was playing. :)  

Hard at work on their cookies

 Yummm!  Josiah snuck in THREE cookies when we moms weren't looking!

One of the last pics of Joel's extremely loose tooth!

Caleb is not one to waste food.  He licked all the icing and sprinkles off the plate. 

What a great way to kick-off all our Christmas celebrations.  I have the greatest friends in the world!

When a Texas Girl Sees Snow

I have really enjoyed all the snow we got last week.  And I really don't know why everyone always complains about it.  It is beautiful!  Everything looks so clean and it sparkles in the sunlight.  

We have been perfecting our bundling up routine, and I can now send them all out dressed and ready within 10 minutes (it used to take half an hour!).  I made wrist-savers out of socks.  They are like the finger-less mittens but much cheaper.  They protect the boys wrists.  You know, the area between where the jacket ends and the gloves meet?  There is intense pain when snow touches that area and it can be measured by the shrill screams of my boys.  We also dump everything into the dryer as soon as they come in so that everything is dry for the next outing.  I am quite pleased with the progress I have made in mothering skills.  So onto the cute pictures of the boys playing...

Tim "playing" . . . .or just shoveling the driveway.

Caleb increased his pain threshold to the cold over the past few days

from 20 minutes to 1 hour.  Gotta toughen these boys up!

Our entry stairs make the best sledding hill.  Steep, bumpy, and fast!

And yes, I have been down it too. :)

One of the first failed attempts at an igloo.

Eating snow.

I'm not sure how many times I've said, "Don't eat brown, yellow, or snow on the street."

I love his one ear poking out

Josiah couldn't understand why his truck was not moving

 very fast. . .and why we wouldn't let him ride his bike.

Success!  With Daddy's help, of course.