Grandma on the Stairs

My "Grandma on the Stairs" passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday, February 20th.  She has not lived in the house with stairs for at least 15 years, but her name never changed for my sister and me.  It was how we differentiated between our two "Grandmas" - Grandma on the Stairs and Grandma on the Farm.
We played for hours on those stairs.  Climbing up and sliding down on our bellies.  I remember playing the organ at her house.   Spending the night with her and waking up to her creepy cat staring at me. Eating lots of pb&js and visiting the playground daily with her when she would stay with us while my parents were out of town.
Grandma had a passion for education, reading, and history.  She never quit learning.  She loved genealogy and always wanted us to know our ancestors and their stories.
Even in her later years, Grandma still remembered our birthdays and sent us gifts for holidays.  She was very generous and thoughtful. . . even if some of her gifts were quite odd.  :)
I am thankful that my older boys had a chance to meet her and spend a bit of time with her.  She was kind enough to let them "play doctor" on her.

 

    She will be missed.  Love you Grandma!

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.

Christmas 2012

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

With two more extended family Christmas' over the next week, we celebrated our family Christmas this morning.  This year, we took the boys to the dollar store and they chose gifts for everyone else in the family AND paid for them with their own piggy bank money.  It was really fun to see them experience the joy of truly giving for the first time.  Caleb warmed our hearts by saying at least ten times "Thank you for the presents you and Dadda gave me.  I really, really like them.  How did you remember when we went to Costco and I said I liked them?"

Levi had a few Christmas snacks . . . 

 Josiah and his "helpers"

Tim looks super excited about his present.

You can almost feel the anticipation radiating from everyone.

A measuring tape!

Joel picked these out for me, hid them, and then wrapped them by himself. 

 I had no idea what he got me until today.  And yes . . . I will wear them.  :)

 Caleb got Dadda a flashlight and made him a special card

Joel lost his FIRST tooth eating cinnamon rolls for breakfast!

First pic without a tooth

Pirate Tim.  A good dad always demonstrates the presents first.

Josiah's gift from Joel

Worn out from eating all the wrapping paper and presents

Trying out new Leapster games

And to cap off the morning . . .relaxing and reading.  

And since you managed to make it all the way through these pics, you get to see the blooper!

An almost-dropped baby!  (And proof that we are not and will never be a perfect family :) )  

**Please note: No children were harmed during the production of this photo.**

The Warm Christmas Tree Hunt

We went out for our annual Christmas tree hunt yesterday . . . and it was the warmest weather we have ever had!  Usually, we are freezing cold, snow is on the ground, and it actually feels like Christmas should. It was another beautiful day today, and I am writing this blog with my windows open because the house is too warm.  Maybe God is saving up all the snow so we can have a White Christmas.  Enough about the weather.  Here are the pics from yesterday.

A hay ride!

 Tag-a-longs

 Phil tossed Orah into the hay pile

 We discovered that hay is nearly impossible to get out of Orah's hair. 

 Watch out - Caleb is about to attack!

Christmas 2012 Tree!

And after spending the afternoon decorating the tree with our little helpers, here is the final product.

(Please note:  we did have to alter the ornament arrangement once our helpers were not in the room so that the heavily weighted lower right side of the tree did not cause the whole tree to tip over)

Thanksgiving at Pine Cove

For Thanksgiving, we joined my family in Texas at Pine Cove for family camp.  This is our second time celebrating Thanksgiving there, and it is wonderful!  For a mom, the meal times are amazing.  How can you not love abundant food appearing before you, helpers to hold your babies, feed them, pour their drinks, cut up their food, and then walking away from the disaster that is left on and under the table?  We had worship times (aka date with husband. . . which is how I see all church services at this point in my life :) ), family devotional time, and a large variety of fun activities to keep us all busy.  The best part of spending our time there, though, is the uninterrupted family time.  Our basic needs are met, and there is no shopping or electronics to interrupt our time together.  We just enjoy each other!  

A mean game of Sorry!

Mom watching all the fun

Gingerbread house competition . . .there were some VERY competitive people (glue guns??), 

but we just made them and ate them. :)

The boys love following their big cousin around!

 Where's Caleb?  Oh, he is just sitting inside by himself demolishing

 the rock hard gingerbread house...

 Horse back riding.  With top-notch lice control (coffee filters) helmets.

 No idea what Caleb is doing.  But he looks cute and it makes me laugh.

 Zip-line!  Joel was super brave.

I need to note that Caleb and Josiah begged (and shed some tears) because they wanted to go too.  

Caleb's legs were too skinny for the harness (we will be putting him on a thigh-thickening diet),

 and Josiah was too young,  

My dad even went!

Minus the long drive, it was a wonderful week full of things to be thankful for!