She told me

Today, during the kids' nap, I ironed some curtains on our dining room table. Turns out that a towel doesn't provide sufficient insulation for a hot iron -- oops! It left big white marks on the table. When Ellie saw them, I got a serious talkin' to...

Ellie: Who did this?
Me: I did -- it was an accident.
Ellie: Mommy, never, ever, EVER do this again!
Me: Okay...
Ellie: And clean it up while I'm sleeping!

Pencil Holder

I have a very clear memory of wrapping Christmas gifts with Marjorie when I was young (maybe early teens).  I cut two pieces of tape, put one on the end of my nose and used the other to tape the gift wrap.  Then I had the other one (on my nose) handy to use on the other end of the gift.  I thought this made perfect sense – where else do you put extra pieces of tape?  But Marjorie thought it was a little strange.  At the time, it truly didn’t strike me as a strange thing to do.  I had a little deja vue last night while I was giving the kids a bath.  Ellie brought a pencil into the bath and part way through the bath, she was holding the pencil, sort of looked around and then, apparently, decided that the best place to store it was in her cute little butt cheeks.  When I started laughing, she just sort of looked at me like “What’s the big deal?  It’s the perfect place to store it!”

Princess Tea Party

Ellie’s obsession with princesses and fairies has begun!  She also loves tea parties, so I thought it was time to host a princess tea party.  She LOVED dressing up and playing with some of her girl friends!

McKenna, Ellie, Elliana, and Ella (yes, the last three are all in the same class – poor Mrs. Huckaby):

Our little pilgrim

Charlie spent a lot of time at school in November while I was working on an online auction.  While he was there, he made his first craft – a cute little Thanksgiving-inspired headband.

Apparently, he liked making the crafts, but he was not thrilled about being away from Mama.  The separation anxiety is a new experience for me – Ellie never so much as blinked when she went to childcare at church or when she started school.  Luckily, he forgot all about me within minutes of seeing a room full of new toys and friends!

Gaga and Papa’s Visit

Gaga and Papa visited us in November before they headed down to Cozumel for the winter…and yes, I’m just not getting around to posting pictures.  We had so much fun with them though – the kids were just in heaven.  Damian brought in the inflatable slide and the kids (and Gaga) threw themselves down it over and over (and over!) again.

As always, we did a terrible job of taking pictures…and of brushing Ellie’s hair, apparently.

So I didn’t capture one with four sets of eyes looking at the camera, but this one was close:

Especially when this is what we were up against:

Not sure who upset the princess, but her face cracked me up:

King of the mountain:

Ellie's Christmas program

Ellie was in a Christmas program at her school today and yesterday. She was supposed to say a bible verse ("You will be with child and name him Jesus") with Cain and another little girl, but she was a bit overwhelmed by the microphone and the crowd. For some reason, the video is really grainy, but you can sort of see her shake her head when asked whether she was going to say the verse:

Then her class sang "Jesus Loves Me." Ellie has been singing it for months...everyday...several times a day. But today, she didn't utter a word of it. Instead, she flirted with the school director (over her right shoulder) and messed with her dress. Oh well -- she looked cute standing up there!

We didn't have the Flip yesterday so we don't have footage of it, but during the finale (all of the kids took the stage and sang a song together), Jackson and Cain had a very audible debate about whose mommy was in the audience. Jackson said "that's my mommy!" and apparently Cain thought he was talking/pointing to his mommy, so he said "no, that's my mommy!" They went back and forth (louder than all of the other kiddos combined) the entire song -- it was hee-larious!

We just love this school and it's so sweet to see something that the kids and teachers have worked so hard on!

My little turkeys

I forgot to post pictures of the kiddos in the little turkey shirts I made for them.  I was so sad when Thanksgiving came and went and I had to pack away the shirts.  Damian pointed out that I can cut out the turkeys and sew them on bigger shirts each year – he’s so smart!