Christmas

We left some cookies, milk, and reindeer food for Santa...

and he showed up and filled our home with more love and cheer

and had a snack.

Merry Christmas!

The Party

See all those houses

we decorated ours today

Crazy huh?

Although now I'm a little tempted to make gingerbread and make a house of my own so I can decorate it  myself.  I had all sorts of ideas that were immediately vetoed by the little guy, but I couldn't get my way because we were, after all, at a party for the children.  

Gingerbread Houses

Today I made gingerbread - lots of gingerbread

I spent the day at another mom's house baking supplies for a Gingerbread House Party because that's how we roll here in suburbia.  On the first day of winter break she has invited about 10 children to her home to make gingerbread houses and today we baked all the parts of the houses while the kids were in school. It was an incredible production. 

Is that not amazing?  

Date Night...

with my five-year-old.

World Aids Day

Today is World AIDS Day

Jake: Can we call God?

Me: No, but you can talk to him if you want.

Jake: I need to call him and ask him how to build people.

Me: Why?

Jake: Because I want him to help me build my grandpa back.

This post is dedicated to my father who died from AIDS.

Veterans Day

Good Luck!

Gross

Do not try this at home.

The Tooth Fairy

We put the tooth in a safe-keep organza bag...

and put it into the Tooth Fairy Pillow.

Here it waited to be picked up...

where she came...

leaving behind fairy dust.

Upon awakening...

he questioned, if in fact, a fairy with wings did indeed fly into his room in the middle of the night leaving behind some fairy dust.

(kind of creepy if you think about it and at this point I questioned my judgment as a parent)

But then wait...

the Tooth Fairy left a five dollar bill. 

I think he's okay with it now.

First Tooth

It came out this morning while cuddled in bed watching a movie on a cold rainy day. I can't think of a better or more perfect time for his first tooth to have come out.

Someone is very excited about the tooth fairy.

So Wrong

Kindergarten Room Mom

Yep, that's me. I am 1 of 2 lead room moms for Jake's kindergarten class. An opportunity I could NOT wait to get myself into and yet I have been thinking a lot lately of that saying...what is it... "Be careful what you wish for."

I had no idea it was so detailed. It is seriously A JOB. Although, in a weird twist my regular transcription job has been very slow and I've been able to give this other "job" most of my attention.

School started August 24th and their biggest fund raiser is, of course, a Halloween carnival. Each class is assigned a game-booth and guess who is in charge of putting that booth together? Yep, you guessed it - room moms, not to mention a class Halloween party. Since the end of summer we have sent out numerous emails, flyers, and notices. We have made phone calls to collect money, gather information, and ask for volunteers.

We put together our class booth -

For the class Halloween Party we made personal gift bags for all the children and their siblings -

We planned activities like -
Pin the nose on the pumpkin
Magic Scratch Pumpkins
Pumpkin Sticker Face
Cupcake Decorating
Monster Hands


We even put together a make-shift photo area so they could be silly and pose for pictures

This was my run-through at home

and guess who missed it ALL because he got sick...

Happy Halloween!

Husband

How my husband must feel during PMS.

PMS

Watering!

Who knew?

I'm so excited!!

Happy Birthday

Kiss Kiss

Ten Years Later

Proven Winners

See these flowers? I picked them up at the local hardware store. Since having a child I figured I might be ready to try my non-green thumb out again and pot some flowers. They came in those containers with the PW on them which stands for Proven Winners.

meaning, they have proven to be winners and will grow well.

Yea - we'll see.

Batman and Robin

Oh-my-goodness cute!

Lavender

We had 3 huge lavender bushes out in our front yard. The bees are all over them and it makes for a hard time (donotlikebees) to clip the roses next to the bushes. Last night after the sun went down and the bees went "sleepy-tie-tie" I made the man dig out 2 of the bushes. As he cut, I clipped and came up with bushels and bushels of some really fragrant lavender. No wonder the bees love this stuff.

I strategically dispersed the bouquets of lavender around the house -

The Office

The Bedroom

The Kitchen

The kitchen flower decor was arranged instead of gathered in a bunch. I lined up all the flower buds to give it some uniform with a straight line. This arrangement was rather labor intensive and it occurred to me why buying arranged flowers is so expensive. I had never done this because I have never had a garden of my own from which to pick and arrange flowers. It's kind of nice. I think we will keep the third bush for future bouquets of lavender.