Christmas!!!!

So I thought that I should get my Christmas post done before I had a New Years post to do as well. Here are a bunch (I am a bunch) of photos from our many (and I mean many) Christmas parties. No time to put captions on each of them so I will leave that to your imaginations! Merry Christmas!!!!

Preschool Christmas Program

Becca has been attending a 3-year-old preschool this year and they had a very brief Christmas program on Monday afternoon. Here is a part of one of the songs that they sang. Not a big fan of the song, but apparently Becca noticed that a problem with her pants in the middle of the song.



I am guessing that her pants didn't get buttoned after using the bathroom and she realized it halfway through the song! I was slightly embarrassed, but then again there is always someone who does these kinds of things! Pretty cute if you ask me, but I am a biased! LOL!

Church Program Pictures

Thanks to a great friend who was sitting closer the night of the Church Christmas Program we have received some wonderful photos of the kids in action that night! Enjoy!

The group of younger children. They sang songs that had a lot of actions! Becca is in all pink and Micah has on a yellow shepard's costume.

Who know what Micah and Levi and are doing with that "fire"!

Becca is in the back, but here are the littlest ones (the sheep) peaking into the manger.

Becca's class singing Away in the Manger. The teachers did a great job of singing and the kids did great with the actions! LOL!

Thanks for the great photos Jenny! I owe you one!

Christmas Program Weekend

WOW! It was Christmas program weekend at our house last weekend. There is nothing like a weekend full of children singing about the birth of our Savior to put you in the Christmas mood!!!

Friday night was Micah's school program. I think that everyone was a little worried because there were 3 cancelled days of classes earlier in the week. Despite the lack of practice the children all did a wonderful job! It was so good to see Micah, his classmates and schoolmates all working together to worship our heavenly Father!

Becca wasn't so impressed with the band and the chimes. (I loved the chimes! It reminded me of my bell playing days!) She was rather content to travel from one lap to the other (she had 12 to choose from) and visit all the family members in attendance.

You can see Micah in the front row second from the right. Most of Micah's class is in the front row of this picture with him. It was really hard to get good pictures. This is the best one! Thanks Aunt Tricia!

Saturday morning brought 2 1/2 hours of Church Christmas Program practice. I decided that I would try to get a few photos during practice because I didn't know where I would end up the night of the program. It was a good thing that I did because we ended up sitting quite a little ways back. Once again it was hard to get photos, but you can at least get a little bit of an idea.

The shepherds and the angels. How cute are they! Micah is in the front row 3rd from the right.

Here is Becca (front, right) with her sheep ears on. Not sure what she is doing. Probably goofing off! :)

Sunday night brought the Church Christmas Program! Our camera doesn't take picture very well in darker conditions so I didn't get any photos during the program, but I did be sure to get photos before they started!

Our little sheep, who watched the manger where Jesus lay, the night of the program!

Our handsome shepherd getting ready for the program.

All in all the kids had a great time singing and praising God. They are still singing their program songs and it add to the Christmas festivities at our house! I must also say a public thanks to the teachers and directors who put these programs together. Both programs were absolutely wonderful and they truely reminded all in attendance of the true Christmas Story.

Snow Day #2

Snow day #2 started with some indecision on Nick's part. The neighbor and him where trying to decide if they were going to attempt going to work. Through a variety of events (the state highway being closed and not being able to get across town) they decided to stay at home.

The neighbor then decided to help us uncover our driveway with his snowblowing lawn tractor. It worked wonderfully and really cut down on the work that Nick had to do.

The remainder of the day was spent inside and out of the wind. We did venture to Grandpa's and Grandma's to break up the day and for all of us to get hair cuts! By the end of the day the kids were so tired of being cooped up that they just started running like crazy. My hope is that it warms up soon so that they can get outside a bit and enjoy the snow!

The nice neighbor clearing our driveway!

Micah and Becca playing a basketball game. (They played so nicely for about 30 seconds and then it went down hill.)

The view out our back door before it really started blowing.

The view down our street while the wind was blowing! It looked pretty deserted! You could hardly tell where the road was even though the snow plow had been down the road.

Becca coloring so nicely. The kids have been doing a lot of this!

Micah racing his cars and loving every minute of it!

Snow Day #1

Tuesday morning when we woke up we figured that the day would be as usual as school was still on and the roads were only slighty covered. However within 20 mins it turned it a snow day for the kids and I! School was cancelled and I decided that I would just stay home with the kiddos versus trying to get to work for only a couple of hours.

Snow days are kind of like the gift of time at home and right now that is a gift I will gratefully accept! The kids and I had a lot of fun, but I got a lot of stuff done that otherwise would have remained undone.

We went out for awhile in the morning because the temps were supposed to drop making it to cold for the kids to go out and play. Becca seems to have developed a love for the snow and just laughs and giggles the whole time we are outside!

Snow Angels!

Trying to dig tunnels in the "small" drifts.

Naptime in Mom and Dad's bed because I washed the sheets on the kid's bunk beds. (My exercise routine for the day!)

My cleaning buddy! (We also made a mean coffee cake last night that we enjoyed for breakfast this morning! It was delicious!)

Daddy using Grandpa and Grandma's snow blower to clear the driveway (Yes it is still snowing, but it was supposed to snow and blow a lot during the night and we wanted to get the first layer off.) Micah is trailing him. You can't see it, but he is dancing and jumping the whole time!

Stay tuned as the whole family is home today for Snow Day #2!

Ebates

I typically don't do posts like this, but since most people I know are trying to save a few bucks this year I thought that I would pass this info on to everyone.

A few months ago one of the blogs that I follow recommended at site called Ebates. It is a cash back site for on-line purchases. This is how it works.

Say you want to shop on-line at Old Navy (or Kohls or Borders or Cabelas or 100s of other stores). You go to the Ebates web page, create a log-on and password, find the store, click on it and it open a tracking ticket that takes you to your desired site. Because of the tracking ticket it remembers how much you purchased and then based on your stores percent of cash back that amount of cash is returned to you! For Example: For the month of December, Old Navy has 10% cash back. I purchased a few items on cyber Monday for $26 and will receive $2.60 back through Ebates!

I was skeptical at first I admit and I have been waiting to share any info with anyone until I actually received some cash back. Well, last week I finally received my first check for $10.12 - Yippee! Now that I know it actually works I will share with you.

When you sign up you receive either a $3 or $5 sign on bonus, but you do not receive it until you have made cash back purchases that match your bonus. (My $10.12 check was $5 of sign on bonus and $5.12 of cash back.) My first purchase was made clear back in April and I just got my 1st check last week. Not speedy or a huge money maker, but in my mind every little bit helps!

If you want to check it out futherclick here. If you have any questions let me know. I am no expert, but would be happy to help you try to figure out a way to say a few bucks!

COLD!!!!

I don't know how it happened to fast, but I guess that fall is over and winter is here. On Monday someone told me to take the afternoon off and take my kids to the park and today it is so cold and windy that even venturing across the street Grandpa and Grandma's requires a full bundling!

Despite the cold and a very tired Daddy we all headed to a nearby town for the annual Lighted Christmas Parade. The preschool that Becca attends had a float in the parade and they wanted the students to ride. I am glad that we went because both of the kids had a ton of fun, but man, did they wear a lot of clothes!!!! I think that I had them more bundled than at any other time in their life!

Unfortunatly I wasn't able to get any pics because I forgot my camera!!! (What kind of blogger am I?!?!?!)

Hope that where ever you are today you are nice and warm!

Catch-Up

It has been way to long since I have posted. Life has just been so busy around here! I can hardly imagine what the holidays will bring!

Here are a few photos to catch you up on the going ons at our house!

Yes this is what I discovered in my basement this evening. My entire family playing on the "skins" team! Apparently the boys got hot from playing basketball and so they took their shirts off. Becca thought it looked like fun and join the crowd!

Micah has been learning to read in school and it is amazing to me how fast he is picking it up. He now is picking up books that we have read to him and is picking out words that he can sound and figure out. This afternoon he was tucked up in his top bunk reading away.

While Micah was reading in the kid's room, Becca was sitting on the pile of blankets in our bedroom "playing computer" as she puts it. You would have thought she was working on an important spreadsheet!

Now here is a sneak peak at our Christmas card! Let's just say it was a little challenging!

That Can't be Comfortable!

I guess this is what happens when your 5-year-old is kept up way after his bedtime! And yes he was really asleep! This was taken after we had pulled in the garage, shut the van off, shut the garage door, opened the van doors and taken several photos already! Must have been really tired! Oh and by the way... little sister was still awake and singing! LOL!

Reading

Last week Thursday Nick and I met with Micah's teacher for our first ever parent-teacher conference. The conference went well and during our discussion she informed us that they would start reading on the following Tuesday. :)

Tuesday afternoon Micah come home with two Ziploc baggies in his book bag. Each baggie had 3 cards in it, each with a word on it. (Apparently these were the words that they started to read at school that day.) These baggies were accompanied by a note saying that as parents we need to review these words with our child.

So.. the review didn't happen last night and since he has school tomorrow I thought that we should review the words tonight. He pulled them out and in no time had the words figured out. Two of the words were gas and big. He was trying to put the words into some kind of order to make a phrase. It went something like this.

"Big...... Gas....."

"Big... Gas...."

"Big. Gas." (I hope that you can see where this is going....)

"Big Gas"

"Biggas"

"Bigas"

He stopped at this point. Now we do not use this kind of language in our house and he had no idea what he was saying, but it was a little difficult to not scold him! (He didn't know! So how could I!) Nick and looked at each other and just chuckled to ourselves.

I am sure that there will be many other stories like this in the future as we head down the road of reading and phonics! :)

Trick or Treat!

Trick or Treat from a little mouse and a race car driver (or a member of the pit crew, depending on when you ask!).

We are blessed to have grandparents living across the street. About an hour and half before we were to go trick or treating I went to the basement to move the laundry on and walked into a puddle of water. Water was pouring out of our tub and toliet in the basement. (Yuck.) So while Nick and I dealt with the plumber and the water, grandma took the kids trick or treating. Thanks grandma!

(I think that I would have rather been a little chilly and gone trick or treating....)

A trip to a much loved place

Last weekend, we had a chance to go back to NW Iowa and visit some wonderful friends. The church that we attended when we lived there was celebrating it 125th anniversary and so that gave us a great excuse to head back and see some friends!

As always it was a great time and we were able to reconnect with a bunch of great friends. Of course I forgot to take my camera and so the only pictures that we have are the ones that Shellie took while we were hanging out on Saturday.

One of my favorite times of the weekend was when I was able to reconnect with a friend from high school. Due to distance and busy schedules we have not be able to keep in close contact over the last few years, but it was as if no time had past during our couple of hours together. We were able to visit and connect like good friends should. It was wonderful!

The bummer of the weekend was that I came down with a cold which has since turned into sinus infection and me feeling quite crummy. (You can blame my lack of posting on this illness!)

Thanks to everyone for making us feel like we still belong! :)

Guess What Grandpa & Grandma Got

Saturday night we spent the evening with Nick's parent's sister and grandma. We had a very nice supper and then when back to his parents house. Grandma had told the kids that she had a surprise for them. We were thinking that it was a new toy or some new clothing for the kids. Boy were we wrong!

The surprise was, well...

A kitty!

Must say that we were quite surprise. Their last cat, TJ, died just over a year and half ago and we thought that was the end of the pet era, but I guess that we were wrong! This little kitty, who has yet to be named, is about 8 weeks old and is really cute. Lucky for us it also got use to the kid really quick! The kids love it and this cat is probably going to have to put up with a lot!

Becca trying to carry the kitty which she did many, many, many times.

Most of what the kitty saw on Saturday night. Four little feet chasing after it!

The kids trying to get the kitty to play with her new toy.

Micah and the new kitty.