Friday, December 27, 2013

Christmas Eve with Mike's family


 Noah got sparring gear.


 Sarah helped Nana put on her new earrings.

 Chyna got a Santa hat.  She wasn't happy about it, but she was a good sport.  

 Beanbags from Uncle Matt and Aunt Kathy.

Nana's little tree that the kids love to decorate every year.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Christmas tradition

 The kids are all ready for our annual Christmas tradition of driving around looking at Christmas lights and drinking milk shakes.

 They get all cozy in the back.

 Three of us are in our pajamas, so we go through the drive thru.

 This is my favorite house every year.

 We always go look at this dog house.  The human's house is always spectacularly decorated too.

 Mike likes this one.


Monday, December 23, 2013

Christmas party (my side of the family)

 We had our Christmas party at my brother's house on Dec. 14, because my parents left for Florida the next day.  We had a nice brunch, and then the kids went out to play in the snow that had fallen the night before.


 Ben and Noah had an epic game of Monopoly.  They both love that game!

I had lots of good snuggle time with the kittens.  This is Zebra getting warm in my coat.

Wrapping

 We all worked together on wrapping Christmas presents.

 The cats weren't much help, but they had a good time.


Randomness

It's been awhile since I loaded pictures from my camera onto the computer, so this post will be a conglomeration of randomness.


Shadow and Noah watching Sarah sketch

This is what she sketched. She calls it Angel Cat.

Poor Shiloh is often on the receiving end of Sarah's affection.

The only time all 3 of them are ever this close without fighting:  morning tuna time.

Shadow and Shiloh watching the first big snowfall of the season.

Sarah in mid-flight at Kuk Sool Won.

Who but Sarah would accessorize a hood?

Shiloh doing her Super Kitty impersonation.

Sarah looked so beautiful and angelic sitting in the sun, but as soon as I turned on the camera, she made rodent face.


Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Sarah's story

Sarah's spelling lesson was to use these six words in a story:
selecting
sugary
entirely
juicy
cooking
fruits

Her story:
It takes a long time selecting the perfect sugary fruits from our entirely new pantry.  It takes even longer cooking with them.  Oh no!  I spilled the Juicy Juice (the dog was right under me).  Now I have a pink dog!
The end.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Total bust

Some genius decided to organize an afternoon of games for dads and kids at church so the moms could have a break.  After convincing my husband that he should take the kids, I settled in for a peaceful break involving making food for parties this week, vacuuming, and mopping the kitchen.  I preheated the oven and starting mixing ingredients for chex mix.  I went to get the bag of pretzels that I had just bought, and it was missing. Wasted ten minutes searching for it before concluding that someone must have eaten all the pretzels without my knowledge.  The oven was all ready, and I didn't want to take time getting dressed and driving to Kroger, so I wasted another ten minutes calling all my neighbors to see if they had pretzels.  None of them did.  Doesn't everyone keep pretzels on hand at all times?  Apparently not.

So I turned off the oven and moved on to my next project: vacuuming.  I hate vacuuming, so I put it off as long as possible.  Today it was long past shamefully overdue.  I turned up some music and fantasized about lying on a beach, mindlessly pushing the vacuuming all over the kitchen.  I was more than half done when I glanced up from the ocean to check on the dirty floor.  It was as dirty as ever.  I inspected the vacuum to determine why it wasn't doing its job.  Nothing was coming to me.  After all, I'm not a vacuum repair person.  But then I saw this:
You don't have to be a vacuum repair person to realize that's the problem.  So I wasted fifteen minutes looking up the company's website and doing a live chat with a service representative, who was actually working on a Sunday afternoon, to my surprise.  Then the battery on my computer mouse died, so I wasted some more time trying to find a good battery. After no success with that, I ended up calling the vacuum company, and they said the vacuum was still under warranty and they would send a new hose.  Sadly, I can't vacuum for 7-10 business days until it arrives.  Maybe it will get lost in the mail, or at least delayed in the holiday rush. It's probably wrong for me to hope for that, but I do. This is the best excuse I've ever had for not vacuuming!

Then I remember we have another vacuum in the basement.  So I drag it upstairs and finish the vacuuming.  Now I only have 30 minutes till my family returns, so I need to get the mopping done so the floor gets dry before they get here.  I had just barely started when they arrived, a full 30 minutes early.