Santa

Today did not pan out how I had originally planned, but we ended up having a great time. I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for this afternoon (in Columbia) and my friend was planning to keep the kids. Her poor son got sick, though, so I rescheduled my appointment for this morning and packed up the kids, snacks, and toys and hit the road. I had the fastest OB appointment in my 4 year history of OB appointments - we didn't even have time to unpack the toys. After that we headed to see Santa and have lunch and play time at CFA. The kids were wonderful and we all had a pretty fun time.

Jack was thrilled to see Santa and sit on his lap. Sam was interested enough to sit there for a bit but not very long. And Anna, well let's just say she did not want to even look at the sweet man!

Sam is getting a little ticked at Santa's hand on his arm, Jack is still giddy, and Anna is slowly cutting off my airway as her grip around my neck gets tighter and tighter!

Church Singing

Today was a special day at church because all the kids got to sing two Christmas songs for everyone. And yes, this is ALL the kids (with the exception of the two little ones still in the nursery). To say that we go to a small church is an understatement! Even with such a small group they did a great job! They sang Silent Night and O Come Let Us Adore Him and the two oldest kids even had solos.

Anna woke up with a runny nose and cough this morning and coughed throughout the entire performance, but at least she covered her mouth every time (almost). At one point someone handed her a tissue and she took it, wiped her nose, and then handed it back to the sweet lady who took it even though it was not her snotty kid's tissue!

Anna's wiping her nose while Jonas and Jack look a little grossed out!

Mid-sing for Jack and mid-cough for Anna.

Pretty typical - Jack's hands in his pockets but he is participating, while Anna is singing her heart out up there!

After the service we tried to get a picture of all the kids. Jonas didn't want to participate, but I managed to get him in the picture anyway!

I think it looks like we coordinated all their outfits on purpose, but I guess when you only have nine kids at church the odds of everyone wearing the same color scheme are pretty high.

I knew it was just a fluke!

We tried to get a picture of the kids in front of our tree before we left for church this morning and proved once and for all, the last picture was indeed a fluke!

Since the group shot wasn't working out, I tried to get individual pictures.

Sam wasn't very cooperative, though, and I only have a blurry picture of the top of his head as he is running away from the tree.

Merry Christmas

Love,

Marshall, Megan, Jack, Anna, & Sam

It's a Christmas Miracle!

They are all looking at the camera and smiling . . . at the same time!

First Haircut

I've noticed lately that even though he doesn't have a lot of hair, it's starting to get a little long and scraggly in places. So today I took Sam to have his very first hair cut. He did fabulous! He sat still and quiet the entire time. He got a little squirmy about 3/4 of the way through, so I gave him a sucker and he just sat there the rest of the time. She did a great job and he looks so cute! I don't really have any before or after pictures, but at least the middle is documented.

After the Gingerbread Houses...

We made our mini gingerbread houses this morning, but I never finished putting everything away. This afternoon we were all upstairs reading books in the bonus room, when Sam got bored with the story and headed downstairs. I heard him in the kitchen, but had promised Jack I would read this particular story and didn't want to stop in the middle. As I read, I listened to Sam and knew he was pulling a chair up to the counter and playing in a drawer, but I was almost finished with the story so I didn't run right down there. When I finally got downstairs, this is what I found . . .

This stinker had opened the icing and helped himself to a healthy portion of it using various kitchen utensils from my drawer.

And he was just so proud of himself!

Gingerbread House - Take 2

So after we made the house from the gingerbread kit, we put it up high to dry and enjoy as part of our Christmas decorations. Anna just didn't understand why we weren't going to eat it! She has asked continually since that day when were we going to eat our gingerbread house. I started feeling guilty about having them play with candy and cookies and then not actually get to eat the silly thing, so today we made miniature gingerbread houses with graham crackers. Of course they loved it! Sam really got into things, since last time he napped while we decorated.

We were too impatient to wait for the icing to harden (and I wasn't really sure if this type would work right anyway), so our "houses" became boxes, but the kids didn't really care!

Yes, two of my kids are still in pajamas and I have no idea why Anna insisted on wearing the hat all morning!

Gingerbread House

While Sam was napping a few days ago, we pulled out the Gingerbread kit that I actually bought this year (I've wanted to do it every year but just never got around to it before the stores sold out). The kids had a lot of fun eating candy and decorating and were super proud of their creation at the end!

This is Anna's "scared" smile. Not sure why she raises her eyebrows to the roof when you ask her so smile these days.

Rudolph and the Wannabe

When I picked up Jack from school yesterday, his teacher walked out to the car holding Rudolph's hand instead of Jack's. Check it out . . .

Later, as the kids were coloring with markers, Anna decided she wanted to be Rudolph, too. This is how that turned out . . .

Nursery Painting

So if you've been following the blog for a while you might remember that Anna was the first baby to live in the "nursery" in our current house. Before she came home from the hospital, her room looked something like this . . .

It was a little plain for us, so we painted green and yellow stripes on the walls to spice up the pale pink. Then it looked something like this . . .

Shortly after we brought Sam home from the hospital, we decided to paint the pink stripes blue for our new baby boy and it looked something like this . . .

Now it's time to get ready for our newest baby girl and say goodbye to the blue stripes. So we taped off the stripes yet again and a couple days ago the room looked a little like this . . .

As of today, the pink stripes are back (just a slightly brighter shade of pink) and the room looks like this . . .

It's obviously still a work in progress, so I will update again once it's a little closer to being ready for an actual baby (you know, when there's a crib in there).