Polar Express

Will the REAL Santa.....

....Please step forward.





He he...my sisnlaw Melissa said that if I left a pic like that, I needed to provide some more details! I googled "santa cupcakes" and this was the picture that came up. So cute huh??? I used, twizzler pull and peels, chocolate chips, pink jelly beans, marshmellows, white icing, and those hard chewy fruit candies shape like a half moon!

Ice the cupcakes with white icing, then add the chocolate chip eyes, and a half of a pink jelly bean for the nose. Cut the pull and peels to the length you want for the smile and place the lips. I had to slice the moon shaped red candies in half lengthwise because they were too thick to use as they were. Place the red candy on top for the hat and one marshmellow on the side as shown. Finally paint on the icing for the beard and add a mustache!

A picture for Pappy

Allie went to a birthday party at the pet shop this past weekend. Now isn't it the mind of a 6-year-old that it's OK to hold a snake but NOT to ride a roller coaster. Allie is aware that her Pappy is not fond of snakes, so she asked that I post this just for him!

Knot head

Well after the past week I certainly feel like my head is in knots. Allie and Mary both had Christmas programs at their respective schools. Allie's group performed 3 different days, Mary on one of those days, choir practice for church, church program tonight....all thrown in with half a dozen birthday parties, and here I am not even able to write in coherent sentence structure. I am glad tomorrow is Monday for once......because it's a different week than last! I can't post all the video tonight, but don't worry grandparents, I will get them up:)

The video I did post is of Garrett's REAL knot head. Allie was chasing him tonight and he ran right into the wall. He didn't even cry. I picked him up and said, Night night. When I put him in the bed 30 sec after the crash, his head looked like this!!! I was STARTLED!!! I called hubs immediately for the second time today. Allie ran into the treadmill earlier, don't ask me how, and she had a HUGE knot on the top of her head. In summary....no more programs, and no more goose eggs this week!

They weren't excited about posing right before church tonight. Nothing a cookie bribe won't cure.
Typical preschool program....lots of hand motions..at lots of different times during the song.

Emma Cate went to watch Allie's school perform "Christmas in Egypt"

Allie's teacher is GREAT! She seems to be ok with my little chatterbox. Allie told me earlier when she had a bad day for talking and talking, that "Ms. C's grace cup had tipped right on over." I'm sure this was one of those weeks for her! I don't know how teachers "do" December!

Emmy came too for the performance. Sometimes I think Allie gets more excited to see her there than me!! I'm just the lady with the camera!

Fireside

I found Allie parked right in front of the fireplace tonight before she was to go to bed. I said, "Al what are you doing?" She replied, "mamma, I'm just so tired, that I wanted to sit in front of the fireplace and read my book." It sounded like a great idea to me...I pulled up a bean bag and a book and joined in the fun. Who of us are too busy for a night by the fire with our kiddos?? Don't get that busy this December....this was way more fun.

The Nutcracker

Today the girls and I went to a tea to support the ballet theatre in town. Allie's friend Emma Cate is in the ballet and will be performing in the Nutcracker in a few weeks. Mary was super excited to be included this year. She all of a sudden seems so much more grown up. She walked around holding Allie and Emma Cate's hands like a big girl. They really liked the dressing up part...every little girl needs a good tea party once in a while.

If I never see another snow flake....

...I'll be fine:)

Well of course I didn't mean that when we left Rochester. What an extreme though! Above is our old house on a typical January day. It was an almost daily occurrence to see the flakes falling, and now it is almost unbelievable to see them fall for even 3 or 4 min per year! That's about how long it lasted today. I had to grab my video camera of course to document that it DOES happen here once in a great while. It made me nostalgic for my friends up North. I do not miss the snow...but I do miss them!! Check out the video at the bottom of Allie helping me "shovel". That was before there were piles of it on the driveway too. The bottom video is from today.


...not too cold for Mary and Garrett to play outside. Who really wants to swing when it's 38 deg???

..or play pik-a-boo either!

I just realized that after uploading you can't even see the flakes!!! Rediculous!