A bit of this.... a bit of that....

So I do it all the time, so I should be used to it, but I tend to bite off more than I can chew. So I am crazy busy as always, but really I don't know how to live life any other way. I still have a ton of gifts to make for Christmas and it is a week away! But I love, LOVE making gifts for people. It just makes me really happy. I love giving gifts period, I love spoiling people, but there is something so special about homemade gifts. I was trying to make sock monkeys for every kid I knew for Christmas, that and a book, because I love books. I should have started soooooo much earlier. I had this thought back in June when I first learned to make sock monkeys, but thought I would just wait until school was out....... sheesh. It was only thanks to my aunt Theresa that I got the ones done for the toddler party today. She helped me assemble them! They were just all stuffed and unassembled when she came to the rescue! She helped me sew on all of their appendages! And I still have about a dozen more to make before christmas. That and the kids robes. We have the tradition of the kids getting new Pj's every Christmas eve, so they look all cute Christmas morning. Well this year I decided to make them all new robes, and maybe PJ pants to match, but of course didn't start until this week. I have Starla & Bourbon's robe done, and now I have Roman & Alan's to go. SO every day while the kids are in school, and every night when everyone has gone to bed, I have been making sock monkeys and robes. Which is really what I need to be doing right now, but I thought I'd at least try to get caught up on my e-mails and blogs and such, because I haven't had time all week! I can't complain though, it's my own fault. I always try to do too much. I can't help it. Just like buying my kids gifts. Every year, I say to myself this Christmas will be different, I won't buy as many gifts for the kids, I won't go overboard. And every year I think it gets worse and I actually buy more. It's terrible. I try so hard to make Christmas about Jesus, and about family and tradition and memories, but because I love to spoil people, especially my kids, I can't help but buy them a ton of stuff. Which makes Christmas about toys and gifts. Sigh. Alan says that in my attempt to make everything SOOO special, nothing is special because everyday is 'special'. Like having Christmas everyday, it suddenly doesn't mean anything. But I am always trying to make everything so special. I go overboard with birthdays, holidays, everything, trying to cram in as much stuff as possible to make it "special". Sheesh. You would think I'd learn.
So anyways, this blog is going to be a hodge podge of pictures and thoughts, because I haven't had time to get on here and share, and probably won't too much until after Christmas!

Starla discovered Roman's mask, and goes around saying "I'm bat baby!" It's pretty cute!

We got to go have Christmas lunch with Roman last thursday! We went and had lunch with Bourbon on tuesday, after I helped all 3 of the 3rd grade classes make ornaments (with Aunt Theresa's help once again, and her son Dusty). Bourbon's teacher from last year came up to me in the cafeteria when I had lunch with Roman last week and asked if I could come and help this week making ornaments with all of the 3rd graders, and could bring help if I could. So we hot glued about 75 ornaments together for kids 6 at a time (2 kids for each of us) in the library, then we got to go eat with Bourbon, who didn't hardly acknowledge us the entire time, he just sat there talking to his freinds the whole time. It's like he is a teenager already.......

Starla loves to paint, apparently it tastes good because it always winds up in her mouth....

Roman is such a unique kid. He's so funny. He loves overalls and eccentric clothing. While looking through the last 2 weeks of pics to make this blog, it reminded me that I don't take enough pictures of Bourbon. I need to take more pictures of Bourbon by himself. I guess that's the plight of being the oldest. I make memory books on snapfish each year for christmas for Bourbon's dad and his parents (Bourbon's grandparents) of Bourbon's year, and when I made it last week I suddenly realized I just don't take many photos of Bourbon by himself, yet I have a ton of Roman & Starla. I always jokingly say though that Alan, Roman & Starla are always on center stage and entertaining and competing for attention, and Bourbon & I are just wallflowers. I guess that is really true. Roman & Starla are always doing something funny or quirky and I grab my camera. I need to learn to just grab it and take pics of Bourbon just being Bourbon.

I made cornish hens for dinner this week, and Roman made his dance, lol.

Did I mention Starla loves to paint? We do it ALOT! Which means we take lots of baths too!

Last saturday some people from my Life Group from church went to The Red Cross and stuffed stockings for needy kids. We stuffed 316 stockings in less than 2 hours! Go us!

Me and my bestest friend Jamie.

I love Starla's big poufy pink coat!

Hee hee, Alan says I order way too much stuff online. We actually had 2 mail men come on monday, at the same time. One came with regular mail and one came with a package, I have no idea why it came separately, but I thought it was funny and took a picture, so I could show Alan and make the joke that we get so much mail it takes 2 mailmen....

Oh yeah, Starla loves to paint....

We made Christmas cookies!!

The boys liked it for a while, and then decided they were bored....

We had our toddler Christmas party today, which was sooo much fun! Thanks for coming those of you who got to come!! I love having parties and having kids over to play. It's so much fun. Noah brought Starla a present! It was her first present of the season, so she was pretty excited when she got to open it. Ever since we told her about Santa this season and presents and such, she has been saying Santa is going to bring her a special cake. I have no idea why, but she always says Santa is going to bring her a special cake. So she opens Noah's present and she looks at me and says "Where's my cake?" and it looks like she is about to get really upset about it, it took me a second and then I realized what she was talking about, and said "Santa will bring you a special cake, remember? This present is from Noah!" (Note to self, Santa must bring Starla a special cake!!!) she took a breath, smiled, and said "ok" and looked down at the beautfiul tutu she got and said "Noah got me a special dress!!!" and was so excited. It was naptime, so I told her when she got up she could wear it. As soon as she got up from her nap she asked about it, so we put it on without anything else for a few hours (Daddy wasn't sure he liked that too much, lol). And then I made Alan take it off of her so we could eat dinner, and she got upset and wanted her special dress!! So I told her as soon as she was done eating she could have it back! So after dinner we put it on over her clothes and went to go see the Christmas lights and went to go show Nanny & Papa her special dress (and to take them some cookies!). I have a feeling this tutu is going to be worn daily........

Thanks Noah!

I hope everyone has a wonderful, magical, memory-filled Christmas full of love and family and warmth and happiness.