LB's hair cut

Laney has been asking everyday for two weeks if we can cut her hair short. I love long hair on her, but her hair is really thick and gets tangled. Hair brushing time was becoming the worst part of our day. Josh likes her hair long and didn't want her to cut her hair. He doesn't have to brush her hair. Anyways, I took her to the mall yesterday to get her hair cut. I thought maybe she would get a little sad when she saw her hair being cut, but she sat still with a smile on her face. She loves it and Josh and I both think she looks very cute.
Before

After

Dessert for two

My husband usually has dessert every night. We bought some blackberries at Costco the other day and I told him to get two boxes so I can make a pie. Every night since then he has been asking me to make the pie. Tonight was the night. We made it a little date. I made homemade blackberry pie with homemade whipped cream. I also have a stove top espresso maker, so I made us two lattes. Yum! Then we played Guitar Hero.

Christmas visits

My kids are so excited for family to finally get here. First Mima and Papa are coming on Christmas eve. We miss them and are very excited to see them (even though we just saw them for Thanksgiving, once a month is not enough.) Then my girls favorite cousins (with the exception of baby Aidan, yes we still call him baby Aidan) are coming to stay at their house! My neighbor was just telling me that they don't invite their family to stay at their house because they don't like to mess up their sleeping arrangements or have a house full of people. I told that I don't care if we are tripping over people in the middle of the night, we are stoked that people are coming to visit. Here's a picture of two of my girls with their cousins in a past Christmas.Aahh! I can't believe how big these kids are getting!

Work with Daddy

Savanna is extremely close to Josh and the other day when he left for work, she threw a huge fit 'cause he wouldn't take her with him. She put her shoes on and everything. So today, Josh just wanted to go into work to check on things. He took Laney, Olivia, and Savanna with him. Can you imagine how that's gonna go? I wish I was there with a camera. The girls were beside themselves. They have been dying to go to work with Daddy. With three girls gone, that leaves me with one little Addy Mae. We are watching Mamma Mia and I probably take a shower and get dresses while they are gone. I can't remember the last time I was almost home alone!
The girls warming up on the couch after playing in the snow the other day.

Chrismas dresses photo shoot

It started snowing yesterday morning, but it didn't really stick until the sun started to go down. Last night the girls got all bundled up and played in the snow. It takes forever for me to get all their snow gear on. It was worth it. They had a good time. Then they came in for some hot chocolate. I have to say, I make some mean hot chocolate. When they woke up this morning and the snow was still there, I decided what better time for a snow and christmas dress photo shoot. They are always begging to wear their dresses. By the time I got them all dressed the snow was starting to melt. But I got some fun ones that I will treasure forever.

I covered her black eye with make-up, but you can still kind of see it. Livi you are Mommy's stinker but you melt my heart.

This girl is getting so big. The toddler is completely gone and my big girl is here. Laney you are so beautiful.

This one is so much like Josh. It takes a really long time to get a picture of her where she isn't frowning or has her head down. I had to bribe her with lots and lots of candy.

Addy, your are the baby and you know it. I love how sweet you are to me, and am holding on to your babyness.

I wish I could have had this for the christmas card. This was before the candy bribes.

Their candy bribe had fallen into the snow and they were searching for it.



Everytime I get done taking their pictures, I'm in awe of how beautiful they are. And how blessed we are to have happy and healthy children.

Gift giving and receiving

I love giving gifts at Christmas time. This year I had good intentions of making jam and apple butter and sending it to everyone, but I can't even get my laundry folded and put away. Maybe in a couple of years when my helpers are a little older. I think I chose this topic today because in the past I have felt bad for receiving gifts that I thought were too expensive or when someone had put a lot of thought into my gift. I've also felt bad for buying my kids presents, which is only rooted from what others think about children and how many gifts they think are appropriate. Now looking back, I see how silly that is. I think we need to be good gift receivers as well as good gift givers. When I give others gifts, my children and family members included, it comes from my heart, not from a need to follow the commercialism of Christmas or to receive thanks in return. It's called freely giving. I don't think withholding gifts from kids teaches them anything about the true meaning of Christmas. Kids learn how to freely give from us. And being a scrooge just to prove a point, doesn't teach them anything. And as for how many gifts are appropriate for children, well, I think that's up to the parents to decide. Every family is different, and which ever way your family chooses to give, it's the correct way. Whether you give throughout the year or Christmas is the big gift giving time, that's ok. In our family, our kids don't get a whole lot of new toys during the year, because we choose to give at Christmas time. If your family chooses to not give gifts at all that's ok too. If your family believes Santa takes away from the true meaning of Christmas then that's ok too. But it's also ok to put up Santa next to the nativity scene. (A little bit off the subject, but my brain works in mysterious ways.) There is definetely a balance of giving and getting. Our kids are too small to be helping at the soup kitchen, but they will be donating some of their used toys to the Goodwill and donating some new toys to the local toy drive. This time of year is a good start for kids to learn about freely giving and getting, so when God has an awesome gift for them someday, they will be more likely to FREELY receive that gift. God's love is freely given, a hard thing to understand in our human ran world.

Letters to Santa

We (I should say I) wrote letters to Santa today. Laney actually would ask me to write the word she wanted to write and then she would copy what I would write. Then they decorated them with christmas hello kitty stickers and we took them to the santa mailbox at Macy's. I would have taken a picture, but the store has a sign that says no photography. We went and saw Santa after that and took a ride on the carousel. I took pictures of their christmas jammies last night and today they were wearing there christmas shirts.