3 days until Christmas

Today the kids and I took our second annual trip downtown to see Gary at work. They have a really great Santa for the kids to visit with, we had lunch in the food court and the kids got to see Gary's cube. To the kids, they were all equally as exciting. I was just happy that everyone had a good time and we got there and home safely. As much as Justin likes school, he has thought it very unfair that Megan has been on break all this week and he has had to go to school. Although, he is looking forward to his class Christmas party tomorrow.

Which one do you like best???

I have managed to squeeze in some time for a little digital scrapbooking this weekend. And I am pleased to say I learned some new techniques along the way. While my pages aren't as awesome as some I have seen, they are making progress. Anyway, I tried a couple of different things on the same page and was curious which one you liked best??? You can click on each picture to make it larger so you can get a better look at it. Email me or leave me a comment. Thanks!!!!

Thursday

Well I just looked at my calendar. Did you know we only have 11 days left until Christmas. While I am mostly ready, I better get in gear and finish what needs to be done. Justin stayed home from school with a slight head cold yesterday, but seems to be much improved today. The kids and I never left the house yesterday. Boy was it a long day....keeping 3 kids entertained at home all day long is more than a full time job, it is 3 full time jobs. I was really glad we were able to go about our normal activities today. Megan had her last day of preschool until after Christmas break and I had a MOPS meeting. At MOPS we did a cookie exchange and it went really well. I am going to enjoy the variety of cookies I brought home. Gary has really been putting a lot of hours the past few weeks. I am also anxious for Christmas to get here so we can spend more time with him. Hope your holiday planning is going well. I did complete a couple of scrapbooking pages of Megan and Justin. I took the pictures at their ice skating lessons. The pictures aren't the best quality, but it was the best I could do through the glass and at a distance. If you double click on the images you will be able to see the images in a larger size. God Bless, Danielle

Happy Monday

I worked in Justin's class last Friday & today. It is fun to watch your kids interact with their teachers and their peers. Tomorrow Kyle & I will attend Megan's Christmas party and performance at her preschool. Hopefully it will be a good photo opportunity as well. To the right is a scrapbook page of Megan and Justin playing outside one cold day last week. I am mostly ready for Christmas, just a few odds and ends to "wrap" up :) We had our small group from church over yesterday. We made and cut out sugar cookies and let 9 kids decorate them with frosting and sprinkles. It was really fun and really messy!! I think the adults enjoyed the decorating as much as the kids. On Thursday I have my last MOPS meeting of 2006. We are doing a cookie exchange, I am looking forward to trying out some different types of yummy taste treats. Gary has been working a ton the past couple of weeks. We are looking forward to Christmas break so Gary and the kids can stay home and we can all just hang out and if I get really lucky I may even get to sleep in once or twice!!

My disorganized days!!

Sorry for the long delay since I last posted. We enjoyed our trip to Iowa for Thanksgiving, but it has caused me to become so disorganized.... Oh Well!!! It has just been a struggle to get caught back up on day to day stuff. While we were in Iowa we didn't do much traveling about, we never even made it from Adel to Greenfield. So, those that came to see us, THANKS!! And those we didn't see this trip, we will try again this summer. The kids also saw Santa while we were in Iowa. Justin thinks we should go again now that we are home in Michigan as he has thought up many more things he would like to add to his Christmas list since he last saw Santa. Kyle did better than I thought he would sitting on Santa's lap. He actually was fine at first, but then he turned around and saw that he was sitting on some strange looking guys lap and started to lose it. In this picture you can see his lip is starting to stick out.

I think the highlight of our trip was meeting my nephew, Matthew. He is an adorable little guy. Since we have returned home, Megan has renamed her life-like doll to Baby Matthew. She is always the baby's mommy. Sometimes she is mommy Megan and sometimes she plays that she is "Aunt Lisa" and Justin gets to play the part of "Uncle Ryan". It is so sweet!!! Little mommy Megan gets so very upset when her Justin then decides "house" is over and drop kicks the doll across the room....you would think he actually hurt someone. Isn't it funny how 2 children will play with the same toy in entirely different methods???

This past week in addition to school we enjoyed ice skating lessons and Justin had a soccer game today. He was so proud that he scored a goal!! This evening Justin and I also had bowling. He scored 85 & 65. It is actually pretty impressive considering he just throws the ball down the lanes without much consideration for aiming at the pins. At ice skating it was painful for me to watch Megan as she fell repeatedly and then decided getting up wasn't really worth the effort and crawled around on the ice. I can hardly believe she thinks it is fun and actually wants to come back. Meanwhile Justin showed great improvement and even though he spent his fair share of time on the ice, he was actually working on some new techniques like skating backwards and learning to stop (or as Justin puts it, "I put the brakes on").

This coming week Kyle has his 18 month check up and Megan gets another immunization. It is so hard to believe Kyle is actually 1 1/2 years old already. We put our Christmas tree up last week and Kyle has been enjoying removing every ornament he can reach. Luckily, everything within his reach is non-breakable. The first thing he did with the balls was to take them into the kitchen and throw them on the floor...it is amazing how far they bounce. I am trying to teach him to put the ornaments back on when he takes them off, but so far no luck!