Catching Up From Christmas

I realize it's January. I am so behind. Very, very behind.

So I decided to just dump all of the December pictures into this one post and call it done. I'm very sure they will be out of order, but let's just pretend that doesn't matter to my slightly OCD self. 

We enjoyed our Christmas tree all month.

 Sheldon and Shelby joined us on December 1 and left on Christmas Eve. We enjoy having them around, but sometimes they wear me out.

 Parker had the flu. Bless his little heart. Fortunately, we caught it fast, and he didn't feel too badly for very long.

 This is what you do when your brother has the flu. Model every item of clothing in your room.

 Claire played Vixen the Reindeer in her school play. She was supposed to be extra sassy, and she nailed it!

 Claire's Christmas party

 Guess who else got the flu? Thankfully, she didn't get very sick either. Somehow, Brian and I have escaped it so far.

 We had Elf Night at our house where we watched Elf the movie and did some elf related things. It was fun!

 We had fun watching the play A Christmas Story in Jonesborough. This was after the play in the photo booth.

 We drank a lot of Russian tea.

 Our Christmas service at church is one of my favorite traditions.

 The kids and I went to see the movie Annie. It was really cute!

 We did a Christmas lights scavenger hunt. Max the Furry Murray even went along and enjoyed the ride.

 Christmas Eve with my side of the family is always fun. Here are the ladies:

 And the men:

 Christmas Eve

 Our cookies and milk for Santa

 Looks like he stopped by and ate them!

 Our birthday cake for Jesus

 Waiting on Christmas morning to come down the stairs

 Parker and Claire loved all of their presents.

 Our special Christmas breakfast

 We spent Christmas afternoon with the other side of our family. I didn't get a lot of pictures unfortunately!

 We also went bowling one day during Christmas break.

 Starbucks!

 Girl's Night Out was fun for Claire and me while Parker was at a Christmas party.

 Another movie ~ Night at the Museum 3

 New Year's Eve!

 Skating was interesting since they are both still learning. I was very proud of them for trying so hard.

Celebrating straight A's! Way to go Parker and Claire!

We had lots of good family time, and also loved just being home to rest and relax before heading back to school. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Keep On Survivin'

It seems as if I should have added one more thing to my list of 39 things I don't want to do while I'm 39.

Find a frog in my house in the middle of the night.

Technically, I wasn't the one who found the frog. The story goes a little something like this...

Parker came into our room in the middle of the night and told Brian that there was a frog in the bathroom. I was sound asleep, so I had no idea all of this went down until the next day. When Brian went to investigate, fully intending to find a frog shaped piece of fuzz in the corner, what he found was a frog. A real frog. When I heard this story, I pictured this only even uglier and bigger (the size of the bathtub for example).

Brian assured me that it was a tiny frog that looked suspiciously like Claire's African dwarf frog that resides in a tank in her room. Claire's frog, Ella Katie Murray, is known to be a survivor. First of all, she's lived almost three years. Parker's frog only lived about a year. Secondly, she's survived for months and months in the dirtiest, nastiest, can't even see through the water it's so foggy tank. Maybe we aren't the best frog owners, but that's beside the point. Yep, that girl's a survivor.

My theory is that Ella Katie was so deprived of clean water that she managed to find a way to escape from her tank in a search for the nearest water (the bathroom). I seriously can't find any way that she could have escaped, and it's a mighty long way from that tank in Claire's room to the far corner of the bathroom. Somehow she did it. So Brian, in his middle of the night sleepy stupor, gave her what she was looking for. Water. (Insert flushing sound here.)

We are hopeful that she's swimming in the sewer somewhere singing (in the words of Destiny's Child), "I'm a survivor, I'm gonna make it, I'm a survivor, Keep on survivin'".

Swim on, Ella Katie, swim on.

Weekend Update: "Just Leave Me Here To Die" Edition

We had a pretty relaxing weekend!

 Friday night, we just stayed home and took selfies.

 On Saturday, Brian went to work on construction at the church for most of the day. I cleaned a little then got on a big organization kick. I mentioned to Claire that she needed to clean up her room. Oh my, the drama that ensued. She literally got in her bed and cried. When I went to talk to her she said (AND I QUOTE), "Just leave me here to die". And she's only eight. Heaven help us all.

It is important to note that she is very messy. She throws stuff everywhere, creating perfect hiding places for rats to come in and build nests. When questioned about it, she says she likes it that way. 

Me: "Do you want to have nests suitable for rats in your room? Do you really want to live like this?"

Claire: "Sure. I like rats. Welcome all rats." 

Or something like that.

Anyway, we worked for a long, long time in the aforementioned rat's nest. It looks fabulous. Just as I like it, clean and straightened. It will likely stay that way for approximately half a day until the rats show back up with their couches, lamps, and welcome mats. 

Next, I moved on to a little place I like to call UNDER THE STAIRS, otherwise known as THE PLACE TOYS GO TO DIE. We clean it out every once in a while, but somehow it's always just a mess. We recently decided to move Max's bedroom to UNDER THE STAIRS because we are ready to reclaim our half bath for actual bathroom purposes. I was thinking of renaming Max Harry Potter since he will be sleeping under the stairs. The closet got all cleaned out and organized.  Max spent his first night in there last night and did great. Bless him. 

P.S. Brian finally acknowledged that we do in fact have room for another dog. However, for the record, I am not to get my hopes up or to get the kids hopes up.

In other news, my hopes are up.

So after a long day of working and cleaning AND a week of healthy eating, we took ourselves to Ridgewood for some homemade blue cheese and the best barbeque known to man. I had looked forward to it all day. I couldn't wait. I had only eaten a few bites in preparation for the big event. 

The line was so long that it stretched out the door and down through the parking lot. The pain is still too fresh to really speak of it, but we ended up having to eat somewhere different.

(First world problems)

We also made a stop for some ice cream.The kids love to go to Dollar General  and pick our their own ice cream from the freezer. Everybody gets what they want. DG for the win!

 I may have picked up a little something for myself to ease the lingering Ridgewood grief.

After church on Sunday, we ate lunch and headed to the mall. Claire has grown so much lately and has no shorts that fit her at all. Since we are headed on a vacation soon to a (hopefully) warm place, she needed some shorts badly. She tried on about 794 pairs until we found a few that would fit. It seems all the shorts are super short even for little girls. I dread trying to find them for her long legs when she actually is a teenager because I know it's hard to find anything modest at that age! 

I also finished Restless this weekend. It is such a great book, and I learned a lot about myself. I may write a little more about the book later, but I highly, highly recommend it!

Cowboy Cookies

We made our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe the other day.

 

 Parker and Claire measured and did a lot of it by themselves.

So delicious!