The Princess turns 4 not 16.

Now that's a fat baby!!!

My 11.5 and 22" long baby just turned 4.  Jan 5th actually, but I'm just now getting to blog about it.  Once again we didn't do a party.  Her birthday was on a Sunday so she was happy with just going out to eat and having cake.

Amelia woke up and was excited to see those big red bells hanging on her ceiling fan.  And then she ran into the living room to find her presents.  She lives in footed pj's this winter.  I can't get her out of them as long as we are home.  I guess I can't blame her as cold as it has been.

This was her favorite present.  A pink DS.  Ever since she was tiny and all her cousins at Mamaw and Papaws were getting them for Christmas she has always cried for one.  The kids would walk by her and she would start crying and trying to grab their DS.  Ever since she could talk she has asked for a Pink DS.  We have put it off because we didn't think she was old enough for one anyway.  Finally I found a good deal on Craigs List and she got her beloved Pink DS.  She was in love at first sight.  We also got her a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser because I found Chocolate Pez candy at Walmart.  She was upset at Christmas because the boys got Pez dispensers in their stocking and she didn't.  All I had ever seen before was the Pez with artificial dye so I was excited to see the chocolate Pez candy.  Then we got her a Hello Kitty DS game which is her favorite.

We got ready for church and headed to Sunday School.

Our church does something really special for all the kids at church on their Bdays.  They get to come up front and hold the offering basket and the church gives them an offering.  They absolutely love this.

Too bad the adults aren't included in getting to do this.

You will never guess where she wanted to eat at on her birthday.  I know you have to rack your brain real hard to figure out that she wanted to eat Mexican food for her Birthday.  This is where she always wants to eat.  Every Sunday she goes around and asks people if they are going to go eat Mexican after church.  I craved Mexican food while I was pregnant with her and she loves it.

She ate her beloved rice and beans and then we was ready for cake.  Before we went in I promised her that they wouldn't wipe ice cream on her face.  Last year they freaked her out when they came up behind her singing to her and she screamed bloody murder.  She hadn't forgotten about that.  She said they could sing to her, but they better not touch her face.  Ha Ha

I was busy serving cake when the servers caught me off guard.  I had forgotten to ask them not to sing to her.  Here they came.  Behind her.  I waited for the scream.  It didn't come though.  She just clamped her mouth tight shut like she does when she's mad and turned her face from them.  They did try to wipe whip cream on her nose, but she didn't let them.  Boy was she mad.  I had to tell her sorry that I forgot to tell them not to do that.  She did handle it better this time though.  No tears and no screaming was involved.

I ordered Amelia's cake from Krogers with special instructions for it not to have any dye on it.  Only white and chocolate icing was to be used.  Her cake turned out pretty pitiful, but at least it was one she could enjoy and she was happy with it.  She had her heart set on a Dora Cake and the only one we could fine was a Dora Beach scene.  The only question she asked me was where was the sand.  I told her that some sand is white at the nicer beaches so Dora's sand was white on her cake.  Nice save, I know. Ha

Amelia was so confused at how old she was.  I told her to show me how old she was and she held up 10 fingers.  At church when Bro. Darrell asked her how old she was she told him 6 in front of everybody.  Titus said he couldn't believe that him and Amelia was the same age. Ha Ha

For fun, I asked Amelia a few questions and this is exactly how she answered them:

What is your favorite color?  Pink and Purple.
What is your favorite food?  Rice and Beans and that's all.
What is your favorite dessert?  Pie like you make. (I don't make pie, but I did make peach cobbler the other night.  Maybe that's what she meant.)
What is your favorite cookie?  Peanut butter like you make, Mommy.
What is your favorite pair of shoes?  My sparkly Pink boots. (DUH)
Who is your Best Friends?  Hailey, Rachel, Lydia, and Myia. (Only Myia is close to Amelia's age.  The others are teens)
What is your favorite song?  Yes Jesus Loves Me
What are you going to be when you grow up?  A Princess
What is your favorite toys? My baby dolls
Who is your favorite Aunt? Hannah (She's actually her cousin, lol)
Who is your favorite Uncle? Mamaw and Papaw  (She's my smart one, Ha ha)

I thought that was fun.  I need to remember to do that again next year and see how much her answers have changed.

Christmas 2013

Well Christmas has come and gone.  The decorations are finally down.  Ummm..... like last week.  Don't want to lead you on thinking that I actually took it all down when most everyone else did.  I am going to do probably the quickest post ever for our Christmas since I have taken so long to get it posted.

Maynard had to work a half day on Christmas eve so we didn't plan on heading to my Mom and Dad's until Christmas eve evening.  While I was packing everything up I looked out the window and it was pouring the snow.  So exciting.  And then I find out that Etown had no snow.  How unfair of me to have to leave a white Christmas behind, but that's just how it was.

We got to Etown and then had Christmas eve supper at a Mexican restaurant with my parents and 2 of my sisters.  We left there headed back to Mom and Dad's to get ready for the big day.

With 7 of us kids plus about 17 grandkids there wasn't a whole lot of room to find to put our presents somewhere.  I grabbed us a spot under the coffee table.

The next morning we actually got to sleep in until 8 before the kids were up begging to open presents.

 They were all tickled to death with their presents and that makes me happy.

Favorite gifts!

Ready for breakfast at Dennys

After we opened gifts Dad was chomping at the bit to go eat breakfast.  Josiah went dressed as Santa and Titus went dressed as an elf.  Amelia wanted to dress up too so she wore her Dr. McStuffin costume.  Just in case someone needed medical attention while we ate, I suppose.  Ha ha  I'm sure they were a sight, but everyone laughed and smiled as they seen Santa and his elf come in for breakfast.  We heard many comments such as, "Are you wore out from a hard night's work, Santa?" Ha ha

After breakfast we headed back to the house and waited until 5 p.m. for all the chaos to begin.  Oh, I mean wait for all the rest of our family to get there.

We had a great time playing Dirty Santa, White Elephant and exchanging gifts.

All too soon it was time to go.  Maynard had to be up at 5 a.m. the next morning for work and we needed to head home.

We had a great Christmas and hope everyone else did too.

Baby it's cold outside

I'm 35 years old and still get giddy at Winter weather advisories. Even though we seem to be getting more rainy cold weather than actual snow. Each year I can't help but hope we will get that big snow and can actually take the kids sledding. I think about 4" is the most snow we have had in awhile. We still try to make the most of it.

How exciting is it to wake up in the morning and look out the window to see a fresh blanket of white snow covering everything. And then check the news to see if they have canceled school yet or not. And in my kid's cases, probably not. More than likely there will be school, but occasionally they may get a snow day. We will be thankful for that in the summer no doubt.

This last bit of weather included what they call a Polar vortex. It gave us below temps for the first time in years.

The bad weather started Sunday, January 5, 2014.  Which also happens to be Amelia's birthday.  I will do a separate blog for her for that though.

We had church Sunday night at 5 instead of 6 because it was supposed to get bad that evening.  It was hard to believe the weather was going to get bad though because Sunday was such a warm and pretty day.  After lunch we went to the grocery store because we were in desperate need of food anyway, but especially knowing the weather was gonna get bad.  I couldn't believe how bare the shelves were.  I mean they were ridiculously empty.

Sunday night I kept looking out the window.  In 15 minutes our yard and vehicles were completely covered in snow.  The wind was awful.  It was so scary yet exciting at the same time. 

Monday morning weather

Monday morning, I got a text from my friend Sarah letting me know that school had been canceled and that I could go back to bed.  And that's exactly what I did.  Except I did pray for awhile for everyone's safety that had to be out working and driving in this mess.  Especially Maynard that had to drive a fed ex truck.  I felt so sorry for him working out in that cold, bitter weather.  But I must not have worried or prayed too long because soon I was snoozing away.  We had a very lazy day and we enjoyed it to it's fullest.  We had gotten a day's extension on Christmas break and it was wonderful.

Tuesday morning we woke up to this.

Tuesday morning temperature

Keep in mind that -4 is the actual weather, but the wind chill was worse than that.  Even more amazing is that the kids had school Tuesday.  A 2 hour delay of course so Titus didn't have school, but Josiah did.  I'm sure the 2 hr delay helped some.  Not sure it made a whole lot of difference for us.  The roads were pretty bad including the school parking lot.  This Momma was thankful that Maynard had an unexpected day off from work and was able to drive Josiah to school.

This cartoon cracked me up.

 Since the weather was so freezing cold we tried a few experiments.  Once was where you throw boiling water outside and watch it turn to vapor.  It was pretty neat.  I took a video of that  so I'm gonna try to post the link so you can watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_myDKrVDdo

We also made water balloons and added food coloring to make frozen marbles.  They turned out pretty neat.

Our Marbles.

The weather finally warmed up by Thursday and everything was beginning to thaw out.  I managed to get the kids to school and back the rest of the week with only a couple of scares.  Wednesday morning Titus forgot his back pack after he already went in.  Before I drove off I happened to look back and see it in the van.  I drove back up and set it inside the office, but almost fell as I was coming back out.  Then as I was going down the driveway my van started sliding.  I slammed on the brakes and nothing was helping and I was terrified.  I was fixing to slide into the main road.  As soon as my tires hit the main road though I finally stopped.  I was also thankful there were no cars coming at the time.  I can't help but think that maybe the reason Titus left his back pack was God allowed that to happen to give me a few more minutes to wait for clear traffic because I was gonna slide into the highway.  Maybe?  Maybe not?  All I know is I'm very thankful for God's protection.

The weather is in the 50's right now, but the forecast doesn't seem to be done with us yet.  Here's hoping for some more snow next week!!!!!!!!!!!

Our adventures with Christmas Elves 2013

This was our 2nd year having the Elf on the Shelf.  We decided to do this last year and my kids loved it so we thought we would try it again. 

The only problem this year was that Maynard surprised them about a week earlier than I had hoped that they would show up.  I know most elves arrive the day after Thanksgiving, but our elves are so bad I was hoping they would show up just a tad later.

So at 3 weeks until Christmas the kids woke up to see this happening in the living room.

There was toilet paper strewn all over my living room with a note announcing the elves had arrived.  The kids and I were all surprised.

So once the elves arrive than it is important to the kids that they do something every single night.  Because Maynard had started the escapade I had to see to it that it was carried out.  So every night for 3 weeks I had to make sure the elves didn't let the kids down.  It was many a late night waiting for the kids to go to sleep before they could move.  The downside to all of this mischief is that the kids were waking up at 5 a.m. and couldn't sleep because they were so excited to see what the elves had done.  I'm gonna share a few pictures with you and let them do the talking mainly.  These are in no certain order.

This picture is hard to see what they are doing so I will explain.  The elves are lifting weights which happen to be q-tips with marshmellows stuck on the end.  The note says enough treats now its time to get back to dieting and exercising.

The next picture is where the elves replaced the kid's pictures with a magazine ad saying what they each wanted for Christmas.  The boys had pictures of underwear and Amelia's included a picture of a Chocolate baby.  (Which she really did want and got.)

snowball fight

Christmas parade

white water rafting

barricaded doors with ribbon

The elves had fun face painting the kids while they were sleeping.

ice fishing

head elf threw into the lions den

Head elf protecting the kid's gingerbread houses.

Elves ate Titus' chocolate advent calendar (not really)

The elves bought a new toilet seat, but they had to try it out first.

There was a few more, but I must have done video clips instead of taking pictures of them.  One of the kid's most favorite was the underwear carrousel.  I can't believe I don't have a picture of that.  I tied each of their underwear to the ceiling fan blade and put their elf in it.  Then turned the fan on low so the kids could see their elf riding in their underwear.  We called it the underwear carrousel and the kids really loved this one.

The chocolate calendar was funny too, but I thought Titus would get mad, but instead he got his feelings hurt and that backfired.  The kids had advent calendars and each day they got to eat a piece of chocolate to help them with counting down the days of Christmas.  I bought an extra one and it just so happened to be like Titus's.  One morning I had emptied out Titus's (fake) calendar and Josiah and Amelia's didn't get touched.  I was going for anger, but got tears so I had to quickly give him back his actual calendar. Ha ha

The picture of the head elf protecting the gingerbread houses was for Amelia's sake.  Last year the elves finished off the kid's gingerbread houses and they didn't forget about that.  So this year Amelia kept eating and eating hers.  She refused to go to bed because she was afraid the elves would eat the rest of her gingerbread house.  And to be honest, that is exactly what the elves had planned.  But since Amelia was so pitiful, I had to have compassion on her and protect her gingerbread house.  Bummer, I know.

We had a lot of fun, but I am so happy that it is over with and they are gone for another year.

Disclaimer:
Ok, here is the disclaimer I think I do every year.  We do not teach our kids about Santa Claus.  They know the real reason for the season.  I just don't think it hurts to have a little fun with them.  There is so much our kids aren't allowed to do that I think it's a good idea to make things fun for them in it's place.  So did they know that the elves wasn't really going to Santa every night and telling on them whether they were bad or good or not?  Of course!  But we sure did have a lot of fun doing it.

I will hopefully be on here next week to do my Christmas post.  I've run out of time.