It's a gift

I am strangely proud of my ability to guess the precise number of paper bags it will take to pack up my cart of groceries. 

I almost never buy too many. 

I think I deserve a raise.

Cold

This weather is perfect for fuzzy socks, mugs of cocoa and space heaters. 

And for big sisters that are willing to help the little ones suit up and experience the wonders of winter.

Watching Maybe

Our friends, the Flynns are out of town for a couple weeks and we are taking care of their pets. 

They have:

• one chill, friendly bunny
• one bunny that is destined for a garage sale in the near future
• 2 gerbils
• a cat named Malcolm
• and a dog named Maybe...all she needs in life is to have food, go to the potty and have someone scratch her hind end...around the clock.  

She missed her family and we did our best to show her lots of love, but the butt scratching was sub-par. She needs a LIVE IN butt scratcher.

Hang in there, Maybe....they'll be home before Christmas!

Super Fun night...Christmas edition

I haven't figured out a lot of the parenting things. 

For one, how do you get your kids to care about giving gifts to each other? Do you bring it up? Do you ask them to make something homemade? Do you give them money and drive them to the store and make suggestions so they don't end up wasting money on some weird thing that they would like more than their sibling? Or do you just forget it and let it happen naturally. 

I really don't have the answers to these questions. 

But this year, in an effort to have them invest a bit more into the gifts that they get for their "person", we held one of our Super Fun Movie Nights to help them earn the money for their Christmas shopping. 

We watched the Good Dinosaur and set up several different play stations: 

Ice Cream Shop:

Train Depot:

Puzzles pajamas:

Medieval Castle:

Need a break from the crazy:

and Sugar Cookie Redemption:

Everyone survived and we made enough for each kid to spend about $15 dollars on their person. I like it!

Now we just have to find some way to get them all to the store without taking 6 separate trips and without giving away any surprises.

Rogue One. we don't need no social graces!

It happened again! Some company that wants to continue doing business with Mark's company paid for their clients and families to see the new Star Wars movie the night before it was officially released. We took the oldest three and gave Laney the choice....she's a swing kid! She felt like staying home and playing with McKenzie sounded like more fun. 

Mathew and Ethan couldn't resist a light saber battle.

Mathew won the battle, killed off his brother and confiscated his weapon.

They did not inherit my embarrassment gene.

Meg and I were happy to smile and enjoy our free treats.

The year of felt

This year I decided to make felt ornaments as gifts for the kids advent calendar surprises as well as one for each of my family members.  I love looking for good designs and coming up with a pattern I think each person would like. 

So fun! 

Here are the completed projects...

Top: a pincushion for Lara

2nd row: holly for Heidi, a cat for Everly, a snowbird for Kaira, winter trees for Joe and Jean, Pusheen for Bri, a fox for Jordan, a chickadee for mom

3rd row: cubs logo for Mark, flag for Ethan, scared gingerbread man for Mathew, snowflake for Megan, grey wolf for Laney and deer for Anna.  

Dear Neighbors, it's okay to spit it out.

No procrastinating the sugar cookies this year! We need a treat to deliver to the neighbors(the advent calender said so), a treat for Family Home Evening and an activity....for Family Home Evening. Sugar cookies qualify for all three.

See how I'm getting smarter every year? I used to put multiple activities in each pocket. Now I make one activity satisfy multiple expectations.

The little girls and I did the cutting and baking early in the day. It's better this way. You know what they say about cooks in the kitchen. 

Later, everyone was able to decorate their allotted cookies. We've learned our lesson about an ounce of organization saving you from a pound of fights.

They turned out pretty cute! Simple and tasty. Or maybe just simple. After dropping them off to 6 or 7 of the families that we live by every day, we bit into our own cookies and I realized (with horror) that they were TERRIBLE. Possible the nastiest cookies I've ever had. And I've snarfed up my share of sub-par cookies in my life.

Maybe we should start a new tradition of ding dong ditching our neighbor gifts. Deniability is the key here.