Christmas Parties

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Sheila

This year, I have decided that I am going to make sure I get to the kid’s school events! So I decided to request the day off work on Friday to attend Kendall’s Party and of course I have no regrets.

On Thursday, I went to Lily’s Christmas party which was building a gingerbread house… my niece is in the same classroom and for this was actually seated at the same table as Lily so it was lots of fun!

The front of the finished gingerbread house

The side of Lily’s finished gingerbread house!

Lily really enjoyed opening gifts from her class!

Kendall’s party was on Friday afternoon and she was sent to 4 different stations. The teacher decided this year that parent would “travel” between stations with their children instead of being assigned on station to organize. I am sure this was one of the highlights of Kendall’s day, one on one attention!

Each child in the class got a present to open and really love this especially my Kendall!

This was our first project and needed some instructions , we lost the mouth so I cut on out and after removing the eyes twice, I used a sharpie at home to draw them!

Kendall with both of her teachers!

Christmas tree project

Finished Christmas tree projet

B I N G O

Working hard on the Santa craft

Making sure she didn;t miss any of the BINGO game.

I love this juice box idea!

Snack ended the day with a cute reindeer theme.

Hot chocolate Reindeer

Playing hot “gingerbread man” in order to pick a present.

Brand Loyalty- Yes!

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Sheila

One of the first rules of couponing that you hear is that you must not be “brand loyal” meaning that you can’t just chose to use one brand of say toilet paper. I totally disagree with this statement. You can’t be brand loyal on every product but you can pick the items that you prefer and coupon for those items and still manage to save money. I have many items that I am brand loyal to. What that means for me is that I tend to stock up on the items when they go on sale and/or hit my buy price. It also means that on occasion I end up paying a little more that I would for the same item of a different brand but the difference is well spent in my book. I am brand loyal for my deodorant, it has to be Mitchum, my buy price is $1 or less. Currently I am looking for this item on sale because I am using my last one. In laundry detergent, I am really brand loyal to Tide. I have found that I don’t like the smell of other brands and most don’t clean as well so I ended up using more. This summer I was able to stock up on Tide, so I am just keeping an eye out for awesome deals at this point. Now I do have a rule that free is the best so when CVS offers free laundry detergent using ECB then I purchase and save for our annual beach trip. We watch a load of towel and bathing suit every day, free is good enough for these daily washings. Lily has very sensitive skin and after multiple trips to the demonologist, we have found that buying Aveno bath wash is worth the expense. A final item that I am extremely brand loyal to is Diet Coke. I have been using Coke Rewards for several years now and honestly will drink water if my Diet Coke is not available.

CVS has really not had any awesome sales since Thanksgiving but I was able to stock up on several brand loyal items this week at a 68% saving! The standard for couponing is 60% or more is a buy price so I am extremely pleased. I did spend $27 for these items but saved $58. I purchased 7 bags of Christmas candy, 6 12 packs of Diet Coke, 2 2L Diet Coke and 2 bottle of body wash for Lily. Are you brand loyal?

Wordless Wednesday- Angel Alert

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Sheila

Singing

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Sheila

It is apparent that we all LOVE music! What is exciting to me is that it would appear that the little guys all three have both an interest in music and some natural talent. I guess I would consider not being tone deaf, a natural talent! This weekend all three kids participated in a Christmas musical on both Saturday and Sunday night. I plan to post pictures of this tomorrow night. In addition, they also sang as part of our Sunday morning worship service. This is a song that they learn both the words and motions in the last two weeks so as you can tell someone is wrong on a couple of them. I am just glad to see them enjoy singing in public!

The first group is some close up on individual kids.

The next group will give you a better view of the entire group! I was learning to use our new camera so there are some problems with the flash as you can see but at least I am posting the same week not a month later!

Pancakes with Santa

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Sheila

This past weekend has been one of the busiest of the year, with multiple events on each day. So consider this your fair warning the next couple of post will be both Christmas and picture heavy. I did have an awesome trip to CVS on Sunday so I will plan to throw that in just to say I did!

Pancakes with Santa has been a tradition for us for at least the past 5 years if not longer. Part of the tradition is that Daddy takes the kids. I am sure this started because there was at least one kid at home that was too young to understand and enjoy. This year I was able to make several things while the kids enjoyed not only breakfast but a craft and a visit with Santa.

Pancakes and bacon always make a good breakfast.

Next was a neat craft that all three of the kids enjoyed.

Last was the talking to “Santa’s helper”. Even Zach realizes that Santa is really busy this time of year and needs some helpers. But you know each of the helpers reports back to Santa. Lily was given a choice of attending the breakfast and wanted to check it out; however she chose not to sit on Santa’s helper lap. I am already starting to miss my little kids!

Wordless Wednesday- Chirstmas Picture

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Sheila

My attempt to get a decent picture on Sunday…

I had such high hopes for this one… Zach has crazy eyes, don’t have a clue what he is looking at?

Yes! We are soldiers, being forced to smile and have pictures made. Or Lily smells something….

If only I could see Lily’s eyes.

best Zach picture

She always takes a good picture but this is the only one that her white shirt is not showing on the bottom!

No editing needed!

Not bad for a fake smile….at least he is handsome with a fake smile!

Lily’s Birthday!

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Sheila

Just a fair warning up front, I decided not to split this up into 2 or more different post. Therefore you will find lots of pictures with this post!!

Lily actually started celebrating her birthday on Tuesday November 25th, with the first singing of “Happy Birthday” and her gift from us and her Grandfather Abbott. Lily received a IPAD mini. The reason we decided to give this gift so early is that she enjoyed using it not only on our trip to Michigan but also she was able to face time both of her sister during our stay.

Next Lily celebrated on Friday December 5th, when Amanda ate lunch with her and picked her up from school to go to the mall.

They also stopped for “fo-yo” on the way home.

Lily actual birthday December 6th involved lots more celebrating. We had her best friend “Izzy” and her grandparents over for dinner.

Of course there were more presents..

And cake…

After cake, we had wooden Christmas ornaments to paint…A

A fun time was had by all! Especially Lily!

Weeks of Busyness- Weekend catch

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Sheila

December is always a busy month but this year, I think it has decided to speed up! Each of the three weeks prior to Christmas seems to be stuffed full of activities, practices and parties. The very sad part about this is that I know that next week including the weekend is going to be some of the busiest time of the year.

Just for the sake of truth here is our schedule for the first two weeks of December :
Monday- Chorus til 4pm, Cheerleading from 5:45 til 7 for Kendall and til 8 for Lily. Because of the huge time difference, I am actually picking up Kendall and bringing her home both weeks.
Tuesday- Chorus til 4pm and piano for both girls- We consider this our easiest night!
Wednesday- Church activities
Thursday- Cheerleading from 5:45 to 7:30 for both.

Looks like fun doesn’t it? Add to this craziness that we arrived home last Sunday night around 8pm from our trip. Matt has spent most of his time unpacking that is between picking up and taking children to these activities. On Thursday of this week, we had to restock our food supply and we ended up picking up a third refrigerator, which add another whole day of non-stop activity.

So today (Saturday aka Lily’s birthday), I decided that I would need to get up the rest of our Christmas decoration in order to be able to even enjoy them. One small problem, I have spent several hours looking both online and in person for an artificial Christmas tree with no real luck in finding exactly what I wanted. Until I was talking with my mother and discovered she has a very large artificial tree in her attic. Last night after work, we went and claimed this tree. Matt used an air compressor to clean out most of the dust and we set up our rainbow to clean the air around it over night. I will admit that I can understand why it is too much tree for her. She said she spent over 3 hours putting it together the year she used it. Between Matt and myself, I would estimate we have spent around an hour working on it. But it is perfect, I will hopefully get some pictures to post in the next day or so.

In addition to decorating, we have planned a small for us, birthday dinner for Lily for today. Tomorrow I am teaching the 2-3 years old during service, the kids will be performing one song during the regular service and they have play practice from 3:30 til 5:30. Next week is the same schedule as last with the addition of a practice Saturday morning of the children’s musical at church. The kids will be performing the musical on Saturday and Sunday night. Finally on Monday night, Lily has her chorus performance.

I am going to take an extra day off work prior to Christmas but the state of running between activities should remain at least for a couple of weeks. If I go MIA for the next couple of weeks, you now know where I will be heading!