[[[Big Sigh of Relief]]]

Do you hear that? It's my big sigh of relief. My second job is over, Christmas is over and done (last family christmas gathering was Saturday). The decorations are almost put away. I am ready for the New year to begin. I need a break from all the busy, busy, busy.

Christmas was wonderful, it all seems like a blur now. The boys were very excited over the presents and Christmas money from family. Thank you! It seems this year was the year of games, the boys received several board games and it's been lots of fun playing them together. I didn't take lots of pictures, mostly video.

We made cookies and put out milk and cookies for Santa. Josh was amazed that Santa really drank the milk, he had to show everybody the empty cup. We read the Night before Christmas. I remember many Christmas eve's my sister reading to me and putting me to bed. Michael was ready for bed very early on Christmas eve. He has a habit of going to bed very early and getting us up extremely early, thankfully he slept until 6 am.

Josh's birthday is Friday. I always feel like his birthday gets less attention than others since it falls so close to the holidays. This year I'm starting a new tradition for his birthday to give it a little more celebration. I've left the tree up and we will decorate it as a birthday tree.

I mentioned it to Josh tonight and he seemed really into it. He kept looking through boxes asking me where the birthday decorations were.

It's been a wonderful holiday and I'm so thankful for all of our family and friends! Cheers to 2008!

Ice storm and Josh's Christmas pancake breakfast at church.

I'm back with pictures!

We found a nifty little gadget that is called a SD memory card reader at radio shack. It plugs directly into the USB port and reads my card. So easy! I'll be posting some pictures from the various activities this past month. Hope you enjoy!

It's the rootin' tootin' scooter gang!

Too cute!

Josh likes to help me in the kitchen. Today he made some koolaid, he got his spoon full of Koolaid, sucked it all up and said "Yep, deeeeee-licious"!

We interrupt this blog for a little Christmas Chaos

The next ten days are so jam packed, it's unbelievable. I had to write several lists for myself because I'm afraid I'll forget to go, do or buy something that we need for whatever event is going on that day. There are still presents to buy, Christmas cards to send and cookies to bake.
There's parties and musicals to attend and three work schedules to work around. But it's all in the spirit of Christmas! I won't be posting this week unless something really great and blog worthy happens. Until then have very Merry Christmas!

Aren't they just the cutest!

We didn't plan to take a picture with Santa, we just happened to be at the store while Santa was there. Josh refused at first, after some begging, pleading and promises (the boy knows how to work a deal) he finally agreed! And you can see Josh would not get anywhere close to Santa. Oh well!

We never lost power during the ice storm and now it is warming up with some rain to wash the ice away. But the next storm is suppose to bring snow this weekend.

Ssshhh

The boys are snuggled in bed all warm and toasty. I've turned the heat up to keep the house nice and warm while we have heat. We are sleeping on the pull out sofa bed in case the power goes out in the middle of the night. The lights have flickered all day and I could see a transformer blow in the distance tonight. It lit up the sky like lightening! Barry slept for awhile today and made it back to work tonight at 6 pm. He will work again until 9 or 10 tomorrow and hopefully he will be off for a few days. No school again tomorrow and I'm not sure about the 3rd grade Christmas musical scheduled for tomorrow night. The musical is titled "Christmas at the OK Corral", Michael has a square dancing part. I can't wait to see.
This has been a nice break from work and all the craziness that this time of year brings, but Enough already!

Quiet!

have you ever tried to keep two boys quiet in a very small house while their dad sleeps after a 16 hour work night? and they can't go outside! It's not easy! So far we have played SORRY and UNO, made playdoh and played with flour, played with balloons and it's only been an hour and 1/2. Now the monkeys are ready to paint, who knows what this house will look by tonight!

The Ice Storm continues...

no school today. More freezing rain fell over night and the trees in our yard are starting to hang low. We have power right now and I think it's suppose to warm above freezing today, so maybe this stuff will melt. It's a really bad week for this to happen with so many things going on. Barry went to work last night at 6 pm and is not home yet (8:30 am). What a long, long, day this will be!

Christmas Firsts

I'm still having trouble with uploading my pictures to the computer. I've tried all my USB ports with both cameras, I've tried re-installing the software for the cameras and it still doesn't work. My next step is to find a new cord for my camera that connects to the computer. I've read that you can buy one, now just to find one.

But since I think posts without pictures are boring, I flipped through the photo albums and scanned in a few Christmas pictures, this is Michael's first Christmas. Isn't he cute!

Brrr, it's cold outside

We have our first storm of the season. Lots of freezing rain and ice with no hopes of it warming up past 28 degrees. The boys are already going crazy begging to go outside and I'm thinking NO! It's going to be a long day or two.

Don't use a trash can!

So I got a fire pit for Christmas (early present) and we used it in the front yard yesterday to burn some leaves (because you must use it on a non-flammable surface such as the drive way) and we had an old trash can full of leaves sitting beside the fire pit. And we were very surprised when the fire department made a visit to our house! Apparently a neighbor called to complain that we were burning trash, but the firefighters said we weren't doing anything illegal. Guess next time we won't use a trash can to carry the leaves!