Pixiemom

Yesterday, we had a small party for James and Noelle’s birthday. I like doing it in January because it doesn’t get caught in the middle of all the Christmas stuff, plus James’ birthday is in this month as well. I had invited a few different families but only Jeremy’s parents were able to come. That was okay though. James’s cub scout meeting ran a bit late and also it was okay for us to just relax and talk and do everything whenever we felt like it instead of making sure we were staying within the time limits. James got some Geomag sets and a set of three Bibleman videos. Noelle got her own blanket (her first very own blanket, she’s a happy girl) and a Prayer Circle Friend lion. The recordable prayer button was messed up, so I need to take it back to the store to see if I can get a better one. As soon as they opened them, they got to work with them. James opened up his sets and started figuring out how to make different things with it and Noelle put the filling into her lion (she loved that she was able to put most of the filling in herself). I haven’t sewed it up yet, but I will soon. At the moment, I have it temporarily closed off so the fluff can’t get out. We may put extra fluff in or not. She hasn’t quite decided. They say to put the prayer button in with the fluff before closing it up, but the place to close it up makes kind of like a pocket inside the animal that velcros shut and I think I’m going to just put it into that pocket so I can take it out and interchange it with a pre-recorded one (maybe the Lord’s Prayer one) or record a new prayer at a later time or just take it out if it gets pushed too much and becomes annoying.

I’m back, but I may not be back to my normal daily posting yet. We’ll see.

Let’s see… where did I leave off? Oh, yes, Christmas at my sister’s house.

A few days before we left for Jill’s house, the big kids found out that we had powerpoint on our computer. They decided to have a church service in our home. James led singing, Christine took up the offering, and Amie read from the Bible. Her message was about when Gabriel visited Joseph’s dreams and told him of the birth of Jesus and how Joseph heeded God’s message and stayed faithful to Mary.

On Sunday, Dec. 23, our church had it’s Christmas service. The choir sang a bunch of songs, Pastor read different passages from the Christmas story through out the service, and the children’s choir and Praise Dancers joined us for Silent Night. I sang a solo of “The First Noel” and my little Noelle was in her Daddy’s arms waving at me. We left for Jill’s house as soon as church was over and we dropped off the presents which the kids got from church at our house. The drive down was windy and a bit snowy. The weather cleared up the further south we traveled and we got to see a beautiful sunset. We got to their house around dinner time and settled down to help finish off some yummy leftovers to make room in the fridge for the Christmas leftovers there were going to be on the following day. On Christmas Eve, Jill, my Dad, and I took the kids to a mall there and let them play around a bit. It was fun. Jeremy and Rob (Jill’s hubby) stayed home and cooked the Christmas dinner. My Dad and Jill went to pick up Mom from the airport afterwards and I got to drive my sister’s new big SUV back to her house with all the little kids. I like driving big vehicles. The little ones went down for a much needed nap. Jeremy and Rob did a great job on our meal. It was really good. The little girls really enjoyed what they had. I enjoyed playing with Tabitha and Naomi and seeing the present that Jill got for Rob. I also enjoyed using my Dad’s new camera which meant that I didn’t get as many pictures with my own camera as I would normally. The kids were happy to spend time with their Grandma and Papa. I also really enjoyed just talking with my mom and sister about Grandma. It really helped. We went to the Christmas Eve service at Jill’s church. On Christmas morning, the kids woke up to find a tree with lots of presents underneath. BUT first things first, we had another church service. This is a traditional thing at our house. Before presents, we celebrate Jesus. James led Christmas hymns and Amie read the Bible again. Christine didn’t just take offering this time, she also told about why Jesus came to earth as a baby and later died on the cross. The offering was later put into the Lotty Moon offering at Jill’s church. We left Jill’s house on the 26th and came on home. The kids opened up the presents at our house on the morning of the 27th. We went down to Jeremy’s parents house for the day on New Years Eve. Noelle and AnnaBeth stayed down there. Since then, I’ve been trying to get the kids back into the school routine. We’ve been off schedule since Thanksgiving with only maybe three or four days of getting some schoolwork done. The kids complained a bit at first, but are getting back into it.

We did take Tuesday off and took a trip up to the west suburbs to see Amie’s penpal, Emily and her mom, sister, and brother. We also met baby Lee and his mom. That was fun and though I was really nervous, it was still really good to see them finally and talk. I didn’t get any photos of Sara, Lee’s mom, but I meant to. That’s what nerves does to me. I met Crystal, Emily’s mom, through her blog and she introduced me to Sara from there by directing me to Lee’s blog. It’s so nice to meet these women and children that I’ve been reading about. Not long after starting to read Crystal’s blog, I thought of how much Emily and Amie had in common and asked if they could write e-mails back and forth and they’ve been doing it ever since. All the kids got along really well, though James got upset when Amie and Emily wanted to be alone for a little while, so instead of leaving them along, he bugged them. None of my kids wanted to leave when we did. They all insisted that we come back the next day or at least on Saturday. I had to break their little hearts and tell them that we’d get back up there as soon as we could, but not that quickly.

Hmmm, what else have we done? I took James for a day out and Jeremy took Amie into Chicago. Not at the same time, of course, but I think they both enjoyed their quality time. I took James to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. GREAT movie!!! He totally loved it and I did too. I don’t know what Jeremy and Amie did, but I know she was fairly happy about her time with Daddy when she got back. Oh, and we got the movie, Cars, from Netflix and saw it for the first time. I laughed so much, especially at the tractors. It’s a movie we may buy sometime.

Anyway, there you go. Up to today. Enjoy the other pictures that I didn’t link to on Flickr and have a good day. I’ll be back into my routine soon enough. hopefully.

In the meantime, I’ve uploaded some pics onto Flickr. I’m planning on editing more today and putting them up tonight or tomorrow.

EDIT: I got them all uploaded. I plan on trying to update tomorrow.