Tut tut, it looks like rain!

Julia called me outside to express her disgust at her little brother fully expecting I'd be just as incensed as she. Instead I laughed and told him to hold still so I could get the camera! Notice the pants & undies around the ankles!

I just realized

While pictures are great for blogs, they aren't absloutely necessary. Hello. I kept waiting to download pictures before I posted anything and then waited for a reason but that's not necessary. I can post whenever. Sometimes it takes me a little while to figure some things out. So maybe now that I've had this realization I can enter a little more often...oh yah, I might need to schedule some time maybe.

Bowling New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve the kids & I went bowling with Grandma Glenna, Aunt Jessica & cousins Cade & Joel. Julia beat all the boys & Grandma beat us all. I had lots of "help" from Corbin but we all had an interesting time. Celeste slept through it all!

That night I was so bored with everyone else sleeping but me that I decided to celebrate the Ohio New Year with Mari & headed to bed at 11pm our time. (Mari is an hour ahead in Ohio)

Gingerbread houses

I found Gingerbread house kits at WalMart that were dairy free so we set to making them Sunday after Christmas. No sooner were we done building them did they try to eat them...while I was trying to take pictures of the finished product. Good thing I didn't have to change the batteries in my camera or I would have missed the whole thing!

decorating cookies & Julia petting zoo

Our church put on an Old Fashioned Christmas called the Perfect Gift complete with cookie decorating, petting zoo around a live nativity, various musical instruments, circling carolers, puppet shows, the telling of St Nicholas' story, food, Christmas trees decorated in themes by many different groups, presents that kids could wrap for parents, and much more.

more petting zoo

As you all know, Sage LOVES all things animals. We couldn't get him out of the petting zoo. He was supposed to sing & play the handbells but wouldn't leave the animals. He stayed in there for 2 1/2 HOURS!

pETTING zOo AT PERFECT GIFT

Julia was really afraid of the petting zoo after her brother told her there was a big dog in there. The dog was a Great Burmese or something like that and was bigger than a shetland pony and slept the entire time (I thought it was dead). She finally got comfortable after 20 minutes of hiding under my coat. Corbin liked to chase the ducks & chickens & wasn't afraid in the slightest to pick them up by the neck & haul them around. Bless the poor animals they didn't act like they minded in the slightest!