The One-and-Only Post Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Post

Nothing fancy or insightful here today...just the latest happenings and pictures. Time just keeps moving along--every night, I seem to think, "We're going to bed again? We just did this!"

Here's some pictures from our time in Tucson for Thanksgiving with Jeremy's parents.

Building paper airplanes with Pa J...he's such a good sport and probably had to go buy more printer paper after we left. Oh, and Go-gurts--yuck, in my opinion, but the kids love eating them at Gamma's!

Pa J was even prepared with a how-to book...I love that!

Annie's favorite pasttime? Sitting on chairs.


Watching football with Daddy

Reading books with Gamma

Thanksgiving dinner, which Jeremy's mom and I enjoyed shopping for and preparing together. We sure have come a long way! It reminded me of my mom and my dad's mom cooking together every Christmas.

Speaking of coming a long way, Jeremy's mom let me go through stuff stored in their garage and have a garage sale! And, I think we had fun doing it, which is pretty cool! We found some important items she had been looking for and got rid of some junk...though I couldn't convince her to get rid of her grown children's belly button stubs. Isn't there a saying about one person's scab being a mother's treasure? No, I just made that up. But really, it was fun seeing some of Jeremy's old stuff--like clothes from his "preppy" phase and a teddy bear that he sewed in home ec.

A group picture--Gamma, me, Sam, Annie, and Annie's new friend.

Gamma let Sam set up a little table and earn the profits from his sales. He wants the money to go to a boy in Africa whose parents died. I'm just bragging sayin'.

This picture gives a little more context to "Annie's new friend." It might help to know that Jeremy's sister went to beauty school while she lived in Tucson.

These kids sure love their Gamma! They asked if we can always go to her house when we were home in Flagstaff.

Group picture in front of the house that Jeremy built. Gamma, Pa J, Uncle Jack, us, and Tanner, who provided some dog therapy for my kids who were still a little scarred from the bad dog experience at the creek with the youth group.

Sam's birthday present from Gamma and Pa J. He held it the entire 4-hour trip home in the car.

Going out in the snow looking like an alien. Even though Evan is older now, he still doesn't last nearly as long outside as Sam does.

Annie's other favorite pasttime: homemade scarves from my underwear drawer. I think there are at least 8 pairs on her in this picture. Maybe the look will catch on in the fashion world.

Christmas play at church...Evan was too young to perform, but he sang along loudly from the audience. Here he is, candy cane sword fighting with his friend, August.

Sam, the homely cute sheep.

Samuel's big line--"Baa, baa". He did it with gusto--what's that saying...there are no small parts, just small actors.

Samuel lost his first tooth naturally (he had one pulled last year)...his teacher pulled it out at school!
(I can't believe she was willing to put her hand in my son's mouth)

So many little girls at church love Annie and chase her around trying to mother her and pick her up.

This was taken on December 13th at 4 pm. 2 days later, it was snowing!

Speaking of time passing...Aunt Riah is pregnant with a long-awaited gift from God! Yeah!


For Sam's birthday, I took cupcakes to his school and did a little activity with the kids for their teacher who had just had a baby. Each kid put their thumbprint in fabric paint on a onesie in the shape of a long caterpillar and I added antennas (spelling?) and legs. I took a cute video of the kids talking to their teacher, too. I didn't have my camera, so no pictures of that, nor did I get any pictures at his school Christmas concert because a large man in snow clothes stood in front of us the whole time and Annie wouldn't budge from the chair she had climbed on to (see, she loves chairs) without screaming and Jeremy wasn't there to help (youth group party).

On Friday, Sam got to have some boys over after school for a Lego party. Here he is with Zach, a sweet little guy who kept saying, "Am I invited to this party? Is anyone playing with me? Am I invited? Is anyone playing with me?"

Here's Sam waiting for his favorite little friend who never showed up.

I had fun preparing a Lego-themed party on a budget...I think people should hire me to plan their kids' parties on a budget, but then if they had the money to hire a budget party-planner, their party wouldn't be very cheap, so I guess there's no market for that. Oh, and the boys just wanted to play...they didn't even do half of the games I had planned.

Samuel's cake with sprinkles covering up the part that Evan got into when no one was looking. Sam forgave him.

Tower building contest, which Evan, the 3-year-old won, hands down.

LEGOS!!!!

Lego cars getting ready for the race...Evan getting fueled up on boogers in the background.

Sam won this one and Evan came in 2nd! (I promise I was a fair judge!)

The party was fun and only had 2 poop incidents ("Sam's mom, can you wash my underwear? I had an accident and I tried to clean it up, but it was just too sticky!"). Now I am hurrying to get ready to go to California!