Our Christmas 2010

We opened our gifts on Christmas Eve morning. That gives the kids a chance to play and just have a down day before the big excitement of Christmas Day!

HA! I'm up before my brothers!

Ready to open presents. Lovin' the Santa hats! Laura will have nothing to do with hats!

Mommy, I love my new toilet seat. Do I really have to learn to use it, too?

Amarin bought Jacob his most-wanted Star Wars action figure.

Jacob made a Star Wars tank for Amarin.

Can't get enough of Star Wars...or so they tell me...

Sleeping bags for the boys!

Daddy got a griddle so he can cook lots of pancakes at once for this growing family!

A Christmas ornament from Laura to Mommy and Daddy. Apparentlly, she let her teachers put a Santa hat on her. Why do I think she does more for them than for us? Spoiled a little, maybe?

A new game for his Leapster...Star Wars...shocker!

Charlie bought Laura some animal crackers. I think this was her favorite gift!

Daddy surprised us all with a Wii. Favorite game so far...sword fighting. Even Mommy can play this one without too much difficulty!

Christmas morning...

Get your stockings!

Have you ever seen a child so excited about a stapler? He keeps using mine to make "gifts" for all of us. Now maybe mine won't be MIA?

Nutella...memories of eating at the German guesthouses...

"I can help you, sweetheart."

Don't you eat my raisins, Charlie. You know how I love my food!

What is that? It does not look like snacks to me!

Silly putty for our silly boy!

Yeah for Christmas morning!

Veggie Tales! We love these movies!

What? Santa took off with the whole pop can? Where's the deposit?

Moose hats from Grandma and Papa. So, of course we have to fight like moose! See Laura's expression....not likin' the whole hat thing again.

Oh, I'll just snuggle up with Grandma.

A bunch of moose cousins!

Ready to eat Grandma's yummy breakfast!

Jamie and the kids bought me a new phone with texting and a camera. I guess they thought it was time I joined the rest of the texting world. Don't I look efficient at texting?

OK...so my niece had to show me how to do it...I'm still not sure...

Lincoln logs!!

I'm so glad I have a girl cousin here!

A hatchet for our lumberjack. As of this moment, he wants to grow up to be a forest ranger. I don't know that that necessarily includes cutting down trees...

Cowboy Charlie...so who's gonna get lasoed first?

Our princess all dressed up in her new coat. Can you tell Grandma loves buying clothes for her? And, she didn't seem to mind this hat. I guess she knew how pretty she was!

A first Christmas for our first great nephew. He fell asleep in my arms Christmas night...I think he likes me best! (Hope his grandma's not reading this!) :)

My happy princess

Really? More Star Wars that you don't have? How much of this stuff do they actually make?

Tea for Grandma

And a Merry Christmas was had by all!

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours!

Lights!

Christmas Eve Eve.

Time to don our jammies (kids only...that would be too embarrassing if we broke down!), pile into the van, grab some hot chocolate, and drive around looking at Christmas lights.

OK, everybody. Find a seat!

I have no idea what takes these boys so long to buckle.

Wait, wait, wait...

Finally, here we go.

Seriously...

Hot chocolate in hand. Poor Amarin...he needs special hot chocolate that doesn't make him throw up! Who ever heard of chocolate making you throw up?

"I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus..." was ringing through the car. So, Jamie leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. This is the reaction from the boys. They're so silly....covering their eyes and squealing. Then they laugh and tell us to do it again!

And we see you peeking, Amarin!

An Early Present

TA!!

Finally we have TA!

Our agency just called. They hadn't planned on going into the office,

but decided to check the mail, and it was there.

So, now we have to wait until Monday to start booking travel and consulate appointments since everything is closed now for the holiday. Looks like January travel dates, and hopefully before she turns four on the 26th of January!

Merry Christmas to us...

Merry Christmas to us...

We're Done!

With school, that is. We had our last day of homeschool co-op on Monday, and then two more days of school at home. I know, I know...everyone else is finished. Don't tell my kids, OK?

I just feel the need to finish up projects before the holiday. It makes me feel more relaxed.Next week we'll be off, too. I think we're all ready for a break.

Of course, I'll have to do lesson planning...I'd rather do China travel planning...

Here's a science project that we all really enjoyed. We have been studying the human body, and we used this awesome curriculum that had all of the internal body parts to cut out and assemble as we learned about them. Let me tell you...I don't think either boy will be headed into the medical field. They got pretty grossed out talking about the organs and blood. Especially when I told them what the doctors had to do to their Papa during open-heart surgery...ya know...to actually get to the heart.

Charlie's in on the act now. We decided to take him out of kindergarten at our local school, and teach him at home the rest of the year. He's happy to be working with his brothers...'cause he's a big boy now, too, since he gets to stay home. We have some math and ABC work for him to do, and he's eager to work.

Jacob told me to post this photo and tell you all how "blue" they were feeling today. We took our own fingerprints (a whole lot faster than waiting for an immigration appt.!) during our science study...and...well...I think we'll all have blue fingers for a few days.

Sweet times

'Tis the season for baking cookies! I really don't enjoy baking that much...maybe because it never turns out...so luckily Jamie has taken over the cookie baking at Christmas.

Picking out the cookie cutters

Laura just being her cute self!

Rolling out the dough

I think Char had more flour on himself than on the cupboard!

Oooh...the masterpieces!

THEN...

we decided to make homemade gifts for teachers and bus drivers.

So, if you are one of the kids' teachers, you may want to stop reading for now!
And, yes, we're including bus drivers. I can't imagine having their job...no way, no how!

We decided to give gifts in a jar...specifically, hot cocoa mix.

So, Jacob started measuring the ingredients. They had to double the batch...so that's a math lesson, right? No more skipping school for us...ahem...

Look at Amarin's concentration...either that, or he's in daze...

Then we had to prepare ribbons, candy canes, gift tags, and felt toppers.

And, voila! The jars are ready to be given.

And for those who are looking for gifts that are not too pricey,

(like us since we have 3 bus drivers and 6 teachers),

this works out to less than $3.00 per gift, plus it's a lot of fun for the kids to make!

"Narnia" White!

It's our first snow storm of the season, and it is quite pretty. We woke up to a winter wonderland...the trees just hanging with snow. I love it when the snow sticks to everything.

The boys say it looks like Narnia. I think everything will remind them of Narnia for a while, after seeing the movie.

We stayed tucked in our warm home today. No venturing out on the snowy/icy dirt roads for us. Instead, we stayed in our jammies until later morning, and snacked on marshmallow cereal. After another rough afternoon/evening yesterday, Laura seems to be feeling much better this morning...

good enough to feed herself marshmallow cereal by the handful!

Oh, yes. Food is a favorite!

Next, I made the annual "keep out of our closet" sign. The boys think it's so funny to see if they can catch us leaving the door open so they can sneak a peek. Charlie helped me make signs this year.

Time to play in the "Narnia" wonderland.

Eating snow...hoping it was all white. Pardon the pink mittens. He had to borrow from Laura because his were already soaked!

Jacob must have his picture taken, too, not to be outdone in cuteness by his little brother.

A snowball fight with Dad. Notice Amarin is not posing for any photos, nor would be take part in any snowball fight, even when Dad aimed at him. He later told me that he was too busy building snowmen and forts. He has been waiting since October for enough snow to build! And that's my Amarin...build and construct anything.

Charlie is building his first snowman of the season.

Laura and I? Well, we just stay cozy inside the house while the boys conquer the "Narnia" wonderland!

A NEW Day

One of you commented that today had to be better than yesterday, and you were so right.

First, my headache is gone.

Second, Laura was well enough to go to school, and her teacher said she was doing just fine. Actually, I rec'd a call from the bus driver aide saying Laura didn't look good on the bus. Great...I've sent the poor girl to school too soon.

But I talked later to her teacher, Ms. Mary, and she said Laura was just fine.

Ms. Mary asked Laura if she "made the bus drivers call your mom and make her worry?"

She said Laura just smiled at her.

What a stinker! She knows exactly how to manipulate people!

Third, I was able to take the three boys to see the new N*rnia movie this morning. It was...ummm...a homeschool literature enhancing lesson...yep...that's it!

Phooey...we just skipped school!

Totally awesome movie. No doubt, the boys will be outside this afternoon reenacting the battle scenes. That's drama class, right? Throw in the popcorn and rootbeer, and it was just perfect! Even my littlest guy sat still and didn't need to go potty the whole time!

And for the icing on the cake....drum roll please...

China does NOT need the document that was lost. They are fine, this time, with a photocopy. It has already been sent out, and NOW we can wait for our TA. Hopefully, we'll get preferential treatment since we've been waiting so long.

A Day

I've had a day.

Not one I'd like to repeat any time soon.

*Headache...directly behind my right eye. That won't go away. Kind of nauseating.

*Laura stayed home again after having such a good day yesterday. And she whined ALL DAY...does wonders for the headache. I know...but my empathy is drained at the moment.

*Charlie's feelings were hurt by some not-nice words at school. Moms don't like that sort of thing. He seems to bounce right back, but the words are still in his head and heart.

And for the kicker...

*CCA* lost our document needed (LOI) to process our TA. Can I just cry right now? No wonder our TA has taken so long! Someone signed for the document in their office on Nov. 4th, but no sign of it now. Our agency is going to bat for us tonight (as well as 2 other families) to get it waived. After all, they have a copy of our LOI. But now they want original signatures. If we have to send another one, it could be 6 more weeks.

I think a long hot bath and early bedtime are in order!