Merry Christmas! . . .

Just woke up in our four-year old's, too-small, toddler bed (yes, she was there too, ha, after book/songs/prayers I zonked).  It's 10:46p.m.  But, dog-gone-it, I told myself I was going to post a Christmas pic, and THAT is what I am going to do! So, let's take a look see . . . 

The photo SP was able to capture after church this morning.

One of about twenty-five pics I have that will make a fun collage, or something, someday, but that don't really fit the bill for a Christmas day picture.

I tried again later tonight for a Christmasy little shot but I don't think this one really fit the bill either.  Although, the owner of the skeleton thought this would make a great Christmas card photo for next year.  Is there any wonder I haven't been "checked in" yet???!!!

So, yes, some fun and games and crazy making were had, as is typical for this crew, but our hearts were completely filled with the joy that is perfectly summed up in this song . . . 




ENDNOTE:
Warning, this is not a Christmas story.  Come back tomorrow if you'd like to end this post on a good note . . . 
Setting: Tonight during bedtime stories.
Livia:  The Little Mermaid can't go poop or pee.
Me:  Why not?
Livia:  She doesn't have a bum.
Me: Well, she has the bottom half like a fish and God made fish to be able to poop and pee.
Livia: Hmmmm, well…she's a PRINCESS.
Me: Oh, so she doesn't poop or pee?
Livia: That's right!!

Um. . . Happy Spring???

Howdy! Yes, we are still here doing all the fun pre-Christmas activities. Well, except our annual trip to Greenfield village's Holiday Nights due to torrential rain and a stomach bug for two. But, you wouldn't know that judging by this blog, would ya? Not getting much posting done this year. I feel both behind schedule and ahead of schedule (I actually wrapped a couple presents and it's not Christmas Eve!!), this year. Sent my Christmas cards Saturday, just before the 1pm pickup, with another small batch to go out today, Wowza. Truth be told, I almost got sucked into the dark side of technology, reasoning that a snail mail card wasn't necessary. Whew, that was a close one, haha! I'm glad to have made and sent one, I LOVE "real" mail.

So, in effort to blog something, and not wanting to power up my laptop that keeps overheating so I "shut down" at night, I clicked a cute pic of SP with a Santa hat on, drinking coffee, kicked back in a chair on his computer. Came to my phone to post it and...Ta-Da...can't access my phone photos, regardless of how many time I click on the button "photos on phone." Hahaha!! (That is not happy laughter, ha!)  But, somehow, this little technological wonder is offering me the choice of three pictures, one of Fisbee the elf on top of the Christmas tree or two that Google + pulled together for me in some weird animation type thing. And yep, that's what I went with . . .

(This effort just took me a half hour!)

Might not feel like it now but green grass and flowery skirt-wearing weather is JUST around the corner. 

Clicking right along . . .

Yep, the tricky elf has arrived!

No one can remember his name, he didn't make a showing last year.  Thanks to the ol' blog though, we've got the answer!  So this year, while I can't even finish straightening up the kid-decorated tree, I've got three elves prancing around the house for various reasons.  One, (Fisbee), finding a new hiding spot some nights (no way do these antics happen nightly!), one, (Quizzy), asking Christmas related questions, and one, (Fuzzy), catching us by surprise with little pranks.  

In our house, this elf concept really has nothing to do with Christmas.  We don't say they're watching the kids for Santa or any of that business, kinda like this Christmas Pickle thing I've heard about over the years (but don't do). Really nothing to do with Christmas, but a fun, little the thing the kids find entertaining.  I'm pretty sure (actually, I know, 'cause I've asked them (-:), with our advent readings, Christian teachings in school, Christmas programs, church/advent services, our emphasizing at home, that our kids know by now what the celebration of Christmas is for.

And, yay, we got a good bit of snow over the weekend.

Nothing compared to this season in the Yoop so far, but a nice start for us.

Here's hoping the rain I heard about for mid-week doesn't materialize!

They're ba-aaaaack . . .

Fisbee!

Quizzy!

Slowly but surely around here we're getting prepped for Christmas. These guys showed up last night, our tree showed up Saturday afternoon and was decorated Monday night. Christmas videos and music have been playing since after Thanksgiving. Advent readings have been taking place during dinner since last week, that's a new addition to the season for us, and a GREAT one! William has such a look of pride on his face when he reads the closing prayer, LOVE that!  So, slowly but surely, I think we'll have it all put together in the next…how many hours???

(-:

Number 2, Part 2 . . .

Here's our #2 again, fresh off his first bball tournament.  And, well look at that, they came out CHAMPS of the whole thing!  So far they're 7-2 in their season and 4-2 in their conference.  One of the games was such a nail bighter last week that I can not believe this is only 5th/6th grade basketball.  I remember having the same thought when I watched Lara play 5-8th grade ball, "What am I ever going to do when they play in high school? I'm going to need a sedative!!" 

There's our boy now during warm ups.

Just look at that form!

Oh, and, their warm up t-shirt isn't really all that splotchy, I just took off school names.

Thought this was a cool pic from my court side seat.

Finally, a bit of writing from our bball player.  The question he had to answer was something like, "Write a hypothesis of what you think might come next in the book. Then support your answer." (Yeah, I know that's not a question, I'm tired…busy Messiah week/weekend (-:). I loved how he supported his hypothesis of what he thinks is going to happen next in the book, hahaha!

They're currently reading The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe in his class.  He's read it a few times already, he's a fast and voracious reader.  Loves, loves, loves reading.  Doesn't have much time for hypothesizing though!

(-:

Have a great week!

No. 2 . . .

Started his first school basketball season a couple weeks ago.  He's played four-ish games now, I'm pretty sure.  It's a 5th/6th grade team so he doesn't get the most playing time, be he does get in a bit more than some.  He finally scored his first basket last Tuesday.

There's that #2 preparing for a round on the court with his teammates.  He's always seemed like a basketball player to me, we'll see how far he goes with it. One thing's for sure, he really enjoys it.  Chats our ear off about the game the whole ride home afterward about every little detail, and he catches them all.  Fun to hear his enthusiasm…and I understand what he's talking about a LOT better than the Pokemon conversations!!  Here's to years to come of this boy on the courts!

In other news…So, yes, I Facebook.  And, these days people are on there all decorated up for Christmas.  Tree, check!  Lights, check! Christmas card picture taken and ordered, check!  Oh my goodness.  I'm like, "Uh, I've just been able to turn my calendar page to December." Come On!

(-:

Reverse Hide and Seek . . .

In the dark!

(also known as "sardines")

This crew took the "in the dark" part pretty seriously and got dressed in all black. Well, most of the crew.  Yes, one is missing.  He was NOT FOND of the "in the dark" part AT ALL! He played checkers in the bedroom with SP.

But then, just as we were about to be finished for the night, he popped out and wanted to play.  He went and changed and everything, haha! What an absolute hoot we had playing this game.  And, although I requested that my Facebook friends please call ahead and reserve us a room in the ER for attempting to play such a game in the DARK, we only had two calamities.  One demolished (new, ugh!!) bunny house (no bunny was residing in it at the time, whew) and one tipped over plant.

I've since discovered, upon finding a definition of "sardines" to link you to, that people have actually attempted to play this in the mall or even at Walmart.  Now that sounds funny.  I had just thought of playing in our woods to amp it up a bit…might need to wait a few years on that, 'specially IN THE DARK, ha!

And now . . .

It's Thanksgiving Again!!

Whew, wasn't it just Thanksgiving?

And, Christmas?

And, Summer Vacation?

The Start of School?

Halloween?

And, zip, here we are again…

A time of great Thanks!

I'm torn between the two . . . 

I wasn't this year's "brown chair" picture taker.  I was taking four and a half minutes to get ready after prepping my last few contributions to our great meal.  So, yes, we have a crooked photo and my well-covered fridge front in the background but we also have an assembly of five of the best kids that I am eternally grateful for!

 I'm thinking that the character in the middle just can't be beat in this one!

(-:

"Did ya like it, or did you get a headache?" . . .

Question asked at the end of yesterday's mini-mystery trip to a percussion ensemble concert.  Yep, all percussion, all the time, wowza! I have two percussionists in the house now so thought that'd be a fun little Sunday afternoon trip while others went to yet another hockey game.  We grabbed another percussionist friend and headed out for an hour of drumming in concert.  

And boy, am I loving the mystery trip concept.  Nothing but excitement in the air on the way with all the guessing and wondering…and none of the, "Awwww, I don't wanna go there" business.  Haha!  Even if they ever end up not liking one of my trips, I still won't have to deal with the complaining beforehand and after I can just say, "Well, ya win some ya lose some." (-:

(Everyone loved yesterday's trip!)

"Happy Birthday to us" . . .

Happy Birthday to Us!

Yep, the day of many birthdays has arrived again.  And our little fairy princess has turned four, wow-wee-wow-wow!

 The story behind these cupcakes is pretty cute.  We, of course, had a weekend jam-packed with stuff and she has been excited for about six months about having a birthday party "with friends," as she put it. So, I wracked my brain to find a time to squeeze that in.  Welp, that ended up being right after church on Sunday, loaded the "friends" (siblings of her closest brother mostly) in the big, white van after the last hymn and away we went for a party at the house with bagels and cupcakes! (-:  Upon realizing what my weekend looked like I suggested to Liv that this year we might just need to pick her absolute favorite cupcakes from the store instead of making a cake.  She looked rather taken aback at the suggestion (can you imagine?? (-:) and said, "Ok, this year cupcakes…next year a cake, deal?" Yep, that's our girl!

Awwww, isn't she just a sweetie???

Today, the "real" birthday day…on which she could not imagine why something spectacular was not happening…she did end up getting a fun surprise.  Aunt S. dropped by with her latest knitting creations and Livia LOVES them!  She's been refusing to wear her winter coat because it's too bulky, so this is the perfect solution for just going from house to car and stuff, in addition to just being gorgeous pieces.

And then, Happy Birthday to Me!

I found "new" free junk on the side of the road!!!

Oh my gosh, a rose and a tulip chair, can you even imagine??

They are going to be absolutely PERFECT out by the fire pit, they just need a little polishing up…some day…hahaha.  No, seriously, pound a couple nails to tighten things up and they're good to go. Call me crazy, but I'm pumped!

And to end the day, SP and I snuck off for a little dinner and came home to the other birthday girl having one last little party...

Hahaha!!!

Knock, Knock, Knock . . .

"We need your son's towel for the bio-hazard bag."

Um…yeah, just at standard day in Pierceadventures Land.

Sorry, no pics.

Day off of school today, no power anywhere…well, there was power at the Y, so mid-morning we took a trip over for a little swim.  Well, three boys, in a pool whatdya expect to happen but for the youngest one to get a whopping bloody nose and for EVERYONE in the pool to have to evacuate.

Yeah…that kinda day!

(-:

Mystery Trips . . .

 Now that's pretty mysterious wouldn't you say???

I recently heard of a friend's dad that used to take them on Mystery Trips when they were growing up.  I LOVE that idea. I mean, we make many of these kinds of outings anyway, but how fun to call them Mystery Trips.  We had our first two last week and there was an electric excitement in the air that sure wouldn't have been there had I said, "OK, kids . . . today we're going to the . . . "

 Henry Ford Museum!

But oh, did they have fun trying to guess, and figure out clues on the way, sure added a fun new twist to one of our outings.  I chose the Henry Ford for the boy's day off of school on Friday because someone had facebooked about a cool Avatar exhibit there.  It was  cool (while I found the actual movie ridiculous, even fell asleep watching it, the technology was neat), but the almost four year old was whiny and that kinda took away from really being able to engage with the boys.  We had good fun though and they were glad to have gone.

Now, Lara had the day off last Tuesday and while I thought of this great trip and that great trip that I'd like to take, it suddenly hit me (fortunately) to think about some place LARA would like to go (-:  And I NAILED IT . . . 

We hit THEE swankiest mall in the state!

And she was wide-eyed and drop-jawed in glee the entire time!!

And the almost-four year old??? She much preferred the stores with fancy dresses and fountains to a museum with old cars, planes and blue aliens! Such a fun day walking around and taking it all in.  We all enjoyed our own meals from different restaurants in the food court (I did Chinese, Lara did Italian and Liv did American…grilled cheese (-:) and Lara scored a little shirt and glow in the dark nail polish from Urban Outfitters…which coincidentally is the one store we have locally, haha! And no one came home with a Louis Vuitton hand bag, haha . . .

Here's to many more mystery trips!

Which came first . . .

The chicken or the egg?

In many cases these days the chicken for dinner and the egg for breakfast get prepared at exactly the same time (around 10:30a.m.-ish…I am not an early eater, absolutely never feel hungry before 10:30 at the earliest).  So, yes, our afternoons/evenings are crazy enough sometimes that it makes a world of difference to have that dinner conquered or at least partially conquered, as was the case today, before the afternoon.

Today was a delightful chicken tortellini soup that was new to us all.  I make a pretty mean chicken noodle soup if I do say so myself, but I've never done tortellini in this fashion.  Turned out great with raves from the people that actually eat my dinners (that would NOT include the child hiding peanut butter and honey under that bathroom sink!).  The only different thing about this recipe is in the ingredients list it called for 1/2 cup water and in the written part it said to add vermouth, I think they intended that for the 1/2 cup water part maybe? I didn't add vermouth, I added a 1/2 cup chicken broth.  Also, while reading various recipes before choosing this one, I saw someone say to soak the chicken.  Wow, great idea!!  I've never been pleased with the taste of cooked, cubed chicken, so what geniusness to soak it first for flavor.  One place had it soaking again in vermouth (what's up with that?), so I just soaked it in this awesome chicken stock paste stuff that you mix with water, then I also cooked it in a mixture of the same stuff.  It made a great difference.

I wanted to be sure to save this recipe because lately, I come to dinner prep time and I draw a complete blank.  Like I've never cooked before, ha!  I'm like, "I have absolutely no idea what to make today, what do people like, what can I cook?" It's kinda crazy because I've made so many things, but they don't easily come to mind.

Anyhoo . . . this one's a keeper!

Oh.My.Goodness!!! . . .

Should you ever find yourself grocery shopping on a late Monday night after choir (AGAIN), and should you stumble upon

THESE,

You just absolutely MUST buy them!!!

The End.

More bathroom stories and a lamp . . .

 Me:  "Liv, could you go rinse off your paint brushes?"

Liv:  "OK."

So, in that exchange did you read anything about also painting the bathroom mirror with the paint brushes? No? Yeah…me neither!!!

(-:

And now…The Lamp…

We have lighting issues in our living room.  Well, truth be told, we have lighting issues in our family (aka, lamps breaking), but we don't need to go there tonight. (-: So, tonight, while taking back a red box video and looking for a plant tray, I bought a floor lamp to solve the problem of no light by one of the couches.

Oh brother!!!

Not the best $20 bucks I ever spent at Walmart, but it did give us all a good laugh thinking about sitting on the couch with the lamp on your head, hahaha!

I finally looked at the directions and it's missing a link (heehee), but the links come already with the cord strung through them so it couldn't have just fallen somewhere…well, actually, it's probably on some assembly line floor in China.

Hair dryer, Shampoo, dopp kit and . . .

Peanut Butter and Honey!

Pretty standard stuff under a bathroom sink, dontcha think??!!

(-;

Intended photo needs editing . . .

So, we'll go with this instead:

(-:

Let's wrap up these outtakes . . .

Boy, that was a fun time.  Gonna have to try to remember having a night to just play with the costumes bins before Halloween.  Quickly going to be losing one or two along the line here that won't probably want to join in on the fun. )-: 

And now . . . it's NOVEMBER!!!

Zip!

Rain, rain, go away . . .

But it never did.

We managed to have a soggy ol' good time anyway.

And, no one even wore any of the raincoats I brought!

This year: Dressy witch with a wig and glasses, two colorful face creatures, spidey and a ballerina princess in fish rain boots!

My favorite part this year were the outtakes . . . 

 Last night we had the Halloween bins finally brought up from the basement and all the kids had such a hoot mixing and matching.  Too tired now to pull 'em all up, hopefully tomorrow...

Crazy clown mouse above had all his candies sorted soon after the big dump.

This is my favorite pile!

Oh. My. Goodness.

!!!!!

By the time we got to this point in the night I knew things would be swirling out of control any minute and the operation needed to be shut down, quickly packed, headed home and got kids in bed!

(-:

Five Pumpkins and a Rock . . .

 The $2.49 one won't stand up without the rock.

Note to self, splurge on the $4.99 ones, haha!

Can you believe people pay like $30 for these size pumpkins right from the field?

Yeah, that's not us.

(-:

  

Oh boy, what good can possibly come from this???

 Psyche!

Whew!

Sunday was pumpkin carving day around here.  Sadly, the two eldest didn't get into it and two pumpkins remain uncarved.  Homework, hockey, busy, )-:

But, the oldest of the trio above was totally motivated that afternoon and had on his mind roasting his pumpkin seeds over the fire.  He was 100% determined to make that happen and he did it.  Gutted his pumpkin, washed his own seeds, seasoned them himself with what I set out for him (sunflower oil, salt, garlic powder), got his fire started and set up the tripod grill.

After being surprised by how quickly they cooked and having some burning issues he got the swing of things and roasted some tasty seeds.  What a fun experiment and learning experience for him!

Today I took the morning off to answer emails, make some phone calls,  waste time on Facebook and post over here because I've been uber busy, on the the go lately. Now it's 10:25 and our (my gal Liv and I) plans are to clean the house and bring the Halloween costumes up from the basement. Good thing is I'm pretty sure that four of the kids are already all set, got two colorful masks for boys #1 & 2 from Kroger to be worn with all black clothes, actually bought a full costume (Spiderman) BRAND NEW (wowza) for boy #3 since it was at my latest discount store Aldis, Liv is set with her beloved Cinderella dress and I haven't quite gotten if our highschooler is going but she'll figure that out herself.  Looking to be an easy year this year for no costume drama...

yikes...

maybe I shouldn't have written that!

(-:

The sky was just on fire tonight . . .

 "That is soooo beautiful." said Liv

(-:

Thought this one was kinda a cool Halloweeny picture.

You can probably just tell but these haven't been edited at all, they're just straight from the ol' iPhone.  Would be neat to take time to edit and see if I couls make the colors pop or the contrast sizzle in some way...but alas, it's 11:04p.m. after a day that started with the 8a.m. service (ah, the life of a hockey family), so...no editing!

Have a great week!

Lately . . .

She's been proclaiming herself "King of the . . . " (fill in the blank).

Rock!

Haystack!

She may not be King of the World but around this house she certainly is the reigning princess.  This morning she rose from bed already dressed in her most favorite princess dress, seems about right since she went to sleep in it!  Why, here she is now helping me bake the other day . . . 

Queen of the kitchen!

(-: