Christmas Came Early

Because Sara Jane and the family will not be in Indiana this Christmas we exchanged gifts a little early with our kids. I gave Gideon a cute little monkey toy that is supposed to help him crawl and I gave Judah a Thomas the Train belt with cargo holders. Judah loves Thomas and is always carrying trains around. Well his Momma tells him that he can only carry two trains at a time, now he can haul more. He wasn't for sure about the gift when he opened it so I hope he will eventually wear it.

Millie received a Melissa and Doug Food cutting set and Levi got a Wii game. Lego Star Wars.

Thank you Aunt Sara Levi now gets up in the morning, gets dressed, brushes his teeth, eats breakfast, all in record time, just so he can get a little Star Wars Wii action in before school.

I wonder how long it will last.

Not Sure why the pictures are so small.

Leah

To Make You Feel My Love

When the rain is blowing in your face,
And the whole world is on your case,
I would offer you a warm embrace,
To make you feel my love.

When evening shadows and the stars appear,
And there is no one there to dry your tears,
I would hold you for a million years,
To make you feel my love.

I never imagined that we would end up here,
But we will never let you go.
Your love has brought us through a million tears.
And oh how strange to know your gone.

I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue,
I'd go crawling down the avenue,
There is nothing that she would not do,
To make you feel her love.

Your pain is gone and now you've been set free,
from all the suffering in the world,
But in our hearts we will always be,
Our Grandma Jo's little girls.

There is nothing that she wouldn't do,
Go to the ends of the earth for you,
Make you happy, see your dreams come true,
To make you feel her love.

I will always be my grandma and grandpa jo's little girl. I am already missing her so much.

Grandma Jo

Today as my brother and his wife heard the heartbeat of their precious baby for the first time, Grandma Jo' heart made its final beat.

I am still in disbelief and I am having a heard time accepting it. Death does not scare me, but it is just too hard to fathom that Grandma has passed. It is hard to tell your seven year old that his Grandma Jo has died. It is hard to hold you baby boy and let him cry on your shoulder as he experiences death for the first time and knows what it means. It is hard to try and not cry so your innocent one year old doesn't get upset. It is hard not to get home as fast as I can to be with my dad...It is just hard.

Grandma Jo will be missed.

Momma's Shirt

At CMO (where I am a teacher) we are having a secret santa gift exchange for the next three weeks. My secret santa left me this tee-shirt that has reindeer on it and lights up when you touch it.

Of course I wouldn't ever buy this shirt for myself, but to let my santa see me wear it, I wore it today to school, plus it is almost Christmas!!! Now I was very popular with the students. I mean how often does your teacher's shirt light up? and of course Millie Bug loved it too.

Check out her response.

She started this earlier in the day at school without any prompting from me. All the other teachers were dieing laughing.

Santa's Watching U,

Leah

P.S. Millie had just gotten up from her afternoon nap.....but her hair usually does look like this because she will not keep her bow or bands in. (Read Pony-tail blog below)

I can do it

Just to prove to all of you out there that I do know what to do in a kitchen we, Levi and I, baked a Christmas Cake. Levi was very excited to mix, and stir, and add ingredients. If you have a piece of cake and get a little bit of egg shell in your mouth......well lets just say that Levi needs a some more practice on cracking eggs. He likes to sqeeze them and not break them into. But we pressed on and have a pretty good tasting cake. Of course it is hard to mess up a Betty Crocker Boxed cake. All you need is oil, water, and eggs. :)

Levi wanted to do all of the mixing without help. What is a cake without sprinkels.....

or icing?

Our finished product.

The Proud Mr. Levi.

We also baked cookies for the Ladies Christmas Tea at church, and I would like to tell you that I made them from scratch, but you would know that wasn't true. They now have this premixed cookie dough that all you have to do is place on the cookie sheet and bake for 10 min. It is wonderful. The cookies are good too.

Always looking for a shortcut, (in cooking)

Leah

The New House

Finally after months of planning, building, and decorating. Max and Chris have the house of their dreams. A house that fits their family of six.

Friday after Thanksgiving we took Levi over to spend the night. He has been wanting to do this for months now.

Here he is with his buddy/cousin Christopher.

Amelia tries her hand at vacuming with the

central vac system. I want one of those.

Scott Relaxes in the new orange leather chairs. They are really cool and look neat with the brown leather sectional couch.

When we arrived Chris was in the kitchen painting music note cookies that she had baked for her musical themed christmas tree. What is it with my sisters and cooking and craftiness. I am sure that I could have bought musical ornaments somewhere.

Before we could leave Scott and Chris had to get in agame of ping pong. The Seniours are very serious ping pong players. Forest Gump has nothing on this family.

Black Friday

It all starts at 6pm Thanksgiving evening at Aunt Toots house. The family gathers bringing all their ads. First you must say the pledge with Uncle Joe. Then a note taker is assigned and the planning begins. Uncle Joe will take the notes this year. Third you must go figure out what times the stores open. 4am, 5am, 6am, 7am. Finally you go through the ads one store at a time a tell the note taker, uncle Joe, what you want from that store. Razor, jeans, digital camera, game, crockpot, lcd television, crayola beginnings were just some of the items on our compiled list. Finally you must decide your plan of shopping action. Tammy will drop Joe off with Andrea at Staples while she goes to walmart then she will pick them up head to sears and finally off to Kokomo or Muncie to get to Menards before all the bargains are gone.

Here is Tammy beatting the crowd. No hip action or door beating down needed this year. We were the only ones there.