Santa!

I love taking the kids to see Santa, and I just knew this year would be a great picture since last year Annie did relatively well.  She was not having it this year.  Jacob asked for a Wii and Gwyn asked for a snowflake again.  Annie wouldn't even look at him.  I just love looking at these pictures, I've got all the previous years framed, and I set them out each year at Christmas....here are pictures from previous years (2011 - relatively calm):

2010...poor Annie:

2009...poor Gwyn:

 2008...poor Gwyn:

2007...poor Jacob:

 2006...relatively calm Jacob:

Jacob's first grade class went to the zoo this week, and I signed up to chaperon.  I was a bit jealous of the moms of girls who were watching their girls hold hands and skip together, while I had 5 boys of whom liked to burp and run as far ahead of me as possible.  It was pretty entertaining to watch the look on their face as the sweet girls were posing for a picture with a metal giraffe sculpture, when all of the sudden all of our boys ran over,started climbing all over it, and making tooting noises with their armpits.  We hit the entire zoo in about 2 hours, then went back to the reptile house about 3 times.  Nice, I just love snakes!

I think next year I'll sign up to chaperon the play!

 Brian's vessel, the DB-50 was docked in Galveston for the first time ever, so we went down to take a tour.  The kids were pretty excited about it...especially since they gave them ice cream at the end:

 Quite a big boom!

 My lil engineers!

Gwyn with her face painted:

 While we were down in Galveston, we checked out the Moody Gardens Festival of Lights...pretty much a 1 mile walking path with tons of lights decorated.

 Gwyn wanted to hug Jacob, Jacob wanted nothing of it.

I took the kids to see a small theater production of Beauty and the Beast since my friend Julie's kids were in it.  Gwyn absolutely loved it (even though she wasn't feeling well), and Annie was so good.  She basically stared, open-mouthed the entire time.  It was so cute!

 Nicholas was Chip:

 Brian took Jacob on an overnight cub scout camping trip.  Of course I don't have any pictures, but he had a great time.  Built a fire, went hiking, found bugs, played soccer with flashlights, ate smores, and apparently danced in front of the entire pack when it was his Den's entertainment section...lovely!  I took the girls to a friends house where we decorated cookies, ate pizza and made some crafts...can you guess which snowman is Annie's?

 Brian was in Norway all week, there were a couple of nights where Kong Kong didn't move (oops), but I tried to make up for it other nights...here he is trying to fly away in the balloons:

 Upside down with marshmallows in his armpits:

 He left out special plates with marshmallows shaped in the first letter of their names:

 Riding Gwyn's my little pony:

 She is cute, but she is ornery!

 I got called to school saying that Annie was sick, so I left my spot while I was waiting to get my car inspected and raced to go get her.  She was laughing jumping up and down, and I said are you sick?  She said, "No."  My little  goose.  I was a little upset with her and took her home with me, I tried to just go ahead and take Gwyn, but she didn't want to go.  She did end up waking up about 2 nights later in the middle of the night with ear pain, and I had to take her in on Thursday...sure enough an ear infection, boo!

 Love this picture!

 Yes, we are Houstons and this is how we dress when it gets below 60.

 My neighbor gave us a pool chemical bucket full of grapefruits from her tree.  They were awesome and I juiced them all in hopes of kicking this sinus infection that I've had since the first of November on my own...no such luck...a visit to the ENT and now I'm on another round of antibiotics...boo!

 Here is a picture of my sweeties before Santa:

 This is what Annie did while I was in the shower...

 I took Jacob to an owl prowl with his Tiger Cubs group at the nature sanctuary by our house.  We went at night with our flashlights and looked for Screech owls.  We had hot chocolate and then he dissected an owl pellet, and to his delight found rat bones!  He then put them in a ziploc bag and put them in my purse to take home.  He did not zip the zip loc bag and so I had to dig those rat bones out of my purse later that night.  Nice.

 Christmas art:

 Sweet little Gwyn was sick all weekend, but thankfully she is all better!

Funny things the kids said this week:

Annie (crying hysterically):  Jacob said I'm on the naughty list.

Annie:  Is that my coffee?  I need one.

Gwyn (told this to a friend's family at their house):  Jacob is the burper in our family and I'm the tooter.

Annie (asks Brian on the way home from school):  Can I have a boyfriend?  Atticus said he's my boyfriend.

Jacob (after I told him Annie was 3 and to let it go after he tattled on her  for something):  Mommy, that is something a 2 year old would do, not a 3 yr old.  Annie is 3, she knows better.

Annie:  Mommy, how do you spell Atticus?  (later)  How do you spell I love you?

December has arrived!

How quickly time passes, December has arrived once again and we've got 3 kids who are SO excited for Christmas!  Our house is decorated, our 4 trees are up, the lights outside are up (with surprisingly very little grumbling from Scrooge Brian), and we're working on 8 advent calendars...yes, I said 8.  Jacob, Gwyn and Annie each have their own little chocolate box, they each have a lego calender to open and build each day, we have one larger advent calendar, and this year we are reading a Christian advent calendar telling the Christmas story and lessons each night of the month.  I have sealed and stamped Christmas cards, which are  going out tomorrow, but here are some of the pictures from Purple Pear Photography who took pictures of the kids this year:

 Annie had this smile on her face for about 75% of the photos, nice:

 My little boy is so grown up!

 Sweetest. Thing. Ever.

 My little baby bumpkin, LOVE HER!

 Annie is such a little riot.  She HAD to wear this tiara to Smashburger when Brian was out of town and I was too worn out to cook:

 We had a fun day Sunday afternoon and took the kids to see Rise of the Guardians, such a cute little movie about how Santa, the Easter bunny and the Tooth Fairy work together to protect the kids...Annie chose to wear her Dora dress-up:

 This little stinker was on her 3rd, YES, 3rd book of Christmas stamps when I got out of the shower.  I managed to salvage 7 stamps...I'll have to remind her she owes me about $25 when she is 18!

 She is crazy about books, and I find her all the time "reading" out loud and making up stories that go with the pictures.  I'm going to have to try to get a better video, she usually stops or starts acting goofy when I catch her:





Gwyn is such a little sweet heart, here she is being goofy showing off her freshly painted nails...she got to go with a little friend to the nail salon and get her fingers and toes painted...yes, she is 4!

Jacob has a little friend at school who is from "Japanese."  His little friend is always making him these cool origami things and he came home from school one day and said he wanted to make a ninja star.  Well, I googled, "how to make a ninja star."  Surprisingly, there is this awesome 8 minute video that tells you step by step how to do it, and he and I both made several.  He was pretty proud of both of us, about day 3 of this he started being a pretty tough critic, telling me things like "this is bad Mommy, you need to watch the video again" and "this folding is awful" and "you are really not good at that."  I pretty much told him that I'm SURE that Daddy would be amazing at this and why doesn't he ask him as soon as he gets home from work.  We ended this 4 day origami craze with what he said was "this is your best one ever Mommy!"  Whew!  I'm proud to say that Brian didn't even attempt a ninja star, and I impressed Jacob on my own (with google's help!)

Kong Kong is back in the house!  He's swiped one of Jacob's ninja stars already!

He tried to sneak some m&m's inside the french press coffee maker!  I'm sure he'll be up to no good in the coming weeks and will probably get a post all to himself!!

We had a sitter one night for a party (oh yes, we were out until 10:30 pm, ha!) at Jason's house and came home to this.  Sweet Jacob asleep by the Christmas tree:

Jacob and I went on a Mommy/Son date to a small dance company's production of The Nutcracker.  Jacob had a great time.  They served punch and dessert at tables and the stage was right in front of our table.  At one point after the fight between the Nutcracker and the Rat Prince, the Nutcracker is laying on the floor (kind of like he is hurt but not moving), and Jacob says, "He's not dead!  I can see him breathing!"  He was pretty into it, but when Brian asked him what he liked best when he got home, he said the food.  Nice.

My mom showed the kids how to make snowflakes and paper dolls, this has become an obsession here and my house is constantly filled with these creations:

I had to put in a few of Jacob's book he did in school, he's studying America:

I love it, "The flag is speshull!"  It really is pronounced exactly like he spelled it!

I had to put Annie's angel from school in, she traced it all by herself!

 Gwyn's class was studying the Three Little Pigs, she loved retelling us the story:

Funny things the kids said this week:
Me to Annie after I could smell deodorant on her:  Did you eat it?
Annie:  No
Me:  I can smell it on your face.  Where did you put it?
Annie:  On my mustache.
Jacob to Brian when he came home from work (the kids had put a whoopie cushion under a blanket in a chair...nice party favor, that thing has been continuous entertainment for my kids):  Come on in Daddy, why don't you sit down and relax.  (Not obvious at all buddy)
Me to Gwyn:  Do you want me to fix your hair?
Gwyn:  No, I want it crazy.
Annie:  Where is my bible?  I need God's word.
Jacob when we drove by a house with lots of Christmas lights:  Those must have cost fifty bucks.  They must be rich to have all those lights.
Gwyn:  Do you know  why I'm so smart?
Me:  Because you pay attention in school?
Gwyn:  No, I eat lots of smarties!
Annie:  My beard itches.
Annie to Brian:  You look handsome today.
Annie to Brian when she was getting in trouble for hitting Gwyn with a sword...a play sword:  I want Mommy.
Brian:  Mommy would be spanking your bottom right now.
Annie:  I don't want Mommy anymore.