Things are BUSY!

This time of year is always busy... especially at our house. (All of our children were winter babies) So we start in November for Ben, Madi and Brooke have birthdays in December, and Connor is the day before our anniversary... in January. What ever do we do for excitement the rest of the year right?!? So here is Brooke with her blackberry and whipped cream cake... She picked that! The morning of her birthday, she grabbed her backpack and was convinced, now that she was five, she got to go to kindergarten when we took Madi to school. That took a little explaining.

This was our first REAL snow fall of the season. We got five or six inches and the kids were in heaven. They were launching themselves off the slide on the deck.

This is the project I did instead of cleaning... It was a joint birthday present for the girls. They call it their reading tent or something like that. As soon as it was hung up they immediately grabbed books and settled down. It has been really FUN. (For Christmas I am making two pink beanbags for their reading corner).

These last two weeks have been... well kind of like... "AHhhhhhh!" I got really sick after we got back from Thanksgiving and then the kids caught it too. As soon as we were better an attack of pinkeye quarantined us again. We are almost over that plague, thank goodness... But a long story short... I was trying to do some fun homeschooling with Madi (she was home most of this week because of the pinkeye). This was our baking soda volcano science project. The kids loved it and making the volcano kept them busy most of the morning.

Christmas gifts or cleaning?

Do you ever have a hard time fitting everything in? Well, even if you don't... I DO! In a regular month I find it challenging to teach my children preschool, help THEM do THEIR chores, clean the house, laundry that never ever ever ever ends, read to them, make a meal or three, do my church calling, maybe fit in a little project here or there... (and what the heck is "me time"?)

So now that the holidays are here the real fun begins. I love to do homemade gifts... and it is really fun now that my kids are older, to teach them how to make gift for their friends and each other. Unfortunately, I don't have a maid or an Alice from the Brady Bunch to help with all the regular stuff. So each day its a, "Hmmm... do I do fun gift making or clean and clean and clean." Tough choice right? Well, the cleaning never stays done anyway, so what the heck.

Hope you are all having a fun filled holiday season!!!