'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and Stacy was Blogging . . .

So, I decided to take a break from all the cooking and general merriment to update all that's been going on over here.

Let's start with Kate. Last week she popped her elbow out of the socket while we were waiting for our turn for tithing settlement at the church. (It's called nursemaid's elbow, and runs in my family.) Poor little girl! We went to the doctor, got her elbow popped back into place, and she wore a splint on it for about 3 days before she pulled it off. It didn't slow her down one bit. She has been helping Dad assemble an entry bench for me, jumping off ottoman's, and running into walls and furniture and laughing with a Santa's hat covering her entire head. What a nut! A lesson I learned during this whole experience is that (1) Kate has a very high pain tolerance and (2) Kate has a very low patience tolerance. She cried harder in frustration at trying to eat her macoroni and cheese with her left hand (and NOT wanting me to help!) than she did when they popped her elbow back into place! Aly and Lise were my big helpers and even carried Kate around on a stretcher . . .

Lise has been really into measurements lately, as demonstrated by the following questions, "Is 600 cents the day we're moving?" and "How many inches does this book weigh?" Also, last Sunday with Lise we had "the incident of the missing tights." Sunday morning Analise couldn't find her tights. So (scamble, search, chaos, we're gonna be late!) Lise ended up wearing socks with her Sunday shoes. Then, as we're sitting in the pew at church Lise says, "Mom, I found my tights!" She pulls them out from under her skirt, where they were securely static clinged. I tell ya, I am losing my mind! (The marbles are already gone.)

Aly had her Christmas program at school which the whole family was able to attend (and I was able to see the two numbers Aly was in before Kate started freaking out and we had to go out.) It was a real treat! I could hear Aly's voice clearly singing "Petit Papa Noel" in French and she did great on "We Three Kings" for the bell choir. I must say, that after all the hype I built up for myself, I was a little disappointed that there were no kazoos. However, there was an awesome Melekelikemaka (Hawaiian) number with some bumper car hula-ing going on that was pretty entertaining.

As for everything else, it's been a lot more Christmas related activities: delivering/receiving Christmas goodies, wrapping christmas presents, having sword fights with empty wrapping paper rolls, cooking food, food, and more food!, cleaning the house (it needed it - bad!), making christmas crafts at playgroup, receiving christmas cards, having a pizza/game night with the Gordon's, and going to see the lights on the river in Nachitoches. The lights were awesome! Nachitoches is where the movie, "Steel Magnolias" was filmed and it was very picturesque. It was 70 degrees outside and there was an awesome fireworks show along with the lights! There was a "snowstorm" made of dishsoap bubbles for the kids to play in, which they loved. The funny part was that Lise wanted to ride in the stroller and Kate didn't - go figure.

So, no snow for us for Christmas, it's 75 degrees today with lots of rain! But instead of hanging our heads in dismay, Chris took the girls on a "sleigh ride" around the neighborhood in the back of his truck.

Well, I guess I better get back to the Christmas Eve feast so that we can eat before midnight. So, just let me say, before I leave this website,

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! :)

A Hodge Podge Blog

Well, I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks, and it isn't because I haven't had anything interesting going on - oh no! It's because I've had SO MUCH going on with the season and what-not that I haven't had time to blog. All the while I've been thinking about all the cute blogs I could write about. But now, sitting here at the computer, I realize that to post each individual thing separately would take way too much time that I don't have. So I'm just going to throw everything in here in a jumble (and hopefully a couple of pics will end up in here) to get caught up and hopefully it's not too dull. Here we go . . .

SNOW DAY

Can you see it? Can you see it?!? We got some snow in Louisiana and so the kids got a day off of school. I had to run outside at 7 am and snag this photo before all the snow melted. :) I realize that other parts of the state got up to 3 or 4 inches of snow, but seriously people! Aly has gotten more days off of school during her first grade year than I did during my entire school career, including 4 years of college! (My personal favorites were when they got half days of school because it was Leesville High School's Homecoming, and another time when the High school went to the playoffs. And that is affecting the elementary school . . . why?!?)

CHRISTMAS PREP

So of course I've been working on Christmas stuff: finishing up Christmas shopping, taking the girls to see Santa (and they asked for things that Santa is even willing to bring - hooray!), wrapping a few presents, and writing/sending out the Christmas letter. If for some reason you did not get my Christmas letter e-mail, give me your e-mail address in the comments and I'll send it to you. :) We also had a Christmas parade come right in front of our house, which was pretty awesome. I don't know how much of the parade the kids actually saw, though. They were too busy looking down to pick up all the candy. Kate's been helping me with my Christmas prep also. She is in love with the Christmas tree and always wants the lights on. She's knocked off/taken down a few of the ornaments, but always hangs them back on. So, the other day, I see that Kate has added a few of her own ornaments to the tree. She put the girl's comb and Aly's headband on the tree. Nice of her to help out. I'd been looking for that comb, by the way.

EXTRA STUFF

On top of the usual hustle and bustle that goes along with this time of year, I've found myself doing a lot of "extra" stuff. Like the dentist. Why did I schedule a dentist appointment in December? I don't know. Next year I'm waiting until January. I also got selected for Jury Duty and was panicking there for a minute. But luckily it was for North Carolina and since I don't live there anymore, I don't have to do it. Phew. My CTR class has sharing time this month, so I've been working on that. Chris and I were able to take the family down to Baton Rouge last weekend for a temple trip, and even though that was busy, the temple is always a nice refresher and helps realign the priorities a bit. Also, I'm once again having car troubles. The plastic thingy that covers my spare tire under the car was hanging down and banging on the road. And now my battery has totally died and the leads have corroded. Chris has been a total champ helping me out with the car on top of his busy schedule - thanks Chris! And on top of everything else, the laundry still has needed to be done, bathrooms needed to be cleaned, and meals needed to be cooked. Doesn't the laundry know I'm busy?!? :)

THINGS THAT ENTERTAIN US ON A SUNDAY

Sundays are an interesting day at the O'Gwin home. Since we don't allow our kids to play with friends or watch movies, some interesting activities emerge to keep the kids amused. I must say that Sunday is often when the girl's imaginations are at their finest. Today, Chris was entertaining the girls by blowing up a balloon and then watching them squeal (yes, squeal) when he let go and it would zoom around the room. Another favorite past time is taking all the pillows off the couches to make huts, slides, or "bridges" with the carpet being the water. Last week, Aly really took the cake. She was dancing to the Mannheim Steam Roller Christmas carols with all sorts of unique choreography that included peeking through our fake trees and incorporating gymnastics moves. Aly also created a "balance beam" from the various step stools we have around the house and the girls played for hours walking along it and jumping off the edge. It was great to watch.

FAMILY UPDATES

Lise has been amazing me at how independent she is becoming. In the past few weeks she has taken it upon herself to learn how to buckle her own seat belt, wash her own hair/give herself a bath, and make her own Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwich (her favorite part is licking the knife).

Kate has started "make believing", which just blows me away. She'll be playing with Barbies and has them say "hello" to each other and has them dance together. She also makes me laugh - this week Chris was pretending to flex and then Kate would make her hands into tight little fists, strain her face muscles as much as possible, and go "rrrr!" She's the amazing hulkette. I tried to get a picture, but of course she only wanted to say "cheese" for the camera. Oh well.

Dutch Oven Thanksgiving

So, I was talking with my sister on the phone and realized that I have had quite a few non-traditional Thanksgivings. There was the time when I lived in Mexico, which doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, obviously, and so I went to a resort with my family over the holiday; the time I spent Thanksgiving at Disneyworld and ate my Thanksgiving dinner in the France portion of Epcot; and the one I spent in the hospital giving birth to Aly. So, in holding with tradition, or non-tradition as the case may be, Chris and I decided to go camping over Thanksgiving weekend. The Gordon's came with us, which was great because it made things a lot more enjoyable, they were a huge help, and we had built in playmates for the kiddos. Chris and I wanted to try out a few things on this camping trip, one of them being dutch oven cooking. Unfortunately something got lost in translation and the Gordon's thought we were experts. Oops! We ended up with a few crispy morsels, but other than that, our Thanksgiving BBQ chicken turned out fabulous.

We had every kind of weather imaginable: the first day it was warm enough for us to let the kids wade in the lake and to try out some fishing. (And yes, that is Kate in a kid leash. She got soaked from head to toe anyway, but at least I didn't have to go in after her and get wet too.) We also were able to go out on a boat for a few hours. On the night we were trying to cook Brats and Hot dogs for dinner, it was pouring rain. But Chris built us an awesome fire that even the rain couldn't put out (with a little help from Kate. She loved squatting down with dad to blow on the fire)! We found out later that we were under a tornado warning . . . hmm, fancy that! We had a tent, but we also had a yurt, in case of inclement weather. I included a picture because, if you're like me, you have no clue what a yurt is! It was my favorite word for the trip - yurt, yurt, yurt. All in all, a really fun trip and I'd love to do it again. Maybe over Spring Break?

Funny O'Gwin Girls and Silly Santa Prep.

Okay, first of all there's funny me, for not realizing that if I videoed (is that even a word?) Aly with my camera sideways, that the movie would be sideways. I've tried multiple things to get the movie rotated to no avail. Just rotate your head to watch it. ;) Thanks.

Secondly we have Aly, who absolutely loves her Hannah Montana guitar, as do her friends. We are finally the "cool house" where the kids want to come play. Thanks for the awesome birthday present, Grandma! The great part about it is that after playing all day with her friends she got a blister on her thumb. I got a good chuckle out of that.

Analise saw a purple truck the other day and just thought that was a hoot because "why does a boy have a purple truck?!?" Good question.

Kate is always running off with stuff or taking off her shoes and leaving them places. But she cracks me up because when I say to her, "Kate where is . . . ?" she goes "uh . . ." like she has to think about it for a second, and then runs off to find it. Also, anytime we see Dora or Disney princesses on anything (and believe me they are on more labels in the grocery store than I'd ever thought possible) she lets out a huge inhale gasp. Um, I think she got that from me.

Also, switching gears a little bit, this year has been very interesting as we've gotten ready for Santa to come visit our house. First off, we broke down and got a fake Christmas tree this year. It's actually been pretty nice and we've got lots of yummy smelling pine cones underneath to create the "real feel". Also, I am never more grateful that we do not have TV in our home than I am at Christmastime. Hooray no commercials for my kids to see stuff they've "just got to have". Even with the catalogs coming to our house it's been bad enough. Analise saw some horses in an American Girls catalog and has been having her ponies play with the ponies in the catalog and asking them why they can't jump out of the magazine. Sad but true. We had to explain to Aly that Santa has to obey copyright laws so that he won't get put in jail, meaning that he can't bring her the High School Musical 3 movie since it hasn't been released yet. Can you imagine Santa doing pirated films? I think not! And for the past two days at lunch Lise has said to me, "I really wish I knew what Santa's mom looked like." Hmm. No idea where that came from.