You would think.....

Seriously, you would think that we have been living in some warmer part of the world for years. (like our cousins Mason and Mackenzie) We woke up to literally a DUSTING of snow and the girls went wild. Lauren spotted it first, then had to wake Emma up to tell her. It was as if Santa had come or something.

Good thing we have been sick with the puke stuff instead of bad colds or I would have put a stop to the "frolicking" out in the cold. It took us longer to get the girls dressed up than they actually played outside. Emma tried to make a snowman but she decided maybe she needed more snow. Here are the two clowns. Looks like something off of A Christmas Story.

Check out the massive amount of snow. :)

Here's baby girl in her Santa's helper hat.

And, we broke out yet another toy to clutter our main room. Oh well!

Marina decided to look at a book for awhile.

And finally, a big thank you to grandma for making our fireplace complete. How cute are these.....

Happy Thanksgiving !

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our family and friends. I have to start off with the fact that I/we have SO many things to be thankful for.

Wonderful family

great friends

overall health

3 wonderful girls

an outstanding husband

two great jobs

etc.etc.etc.

I am not a very sappy person, especially on my blog but this list could go on and on. :)

I just finished watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and realizing how fun it would be to be there in person.

Well....it wouldn't be the holidays without sick kids. Right now, I am home with Lauren and Marina. Dave and Emma went to his mom's for thanksgiving dinner. (I'm not even hungry.) :)

Lauren was up throwing up half the night and Marina Claire has a horrible cold, so she too was literally up most of the night. Thus, they are both sleeping right now and I have time to blog.

I am thankful though for our other Thanksgiving celebration and "tree getting" last Sunday. I am thankful for my awesome husband who can handle puke like a champ while I am gagging and heaving. We certainly are praying that we don't all "get it."

Here are just a couple of pics from last Sunday.

Miscellaneous

First of all, thanks everyone for the prayers for mom. Surgery went great and she is on a perkoset high big time. Now dad can deal with drugged up people like mom has many times with him. ;) Emma and I stopped over there tonight and mom went on and on and on about how great EVERYTHING is. Dad told her to be careful because she might "smile herself to death." It was quite comical though.

Emma obviously was also praying for grandma. How precious is this little prayer request that she brought home from school. Let me know if anyone can't decifer it and I will let you know what it says. Just sound it out and you'll get it. :)

Marina fell asleep this evening and Dave stuck her in the laundry basket. I think he didn't want to get up to put her anywhere else.

I went to SuperTarget today and got stuck looking at the dollar bins. That area kills me. Anyway, I was so excited to find this cute little onesie for Marina for Christmas. It was only 2 bucks. Of course I had to get it. I get it home to show Dave and there were no snaps on the bottom of it. Turns out I bought a shirt for a dog. :) :) So, Emma and I dropped it off over at our friend Tom's house. They have a little dog that looks like Toto. Maybe it will fit her. Oh well, it was good for a laugh.
Here's a cute pic of the girls and daddy watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. Dave and I love watching it too. Snoopy serves toast, popcorn, pretzels and jelly beans. :) See that gap in the stockings? We are patiently waiting for Marina's stocking that grandma is making. It will probably be best if grandma doesn't try to complete it while high on pain pills.

What a day!

We certainly had a terrific day! We celebrated Thanksgiving a little early this year. Dave fried a turkey and it was wonderful along with all the wonderful other food. Thanks uncle Mel for hanging out at the turkey fryer, sorry about the grease on your shirt. :)

Our turkey frying activity took a little longer than planned and thanks to our patient family things ended up just fine. :)

Then we all went to pick out that perfect Christmas tree. What a fun tradition.

Apparently when Uncle Mel and Aunt Kathy's tree was cut, a little family of mice scurried out of there and one I guess ran right over Katie's shoe. :)

Anyway, we pulled into the driveway with it strapped to the top of the minivan and both of our neighbors yelled, "hey Griswolds!!" We got a rather tall tree this year and it is beautiful. We needed a skinny tree for out room and ended up with a skinny and tall one too. Thanks to grandpa for coming over to "hang out" with Marina, the other two girls and I got it decorated. I should have taken a picture of it after they put the ornaments on. Lauren had her little section of where to hang them and Emma put hers all in a certain area too. After they went to bed, I spread them all out all over the tree.

Mr.Mom

While I was at work today dealing with some serious "freakshows," Dave was taking care of business here. I got called in to work at 5:30 this morning and didn't get home 'till 6:30 tonight.

Seriously he is an amazing husband and father. Anyway, he got home this morning at 4:30 in the morning, then had to get up at 7 and get Emma ready for school. Thanks to good old grandpa for coming over so he could get a nap. He did laundry, dishes etc. then had to pick up Emma from school. He stopped at the store and got some groceries with all three girls. (something that I won't even attempt) I had promised the girls yesterday that we would make a cake tonight. The girls love the website http://www.howdini.com/ because they demonstrate on there how to make these really cool cakes like Emma's flip flop cake that we made for her birthday. I promised to make the "bluejeans" cake with them.

Anyway, I got stuck at work and asked Dave to try to get the cake baked and chilled then I would be home to decorate it. Well, Emma pulled up the website and Dave watched all the directions :) and finished the whole thing. So when I got home, it was done and better yet all ready to eat. It turned out adorable and I'm so proud of him to even try it!!!

Here are a couple of pics of the proud girls and there cake. Check out the website to see the "bluejeans cake."

Good job daddy!!!

UGH!!!

Ok, seriously, the below two posts took me WAY to long to accomplish, so there you go. I can't even take it anymore. Anyway, Emma's class organized mass on Tuesday and it was so cute. Emma had a little singing part and we practiced it so much around the house that Lauren even memorized it. For some reason, I can't figure out how to type stuff and post a video on the same entry, but it worked with Emma's. ugh!

My singers

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

My singers

I have worked and worked to get this posted....ugh! Anyway, Emma's class had to plan mass on Tuesday and she had a special little verse that she got to sing for the school. It was so cute. Obviously, she is a little nervous with the whole fixing her hair thing, but she did a great job.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Can't win

Sometimes I seriously can't win with Emma. :) Today I scheduled the girls' flu shots for tomorrow and this year they can both get the flu mist stuff (as long as insurance will cover it) Anyway, Emma got in the truck after school and I was excited to tell her that we were getting flu shots tomorrow except they weren't shots! I waited for her "happy" response like any other NORMAL child. BUT NO, not my Emma. She was seriously MAD at me for ordering her the mist and not the shot!! UGH!!!!! Maybe she'll "get lucky" and I'll find out tomorrow that insurance won't cover the flu mist and she'll have to get a shot!

We got Marina's 3 month pics taken last week and boy was that not fun. The picture place that I used to LOVE has turned into a nightmare to say the least. We were there for over 2 hours as they were backed up again!!! Marina was not in the mood come picture time as she had been up for quite awhile. Luckily we got one good pic of her. The other good news is since the pics didn't turn out that good, I didn't spend too much $ on them.

What a crew!

Just a pic this entry. Not much else new except today is Saturday which means Husker football and another birthday party for Emma. :)

First grade drama

I definitely need to take a break from the election coverage, so I figured I would blog about some first grade drama. :)

Maybe it will put a smile on someone's face on a night like this.....

Emma got in the car after school and told me that she was a little upset because her school friend "Lauren" lied. She went on to explain that her "reading partner" switched to "Lauren" and used to be "Allison." Lauren asked her if she liked her better than Allison as a reading partner. Emma told me that she tried to tell Lauren that she liked both of them but according to Emma, "Lauren said I couldn't say both....I had to pick one." Apparently Lauren "promised" that she wouldn't tell anyone who Emma picked. Emma told me that she told Lauren that she was her favorite "reading partner" but then Lauren told Allison what she said. OH BOY!! So
ow who knows who is mad at who. Atleast they kept their little drama to themselves and apparently none of them got in trouble. I don't see boys having these kind of issues. I told Emma to go to school tomorrow and be friendly to both of the girls and not to talk about it anymore. Goodness!!

Then, at dinner time she told me that she no longer sits next to "Deland." (a boy in her class) She said that almost everyone got to switch desks. She said that she is glad because Deland is "always trying" to hug her. :) I asked her why and Lauren chimed in, "Emma, Deland likes you." (how funny is that) Emma said that her teacher hasn't ever "caught" him doing it though. She informed me that he was not her boyfriend and that maybe she would "let him" be her boyfriend "someday after College." (Perfect)

Her other little friend Colin asked her to be his girlfriend a couple of weeks ago. She told me that she told him no because she didn't want to get in trouble with the teacher. I asked her what Colin said and she said that he told her that he would just "add her to the list." :)

Then at dinner tonight she told me that there are some schools that don't "allow" you to pray there. She wanted to know why so I told her that some people don't believe in God. About 10 minutes later. she tracked me down in the bedroom and told me that she "needs to be on TV!" I very hesitantly asked her why and she told me that if she was on TV then she could "tell everyone that God created the world and all the teachers ." ( How cool is that?! )

Halloween etc.

This weekend was BUSY to say the least!

Before I go on and on about this weekend I have to share this funny before I forget it again. The other day Marina was really "talking" to Emma and she made a noise that sounded like "ah gwa". I mentioned that that was the Spanish word for water. Emma got SO excited and told Dave that Marina is a "Spanish girl." Then she thought about it and said that she was a little worried that Marina was going to be a "Spanish speaking girl" and how would we understand her if she is going to speak Spanish. :) :)

Well, Friday was Halloween. The weather here was incredible. It was so wierd to see "princess" characters out and about without winter coats. We had an extra fun Halloween this year as we had three of our cousins from California and three cousins from Omaha. That made 10 trick or treaters. We let the bigger kids split off from the much slower 3 year olds and we all had a great time. We have way too much candy here and my goal in the next day or two is to throw lots of it in the freezer. One or two pieces a day never hurts. :) Later that night after the kids went to bed Dave and I sat out back with our neighbors and had a bonfire. We didn't get to bed until 1. Haven't done that in a LONG time.

You gotta love the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head pumpkin pieces...

Saturday morning was the toughest part of the weekend as we headed to Avoca for Aunt Shirley's funeral. The funeral service was very nice as was the ceremony at the cemetary. It always helps when the weather is nice. Her grandchildren even released butterflies at the cemetary. We enjoyed getting caught up with family at the luncheon too.

Saturday night we had a fish fry, hung out with neighbors , and watched the disappointing Husker game. Oh well, Oklahoma is an awesome team and we still love the Huskers.

This morning we got up extra early to make sure we weren't late to church for Marina's baptism. It was a wonderful mass and all the kids did great. Marina didn't mind the ceremony either and smiled through most of it. Thank you Stacy and Ted for being her Godparents. Afterwards we went to lunch. It was a very small get together with family but very nice! Then, Emma had yet another birthday party today from 2-4.

Nice hair huh?!

Now I am doing laundry, dishes and typing one handed to update this long overdue entry. Back to work tomorrow and I have a ton of stuff to get done.

The girls played nice tonight...which is always a bonus. Emma built this cool tower thing using "all" the blocks. Then she read her and Lauren's new books tonight to Marina who didn't appear to be too thrilled about it.

Have a great week!!