Conversations....

Skylie and Summer are always into mischief. The other night they were supposed to be going to sleep and of course weren't. I didn't care too much cause at least they were staying in their bedroom and not bugging me while I was reading my book. Anyways they did eventually fall asleep. After doing this......

It really bugged me cause one of my worse jobs is painting dressers. And I've already had to paint this one once. Anyways when I found it I called for them to come up and they knew I was mad.

Me: " Why did you guys color all over your dresser?? Who did it?"

Summer: "Don't be mad mommy. You need to tell us it looks pretty. Don't be mad."

(I guess they did do a good job of outlining every drawer)

Me: "You guys are only aloud to color on paper and coloring books."

Summer: "But mom we were just trying to make it look pretty like Christmas. Don't be mad."

Pretty like Christmas??? Haha. After that I was over it.

Growing up......

Haylie has been bugging me forever to get her ears pierced. It's always the same response from me. "Not till your 12." And of course Haylie doesn't like that answer, doesn't understand why, and all her friends have theirs pierced. So about a month ago she came home from school sad cause one of her last friends that didn't have them pierced was going to and it just wasn't fair. Anyways during this same time I was having a problem with Haylie with her eyes. She has one lazy eye that she can't see out of that great. Because of this she is supposed to wear an eye patch over her good eye to strengthen her bad one. Trying to get her to wear this eye patch is not easy. It's obviously annoying to wear, embarrassing, and she can't see good when she wears it so it is a constant battle. So I decided to do a little bribing. I told her if she wears the patch everyday for at least 3 hours, for a month she could get her ears pierced. Worked like a charm. So this last Saturday we went down town and got them pierced. It was a little sad for me cause it made me realize that she is growing up and not a little girl anymore. But I fought back my tears and we got it done. I've never seen her more excited.

Here she is before.....

After...

Nurse Skylie.....

We seriously can not keep enough band-aids on hand with Skylie around....

Your probably wondering what in the world happened to her poor leg that she needs 50 band aids on it. Looks like maybe she got a hold of my razor or had a bad accident on her bike. Nope. Someone probably bumped into her or she fell. Any excuse to put on a band aid. Especially the big expensive ones. She usually always has a band aid some where and will keep it on forever. And no I don't give her permission to do this, she just knows right where they are and helps herself any time she gets "hurt". She even likes to put them on innocent bystanders......

The other day I was popping a zit, gross I know (why at my age am I getting zits anyways????) and I started bleeding a little. Skylie had a horrified look on her face when she saw it and said, "Mom it would be a lot safer it we put a band aid on that." Then she jumped up and got me a band aid and on it went.

Christmas and New Years

So is it too late to post about Christmas?? Hope not. It's been so long that I'm not really sure what to write. So I'll just sum it all up by saying we ate way too much, laughed a lot, played a lot of T.T.R. and Blokus, played with cousins, made a lot of trips back and forth between mine and Steve's parents, played with new toys, had a b-day party, and did I mention ate a lot??

Here's our standard Christmas Sunday family picture. Well without me and Steve. I was still in my pyjamas.

And here's my very, very worst tradition that the kids love. Gingerbread houses. I think next year I'll try individual ones. Maybe then I won't have one child pouting cause she didn't get her way.

Christmas Eve was at the Hollands. The kids loved all the new coloring stuff Grandma gave them.

Our awesome nativity!!

Christmas morning. My mom always makes all the cousins matching p.j.'s. Turned out so cute.

Here's some pictures from New Years Eve. I have to say it was a really fun night. We normally always hang out with friends and get a babysitter for the kids but this year we did a family thing and the kids loved it. We set the clock ahead a few hours so they really thought they stayed up till midnight. We had some great entertainment. A puppet show from Haylie, Micah, and Kadie...

Here is Briggs and Chases's standard entertainment, a sword fight. The more we ooh and aww, the more intense the fight becomes. It is really funny. Not sure who is winning here...

Everyone ready for the countdown with our awesome hats on.

And of course more food, any excuse to eat!!

Haylie's b-day is on the 30th so we had a little party for her with some friends that were around and then we went swimming at the Ramada with the Hollands. Lots of fun!!

Out at my mom's the kids did a lot of sledding, tubing, and playing outside. Matt and Mike built a really cool snow fort that I should of taken a picture of but didn't. The kids had fun playing in that too.