More Christmas Fun

My amazing siblings--we have so much fun together!
Jas playing with the kids' nativity set under a table in my parents' living room. He's so great at entertaining himself!
My aunt Mary directed the 12 grandkids (minus baby James) in 2 songs performed with bells at my grandpa's nursing home. They did an amazing job and sounded beautiful.
My wonderful mama and my dad's dad, listening to the kiddos. My grandpa is 91 years old and in pretty great health.
Another cute Jas picture--he loves the camera!
Levi and his cousin J--they had a blast playing with animals under dad's desk and actually slept there all night.
Rob's mom gets a special kids' Christmas book each year and reads it to all the grandkids before we open gifts. She then buys them each a Christmas ornament that goes with the book, so they've got some great ones for their trees someday.
Sarah and one of her favorite cousins Grace, sporting their new t-shirts from Grandma Great. Sarah's putting on her makeup from Grandma Linda--they looked so old!

Fun at Grandma and Grandpas

My kids are having the time of their lives at Gma and Gpa's--here's Jas with one of his favorite cousins--lots of wrestling with this guy and his brother.

My little sis--practicing up for our Christmas caroling at my grandpa's nursing home--a fun family tradition. Last year we even had a performance with bells.

My dad spends hours before we come getting his garage all cleaned up and ready for the 13 grandkids. He's got 2 rope swings hanging from the ceiling, skates, bikes, ... So much fun!

Spiderman and Catwoman

Here's what my kids did to themselves when they were home with Dad as I was running errands today. Sarah's supposed to be Catwoman--I thought she looked kinda scary! They did a great job, but I had to explain that it'd be better to ask Mom or Dad before coloring on their faces, or any body parts, for that matter.

Family Christmas

I talked Robbie into letting us celebrate Christmas as a family today. We had a special Saturday evening church service last night, so today was totally free! It was amazing--I wish we had a day like this every week! We started off with the kids decorating their "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake--this is a tradition that Robbie's family always had growing up, and we love passing it down to our kids. They get to ice and sprinkle it themselves, then place the plastic nativity pieces on as Daddy reads the Christmas story. (Side note: we lost baby Jesus years ago, so we've had to substitute other pieces in the manger--one year we got desperate and used a tiny Santa Clause, but thought that was a bit sacrilegious, so we've opted to use a baby from Sarah's dollhouse.)




Then we started opening gifts--we re-gifted a couple things--here's Jas with a drum set that Lindsey L. gave Levi years ago. He hasn't stopped playing it tonight!

I made some baby doll bedding for Sarah out of her old pillowcase and crib blanket--she was tucking in her stuffed animals just minutes later. (I got a doll bed at a garage sale this summer, and it was just begging for some bedding.)

Levi was pretty excited to get an MP3 player, loaded with all his Narnia and Odyssey stories, kids worship music, Wicked and the Lion King, and tons of other music. He looks so old using it, but I think it'll get lots of use, as long as he doesn't lose it. (I'll have to do another post on his glasses!)

And finally, the cutest kids on the planet, wishing you a Merry Christmas--notice the way Levi starts singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus! Crazy kid! Gotta love him, though!

School Christmas Concert

Today was Levi's first time to participate in a school concert (the 1st graders sang one song). Here he is, front and center, in the red shirt. He watched me and Rob the whole time, just as proud as could be! His best friend Micah is on the top bleacher, far left, watching the teacher's every move--so cute! They actually sounded pretty great--not afraid to sing out!

After this, all the teachers got up and sang this song.

Christmas in an Elementary School
(sung to “Winter Wonderland”)

Children scream, they’re not listenin’
When they go, we’re not missin’ em’,
In all of this pain, we try to stay sane,
Workin’ in an elementary school.

Christmas comes, they’re excited,
Though our nerves they’ve ignited,
They’re off of the walls, they run in the halls,
Workin’ in an elementary school.

In the lunchroom we can hear them yellin’
And we know that they are really wound.
Someone hits, the other says, “I’m tellin’!”
And that is when our heads begin to pound.

Pretty soon we’ll be restin’
Cause our nerves, they’ve been testin’
We’re happy it’s clear,
It just come once a year
Christmas in an Elementary School!!!

I was slightly worried that Levi's name might come up in the lyrics, but, whew--he was safe this time!

My creative little guy

My little Levi is so creative! This is one of his favorite places in our house (when he's in a calm mood), and we often find him making a book about dragons, dinosaurs, or various other manly things! The other day, this showed up in the living room:


Of course it's displayed on our mantle--I'll put anything up that says how much my kiddos love us!
And this is what he came home from school with today. What a fun time of year to make us parents feel appreciated!

Cheese!

Okay--2nd post of the night. I'm just realizing how easy this is! I made this cheese ball tonight for a progressive dinner for our church's youth group. As I was enjoying it, my mind went down memory lane. When I was growing up, one of my favorite days of the year was always "Bern Day"--when our entire town of 200 people (and hordes of others, it seemed) had a special day to celebrate our town. Jr. High and High School classes would sponsor a game, or the dunk tank, or make apple fritters,... It was great fun. In my opinion, the very best place to go on Bern Day was to my dad's cheese booth. (He was a dairy farmer, by the way.) It was actually the City Hall-he went all out, with fun games for people to play, a life-sized inflatable cow, cartons and cartons of milk, and every kind of cheese you could imagine--I don't know if you can possibly imagine just HOW MUCH cheese we went through! We usually had several different cheese balls, but this has always been my favorite. I like it best served with white corn tortilla chips, but crackers are great with it, too. (We sometimes gave this to our teachers for Christmas--kinda nice change from the sweets, though it's loaded with fat!) It's super easy, but here's the recipe:

(I double it for a large group)
1 8-oz pkg softened cream cheese
1/2 cup softened butter
2 Tbsp mayo
1 cup crushed pecans
1/4-1/2 tsp garlic salt (to taste)
paprika and parsley flakes to garnish (optional)

Mix cream cheese, butter and mayo together. Add in 1/4 cup pecans. Add garlic salt to taste. Use plastic wrap to shape into a ball. Refrigerate several hours. When firm, unwrap and sprinkle with paprika and parsley flakes. Roll in remaining pecans and enjoy!

Where's Jason?

So, this little guy truly believes that if his eyes are closed, no one can see him. This is how I find him several times a day when I'm wanting to put him to bed, get him out the door to go somewhere, or anything else he's trying to avoid. It cracks me up--I've never seen a kid lay so still!

Look at these cuties!

Today I arrived home and found 2 good friends shoveling off our driveway--this totally loved my husband (I wouldn't shovel that thing for the life of me!) The kids were enthralled with the snow, so we thought we'd play in it a bit--brrr!!! This was one of Jason's first times to play in it (he seems so old for this to be a first, but I don't remember letting him last year), and I don't think it went over too great with him, despite his cute smile in the picture. Sarah was pumped to be outside and wanted Jas to push her into the snow, because it was so soft and fluffy. She says, "like this, Jason" and totally knocks him to the ground, thinking it was the best game. Let's just say he wasn't happy--he was ready to go inside and have some hot chocolate after about 5 minutes. But aren't they adorable?!?