the skinny red one sprayed snow in your face.

after kindergarten got out yesterday:

16 gloves,

8 coats,

8 hats,

8 snow pants,

16 boots,

6 sleds,

and a partridge and a pear tree.

my favorite sled is the penguin,

but you're not supposed to be over 60lbs to ride on it,

which i remembered about halfway down the mountain with chase on my lap,

so i clenched up my body really stiff like

for the rest of the way down,

hoping that would make me feel like 60lbs to the sled.

it didn't pop,

so it must have worked:)

and it was the smoothest ride my bum felt all day long.

i so badly wanted to tempt fate and do it all over again,

but i couldn't bear to face it popping again like last year,

and being left with no penguin for anyone to ride,

so chase and i tried out every other sled there.

the blue one made you spin round and round like the tea pots,

and worry that you were going to tip over and bonk your head.

the shark one wasn't really a shark,

but it kind of looked like a shark,

because the writing on it looked sharky to me.

the green one went the furthest,

especially with two kids on your lap.

and skinny red one always sprayed snow in your face because your boots fell off the sides all the way down.

chase said "WHEEEE" every time.

even the time when we went down on the skinny red one,

and my boots and his boots sprayed snow in our faces.

nobody whined.

nobody got hungry.

nobody cried.

nobody had to go pee.

or poo.

it was warm.

it was cloudy.

there was no wind.

and everybody ran up the hills with their own sleds,

with smiles on their faces

for

2

hours

straight.

CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

in january.

even with the christmas tree gone from our big room.

who knew it could be?

i have never had so much fun with my kids in my entire life.

and max woke up this morning asking what time we were going sledding again today:)

zippidy doo dah, zippidee ay,

my oh my,

what a wonderful wonderful day.

at which point we finally decided to just get the tape.

can the christmas light people really think of 

no better way than this?

i mean, i know you can just buy a prelit tree and all.

and make no mistake, i was cursing myself and our real christmas tree

the entire time i was taking down these lights.

especially b/c i know we have a perfectly beautiful prelit tree in the basement

that i could have put up

and avoided all of this with.

and why i earth could i not have put the twisty ties in an easier place to find?

or did i throw them away?

could sean please look in the garage one more time?

or maybe it was in the basement

in the things

by the things?

god bless sean for his patient heart:)

and god bless the smile of mine that gets him to look in the basement one more time.

at which point i then had to go look in the basement

and the garage

and the basement again

before we finally decided to just get the tape.

and then vowed to be more organized about all of it next year.

kind of like we did last year.

and maybe couldn't we get those garage shelves to keep everything in once place?

whichever. 

adios muchacho.

second thoughts

i think it's starting to stink.

maybe friday is best.

or better yet,

today...

experts of girls {convo's with cade & brennan}

while eating apples 
and jumping off of 
my coffee table 

onto coolie, the 6 foot bear, 
the following conversation occurred between two 5 year olds...

brennan: i went to girl world, and they taught me how to be experts of girls. 
i know more about girls than you. really i do.

cade: no, i'm experts of girls.

brennan: all the girls of the whole world know me though. and they all love me too.

cade: ok ok they love you, but they love me too. they're in love with both of us. 
but we won't ever let them come here because then they will try to kiss us.

brennan: we DON'T want them to kiss us. not even our sisters. 
just our moms 'cause they're our moms and they can do stuff like kiss us.

cade: yeah yeah just our moms. cause we love them.

{chase's new favorite game: riding brennan like a horse. trust me, it's mutually loved.}

christmas {fever} day

brennan woke up with a fever.

we held the kids off in our bedroom with a christmas movie for half an hour until the motrin kicked in.

it spruced him right up for a couple of hours of presents.

the poor kid didn't even want to go downstairs when he came into our room at first.

there's nothing sadder than a kid with the flu on christmas.

sore throat.

headache.

fever.

achy body.

runny nose.

it came on just as we were putting him to bed on christmas eve,

was the worst on christmas day,

and wiped him out for the entire day after.

the rest of the day he layed on the couch watching movies,

and he declared that honey i shrunk the kids was his new favorite.

i drank tom and jerry's out of the cutest christmas mug i've ever seen {thank you lindi} most of the day.

my favorite part is the bun on the back.

it's the most ginormous thing,

and holds more liquids than you could possibly imagine.

chase loved his fireman raincoat the best,

as you will see in the photo below.

and the skylanders and princesses worked together to save the day with chase's firetruck.

max entranced with her 

ballerina jewlery box.

the boys fighting crime.

brennan at his post 

on the couch.

for 

the 

entire 

day.

after christmas dinner at grandma carol's.

we were sooooo tired.

and brennan's 2nd dose of motrin had worn off.

poor chap.

a week later i found my kitchen counter.

and it was a beautiful beautiful thing to find:)

i stood there admiring it for 5 minutes.

i almost forgot what it looked like all cleared off.

at least no one was puking.

at least not on christmas day.

a house full of believers {EVE}

on christmas eve 

andrea had us all 

playing games.

really goofy ones.

the ones you can only play with your family.

like putting a peppermint joe-joe on your forehead,

and then trying to get it into your mouth without using your hands.

like you have to scoot it down over your eye,

by opening and closing your mouth in weird ways,

and then down onto your cheek,

sometimes shaking your head back and forth is a good method,

and then ever to slowly getting it into your mouth

without

letting

it

fall

onto

the

floor.

sean beat us all in about 2.5 seconds.

but he has an unfair advantage with his nose.

i guess technically it's not cheating when you're using what yo' mama gave ya.

most of us just dropped our cookie on the floor about a million times,

except for the super competitive folk

who did it over and over and over again.

just to show us how "easy" it really was.

all the while,

andrea and jaren's living room had about 20 of us with our faces to the ceiling

and cookie crumbs on our face,

you know

shaking our heads,

and opening and closing our mouths really big.

i don't think i've ever laughed so hard in my entire life.

after stuffing ourselves with clam dip,

meatballs,

martinellis,

joe-joes,

lemon bread,

rolls,

and everything else good you can think of.

other games:

marshmallow toss into the christmas wreath bowl.

candy cane bolt stacker

{only for the steady hand, sheesh}

tinsel limbo

and of course,

a thralling round of a white elephant gift exchange,

where i walked away with the greatest white elephant gift i've ever managed,

{except for the time when i had sean secure me the amazing mixing bowl and hand made apron--

but that was too classy to really be classified as a "white elephant."}

{marshmallow toss into the christmas wreath bowl.}

the greatest white elephant gift 

i've ever bargained 

and bartered for:

i branded it ours the minute the trading was over. tape too. phew.

then santa showed up to bring all of the kids some lollies and jammies

 

and we called it a night.

or least we ended part 1 of the night.

the part where the kids go to bed,

and santa's helpers begin the real work.

and then we read luke 2

and tucked them all snug into their beds.

there's nothing like having a house full of believers.

magic.