A Big Catch Up

I can't believe that I have fallen so behind. So here is an attempt to get caught up. Alison had a part in her school play. She had some speaking parts and got to sing a song with 3 other people. Performing is right up her alley. By the way I totally made this costume. It involved no sewing which is right up MY alley.

Alison before the performance

Alison center stage. Just as she likes it.

Our tree

Joe always decorates the tree. We are allowed to provide ornaments and bask in it's glory but never ever touch the tree. Joe wants a new tree which seems fair since we have had this one for about 10 years now. By the way that is a moose stocking holder behind the tree.

Santa Stitch . All ready for Christmas Eve

Jon's new Notre Dame Jersey. #13 his favorite number and GARRY on the back.

Joshua had a Clone Wars Christmas.

Kelsey in her new Team Edward shirt and holding her new watch.

Alison got a lot of things but this was her favorite. She has been asking for Guess Who and Twister for a while now. Her reaction kills me.

This was Kelsey the rest of the day. She is doing her French Word Coach. And Joe is ready to go back to bed.

The aftermath and my wicked cool Irishopoly game from my cooliest sister!

We had a very good Christmas. On Christmas Eve my dad read all the family the Christmas Story on conference call so we could say hi and Merry Christmas to everyone. We did our traditional Pizza and watched Christmas movies and... well... also the Notre Dame game...which was awesome! Christmas morning we got up at 6. Rather the kids got up at 6 and we were drug out of bed lol. After the official opening of gifts I made breakfast. That is actually my gift to my kids. I hate making breakfast so I don't very often. Then I went back to bed! I slept until 10 then we played games, ate junk and made our yummy dinner of ham. Love ham! Christmas night we went with our friends to see Bed Time Stories. It's really cute. Then to thier house to play games. We came home happy and tired from a really fun day. On a side note I always get a puzzle (or this year 11) so we worked and finished one at 1am. Good Times!

Bolt

This is not a film review. We did enjoy the movie. The hampster and pigeons were my favorite. However this is about our need to pick on our dog Stitch. He's small and helpless to our bored desires.

December First

This is a fun day in our house. December first is advent calendar day. It didn't used to be anything special. Now it's the beginning of the yummy countdown to Christmas. When we lived in Germany we learned lots of things but our favorite was the vast amount of yumm that was everywhere. The kids grew accustomed to this new thing called advent calendars. Now some of you are saying yes we had those here in America too but I didn't. Neither did Joe. I remember the wooden ones but Germany introduced fun chocolate ones. Our sweet landlords brought them over our first Christmas and did every year following. My kids looked forward to this all year and got so excited every morning to see what their chocolate would be. The commissary here has some German candy, none of the really good stuff from Real or Lidl but still...and they have advent calendars so my kids don't have to suffer through the holidays candyless. So thank you Herr and Frau Epp for introducing advent calendars. Oh and don't judge Jon. It was early this morning and he hadn't done his hair yet.

Leaves

Alison raked up the leaves in the front so she could jump in them. But when I went out to see she was gone. Oh where could she be?

Oh there she is. Totally her fathers kid. Although one mention of spiders and she was out.