Christmas Fun

I couldn't decide which pictures I wanted to include and which ones to leave out so I just made a slide show to maximize the number of pictures from Christmas I could show. We had a wonderful Christmas and hope that you all did too. May the Lord fill your hearts and bless you this coming year.

The Deer

Today while we were out driving we saw a poor little deer who didn't make it across Bluffton Parkway fast enough and Shelby was pretty grossed out by it and at the same time intrigued by it; so a pretty long conversation followed about how the dead animals get to the side of the road if they were hit where the cars drive and why weren't the buzzards there already eating the deer. All the sudden in the middle of the conversation JP pipes in and says, "That deer is going to Heaven with Jesus." To which Shelby replied, "No its not. It is going in the buzzard's belly."

Pimpering and Hookers

Over the years a lot of Shelby's vocabulary has matured and grown, but there is one word that she still hangs onto and I know that it will be a very sad day when she finally says "print" right. I think that I blogged about this before, but it has to be noted again. Anytime Shelby wants me to print something off of the computer for her she asks me if I can pimper out a piece of paper for her. It makes me laugh on the inside every time.

And now, we have pimpering and hookers in the house.....

Last night JP was playing with some of his construction toys. He had this one thing that has a hook on it towing the dump truck around. Everything was going great until all the sudden the hook came loose and he said, "All my hookers keep falling off."

Pratt and I died laughing and Pratt looked at me and said, "Wow, we have pimpers and hookers in this house."

Family Fun Days

Starting on Sunday we have had tons of family time and I just love it. At night when we have been sitting around the dinner table I feel like we are a picture of what family life is supposed to be. Those times I truly treasure up and try to soak it all in, but lets start with Sunday morning.

The children's choir at church did a little Christmas show at church on Sunday morning and it was so incredibly cute! I just love it when they sing. At the end of the blog is the video of the performance. At the rehearsal Shelby stood tall and sang loud, but once it was show time, a little stage fright set in and she just kind of stood there and moved her lips. She is so funny!

After church we met Aunt Suzy, Uncle Patricio, Sebastian, Grammie and Papa John at the clubhouse for Brunch with Santa. We knew that this would be tricky as Shelby has an extreme fear of the man in the red suit, but we were hopeful that it could be pulled off. Well, it didn't go to well and it took nearly 10 minutes just to get her in the clubhouse and then once we were in she hid behind a chair in the corner down the hall from the room that Santa was in. We had to ask to be moved to a different table because they had us set up in a room right next to the room that Santa was in, but it all worked out and after many talks and reassurances, we were able to enjoy brunch. JP went to meet Santa, but wouldn't sit on his lap or talk to him. He whispered in my ear to tell Santa what he wanted.

We enjoyed a really fun evening and dinner at home, just us and then went to bed. Around midnight JP got sick and that ended my night of sleep. Poor little guy was really sick...but, why does that always happen in the middle of the night. My children never get sick, have bloody noses, or anything like that during the day, it is always in the middle of the night....so weird!

Monday we took it easy around the house and by the time evening can around JP was as good as gold and we had another really great family dinner. After dinner we decided to decorate the gingerbread house and gingerbread train that the children picked out from Target. They had so much fun and JP ate more candy than he put on his train. His favorite thing was the candy cane. Here is a picture of Daisy getting in on the family fun.

JP and his train

Shelby and I with her house

I don't know if you knew, but Monday night/Tuesday morning we had a meteor shower. Pratt came up with the idea to get up early to watch it because they said that they best time to view the shower was at 6. So we set the alarm to get up at 5:50 to lay out some mats and blankets for us and then got the children up and bundled up to go out in the f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g cold!!! We saw about 5-8 shooting stars and had so much fun. Shelby didn't really care about what was going on in the sky; she was way to concerned about every little noise she heard and didn't want any animals to come get us. JP thought is was a great adventure and I think that he really did see some of the shooting stars. At about 6:30 we all came inside and had hot chocolate at the table together before we started the race of getting ready for school.

JP, Shelby and I watching for shooting stars

Here is the video from the Christmas performance at church.....

Okay, so after waiting for 4 hours for the video to upload it didn't...I will work on it and hopefully post it under a separate blog.

A Boy and His Dog

As you know, we got a dog. Her name is Daisy and we have been very blessed by her. She was a great dog from the start, catching on quickly to the crate training and potty training thing. She is also quickly becoming JP's best pal. They play together constantly. She follows him every where with a toy in her mouth begging him to get down and wrestle with her. It really is something so cute to watch.....

And in other news....we have been having a great time doing all kinds of things and enjoying every minute of life. Pratt had shoulder surgery right before Thanksgiving and then Thanksgiving night Shelby, JP and I all came down with strep throat. For a family that is rarely sick or injured, we hit the big whammie!!! But, thankfully we all survived and Pratt's shoulder is getting better and better with each passing moment. He has full range of motion and about 7 weeks left with a strict order of no lifting from the doctor.

We decided to take it easy on Thanksgiving this year. In years passed we have tried to cram in all of our families and we end up running around like chickens with our heads cut off. It was a great relaxing day. I ran the Turkey Chase first thing and then we just chilled with our neighbors for the rest of the day until it was time to go to Papa and Grammie's for dinner.

Shelby is doing great. Next week is her last week of gymnastics and she is really getting so good. Her handstands and cartwheels have come along nicely and she always has so much fun. So naturally I assumed that she would want to sign up for another session, but she has decided that she wants to take tennis. We will see how this goes. She is growing so much and is learning like mad at school. This week she was able to bring home books from school to practice reading at home. This is huge and she loves to read to us while we are sitting on the couch. She is also moving along in her math work. She finished the pink cabinet which is the addition cabinet. She learned how to add all numbers and also did binomials; which is to help her get ready for algebra. Now she is in the blue cabinet which is the take aways. I still can't get over how big she is getting and how much she is growing up!!!

JP is doing great in school too. He is learning his letters and numbers and all sorts of other things. He really enjoyed learning about the solar system and space and would come home every day with some sort of fact about the planets, sun, etc. He is my talker and tells me everything that is going on and I love it. We did have a dental issue this fall. He had two cavities in is front top teeth. The first attempt to fill one was a huge failure. He did great with the little mickey mouse nose and was totally chill, but as soon as the dentist tried to work in his mouth he went ballistic!! So the dentist decided that we should try again and this time give him a Valium before the procedure. It was so funny to watch this drug slowly take effect and listen to all he had to say. When it was his turn he went back without a fuss, laid back in the chair, put the nitrous oxide nose on, crossed his legs and was one chillen dude. I thought that this would be a piece of cake, but once again when they tried to work in his mouth he went nuts; so, we ended up having to strap him down and then myself and the receptionist had to lay on him while the dental assistant held his head and the dentist worked in his mouth. For some reason I got totally tickled by the fact that it took 4 of us to hold him down....I mean, he is really strong and used every ounce of his energy to fight getting that filling. We were only able to get one cavity filled and for the time being the other one is being watched.