Birthday Girl

Today, we celebrated E's birthday with a party on her actual birth day, New Year's Eve. She begged and begged to have it at Chuck E. Cheese. Weeks in advance, I offered up many other alternatives to having her party there, with the hope that I would somehow change her mind. I had no luck so we agreed to have a low-key (if that is possible at C.E.C.) party. I think all of the adults were pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable the party was because it was very different from the Chuck E. Cheese experiences we had in our youth!

The kids had a blast playing all of the games, eating pizza, and watching the "show". When it was cake time, the birthday girl chose an ice cream cake with a combination of white cake and cookies & cream ice cream, her favorite. Make a wish Eleanor, and I hope it will come true!

Ice Skating

As an early birthday present to E, we decided to venture out for some ice skating. We were lucky enough to have Mimi and Papa fly in earlier in the morning so they joined us on the jaunt. Both E and H had never been ice skating before, while Dad and I had only done it a few times each, many years ago. We were in for an adventure!

It was slow-going early on with a lot of wall-holding, but after the first thirty minutes, some of us got the hang of it while others decided that it was time for a rest and some hot chocolate.Mimi and Papa spent most of their time keeping Ben from running on the ice. He did everything in his power to try to join the four of us in the rink!After our hour time slot came to an end, E turned to her dad and me and declared, "This was the best birthday present ever!" Happy early 7th Birthday, E!

Cousin Everly

Aunt Ivy and Uncle Michael had a planned c-section on Monday to bring their new, second daughter into the world. With the large threat of H1N1, children under 18 years of age are not allowed inside area hospitals unless they are seeking treatment. This recent rule change forced the family to alter our plans regarding attending the birth. Instead of heading to the hospital with our three children to hear of the baby's arrival, I stayed at home with our three kids, Michael and Ivy's daughter Cate, and the children's 10-year-old cousin Anna. Thomas went ahead to the hospital to be there when Michael introduced the new baby to the family. Shortly before 8:45am, Michael came out with Martha "Everly" Carroll, the newest member of the Carroll family!

As soon as Thomas came home, he pulled out his video camera and let the new big sister (in T's arms) see the video of her new baby sister. Cate was not nearly as interested one would have hoped, but she is only 3! We quickly retreated to the kitchen where snacks were far more compelling to Cate. Later in the week, Thomas and I visited Ivy, Michael and Everly in the hospital. I was thrilled to finally meet her and enjoyed the few moments I had holding the two-day-old baby girl. Congrats, Ivy and Michael!

Visit to the Country

The day after Christmas, our good friends the Kirsches invited us out to Greensboro to visit Amy K's family farm. We roasted marshmallows on the big bonfire, saw some rooster, chickens and goats, took a hayride, played in the hay,
and, overall, thoroughly enjoyed our time out in the country. Thanks to our great hosts, the Lewis Family!

Christmas

With our kids falling in the age range of 7 years to 18 months, the anticipation and excitement surrounding Christmas could not be greater this year.

Christmas Day was filled with . . .
children with permanent smilesgifts torn open with a flourish, even by the 18-month-old (and oohed and ahhed over)stockings filled to their brims with goodies
Daddy-made breakfast stuffed tummiesChristmas music playing in the background
Baxter enjoying his stocking treats from Santa
new dolls, cars, superheros, games, books, crayons, CDs, wii games eager to be played withnew clothes and shoes to be worn
the family room needing a good cleaningfamily to visitkids sent outside to expel some extra energy
Christmas dinner eaten amongst a grateful and blessed family
rich glasses of eggnog
basketball game watching
Ben saying lots of "Ho, Ho, Ho"s, even while eating his dinnergirl cousins posing with their new American Girl dolls
and some happy, but tired parents who were especially thrilled when their heads finally hit their pillows on Christmas night.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

This year, the two older kids had roles in the church's Christmas Eve service. E was an angel for the second year in a row and H was assigned the role of a cow. Back in the dressing room, with all of the other angels and no other boys, H was none too pleased once he stepped into his costume!We convinced him to stick with it by telling him that he reminded us of the Chick-fil-A cow and that got him thinking positively again! Lucky for him, all he had to do was sit up at the front of the church and behave. Big sis Eleanor actually had a speaking part as the angels had great big news to share with all of the people.After church, we had a Christmas Eve dinner here at our house with Grandmommy and Granddaddy as our guests. We served a non-traditional dinner of lasagna since we knew we'd have a very traditional meal of turkey and ham Christmas Day. After dinner, the kids were allowed to open one present each. They tore through the wrapping paper to find . . . Christmas pajamas! They were so wild that this was the only picture I got of the three before they started wrestling on the living room floor. Thank heavens, bedtime soon followed!

Feliz Navidad

At the beginning of December, if you had asked me what the kids' favorite Christmas songs were, I would have answered with the age-appropriate "Frosty the Snowman" or "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Now that we are over halfway through the month of December, we've gone through three weeks of listening to ubiquitous Christmas music, and my answer would be completely different. Who would have guessed that their favorite song is not even in English? It is "Feliz Navidad" by Jose Feliciano.We hear the song daily and I can't help but crack up when I hear Hayes belt out the lyrics from the back seat of the car (and I mean BELT!) In between choruses, E and H debate what the words actually are, but they are quick to join in again when they start to hear the chorus start back up with "Feliz Navidad." H even gets the language confused as he keeps calling it "French."

I wonder what favorite Christmas songs next year will bring?

Emails from Santa

This year, the two older kids received emailed videos from Santa. I must admit that they were pretty cool, and they were huge hits with the kids. They cannot understand how Santa knows so much about them, such as their hair color, eye color and ways in which they have behaved this year. (It is amazing how technology enables Santa to communicate with kids this way). Though these videos will disappear shortly after the first of January, I'll post them for the time being. Enjoy!

Here is E's video: http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/470daae6d83a8874f62945dea73af6c8

Here is H's video: http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/322b27a6e556c3894d15db23354fc7e1

Night of Lights

Yesterday, after making a pretzel-bag-worth of chocolate sprinkled pretzels, we ate a quick dinner, and decided to load the kids up in the car to drive around and look at the Christmas lights. We decided to call the trip the "Sequoia Express." First, we popped popcorn and dressed the kids in their pajamas and slippers. Then, before getting in the car, we tried to take their pictures to document the night. As expected, Ben would not cooperate. This picture is the best we could do with him in it. He wanted no part of being with his siblings. We then got one with the older two together. How were the lights? Eleanor thought they were awesome. After the first five minutes, Hayes was ready to go home and watch the end of the Fresno State/Wyoming game due to his interest in the bowl pool. Ben was mainly concerned with the bears on his feet and screamed most of the time about wanting them off and then back on. Given these working conditions, it was a miracle that we were able to drive around for an hour and still maintain a festive mood!

B Lee's Bowl Pool

It is that time of year for Daddy's cousin B Lee's Annual College Football Bowl Pool. This year is B Lee's 13th year of running the pool, and Hayes's first year to participate. Yes, we decided to let H get in on the football fun. I walked through each of the bowl games with H and had him tell me which team he picked to win. I highlighted those teams in yellow. Hayes then found a purple marker later in the day and circled all of the teams that he did not pick. Dad is calling this an "interesting" experiment as the crux of the bowl pool is to choose your teams with knowledge of the spread on the games. Without attempting to educate H on the spread concept, I just had him pick the teams straight up. Dad then picked his teams using the spread information and his picks were the exact opposite of Hayes's. If the situation ever arises, it will be difficult to explain to H why he "lost" a game, even though the team he picked won. I think Dad just wants a football-watching buddy for the rest of the month. I'd love it for H to actually win the pool!

Christmas Programs

It is that time of year for Christmas celebrations at school. E had her "holiday" performance yesterday, and H had his party today.

E, along with the 400 (!) other kindergarten and first graders at her school AND their parents congregated in the new cafeteria for the holiday performance. The kindergartners sang a few songs and then were dismissed. The first graders then had the room to themselves to show off their French that they have been studying this fall. They sang three or four "holiday" songs in French. I must admit that it was pretty cool to see (and hear). Here is E lined up in one of the 10 lines of kids, a little unsure about her mom taking her picture. After singing a couple of songs on the floor, they moved up to the bleachers where Ben and I could get a better view of E and her classmates. She got lucky in that her teacher asked her to present the flowers to their music teacher as a token of their appreciation of all of her hard work! (It was so crowded that at one point, I was literally standing behind these bleachers. If I had taken a photo from where I was of her up front presenting the flowers, you would only be able to see her back. I definitely did not have the best seats in the house!)

Today, I ventured out in the pouring rain to H's class Christmas party. I had signed up to read a Christmas story so I let H pick, and he came up with The Drummer Boy .Then, he and his classmates ate festive Christmas snacks of gingerbread men, candy canes and snowmen on pretzel sticks. I also took the opportunity to get a picture with H and his two teachers since both H and E love them! Here is Ms. George . . . and Ms. Gaither. It is hard to believe that school is now out until 2010!

Silly Bandz

They are all the rage at E's school right now. She added Silly Bandz to her Christmas list last week, long after sharing her wish list with Santa. (I sure hope he gets the message somehow!) The boys in her class have been kind enough to share a few "bandz" with her so that she'd at least have one or two to get excited about until Christmas.

Lucky for E, she got an early birthday present from her good friend Margaret yesterday - Christmas-themed Silly Bandz. E was beyond excited and immediately piled them all (24 + the 3 she already had) on to her arm. She could hardly stand having to wait until morning to go to school and show her friends. Her teacher has outlawed playing with them in school, but will allow them to wear them, as long as they are not a distraction. We'll see if she makes it through the day without having them confiscated! Thanks MarMar!