And One More Party

I am going to say it. I am very happy that the holiday season is almost over. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and being with family and seeing Jack's face on Christmas morning, the making of cookies, and even all the cooking involved with all the parties. However, I am officially partied out ya'll. And I say this with one more to go tomorrow night. We are having a New Years bash at our house, or I should say it is being split with our neighbors. The adults are going to be at our house and the kids are going to be at their house, with babysitters of course. Laura and a couple of friends are going to be making some cash.

But I am just not that into it. Maybe it is because I have hosted one too many parties in the past month(s)? I was just talking to our neighbors and trying to plan it out and right now I am ho hum at best about the whole thing. Seriously, the best New Years gift right now would be a nice quiet night at home in my sweat pants with a good movie and a book. A night I didn't have to get up every five seconds to attend to a child or an animal. Speaking of animals, one of our cats decided that throwing up all over (and I mean all over) my kitchen this morning, minutes before we left for church, would be a good thing to do. I was seriously holding back the gag reflex ya'll.

So if I don't post before the New Years because of yet another party, I hope ya'll have a really good New Years and be safe!

Ponderings

Why are Christmas decorations on Christmas Eve "beautiful" but three days later, all you can see is work? Just wondering.

Not that I am complaining or anything, but it seems a bit abnormal to this former Michigan girl (even though it has been 20 years) to be walking outside on December 28th in shorts and actually sweating. Just saying.

"He Really Came"!

So I need to update on the last few days in the Jackaroo house. We had a very Merry Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we went to the candlelight service at church which was beyond beautiful. It made us think of the real reason that is behind all the craziness at this time of year.

All day on Christmas Eve, we were keeping up with Santa's progress on Norad.org, which I have to say was really cool and wow what a great geography lesson for this geography-challenged person. I really thought that I was going to have a hard time getting the boy to sleep on Christmas Eve, but alas right after church, he went to bed excited, but less than 10 minutes later he was out cold.

Santa was very good to both Jack and Laura. Jack received a silver bell just like the one from his favorite movie of all time - The Polar Express. Everytime anybody would ask him what he wanted Santa to bring him, he would say "a silver bell" and so I guess Santa found one on ebay that came in the same box as the one in the movie. And there even was a note inside that said "I heard you wanted a silver bell. This is for all who truly believe. Signed Mr. C." Oh and Santa also got him some "tools" and Laura got a purse with some cash inside.

They also made out from Mom and Dad and Grammy and Papa also. Laura got some clothes, some more cash, a Hannah Montana game, and some other crafty things. For the boy, he got a Hot Wheels race track, some radio-control cars, batman helicopter, puzzles, etc. etc. etc.

Here is a 3-minute video of Christmas morning. Sorry it is so dark and the camera kept losing focus, no idea why. But you get the idea. It is really cute when the boy exclaims "He really came!". So much fun.

Grammy and Papa left yesterday morning to head back to Michigan. We hope they arrive home safe and sound.

We went to see the movie Alvin and Chipmunks and both kids were totally engrossed in the movie. And I have to say that it was really cute. However, I was a bit nostalgic about it because I remember playing the Chipmunks record over and over again when I was a kid (yes I know I am dating myself just by saying the word "record").

On other news, I am thiiiiiisssss close to buying a new laptop. My computer is having issues and when I fix one issue, others pop up. For two hours, I was trying to download songs onto my new mp3 player (yes I joined the new century by owning a mp3 player) and for some reason my stupid computer just went nuts. I tried to download the media player again because it would not play nor recognize any songs and then it told me that my copy of windows was not a valid copy. Excuse me? But unfortunately the new laptop purchase is going to be put on hold for now because well there are bills to be paid like our property taxes (yikes)!

And we just made up our mind today to go to Disneyworld at the end of January. We were going to wait until summer so Laura could go with us, but it turns out, she isn't going to be able to be with us for the whole summer and we decided we would go in January when the crowds were not as bad and the weather was not excruciating. And boy oh boy is the boy excited. In fact, he started to cry when he found out we were not going Today!

So I think that is about it for the updates. Hopefully with the state of my computer, I can update again soon. I hate when computers don't work like they should!

Christmas Pictures

The Making of Christmas Eve Cookies

The cookies. Yes, we did make train cookies for the train-obsessed boy.

The Santa Only Cookies.

The boy and The girl checking out their Santa loot.

Tool-Man Jack with Daddy

Jack with his new vacuum cleaner. Sorry this is sideways. I thought I flipped the pic.

Laura getting into the spirit.

The Aftermath

Christmas Before Christmas

Daddy and Jack making breakfast together.

On Saturday, we hosted the big C clan at our house, where we had 18 people for dinner. It was the Christmas before Christmas party because of Jim's work schedule, it was the only time we could get together. So of course, the boy was spoiled and here is just a little smattering of the festivities that day.

Oh Boy, more big vehicles that make noise!

The Christmas Program

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas

So Yay, I finally fixed my computer. Don't ask me how I did it. I had to extract something into something and download something for something else. But anyway, it is now fixed and I now can see pictures and videos. Yay!

So to catch ya'll up on whats been happening here, I have a little snapshot of pictures. There will be more pictures coming tomorrow and I am sure the next day of all the happenings when I have more time. I may just throw in a video or two of the boy performing, if you are lucky.


Jack helping to decorate the tree. He actually was sick that day and hence the very casual style of the boy.

Jack and all his grandparents. They were all here to go to his school Christmas play.

The handsome boy all dressed up for the school Christmas play. Yes, I know he's good-looking. :)

Jack on stage as a sheep. It was quite a cute program, but for the K3 and K4 classes, it was a bit hard to just sit through. The K3 through 5th grade classes put it on and I have to say that they did a great job and you could tell they worked really hard at it.

At this point, all the parents were about to nominate the two K3 teachers for sainthood. The sheeps hats soon became weapons with which to hit each other. Fun times. Video will be forthcoming.

A funny picture of the boy on his fire truck with the full fireman getup AND carrying a flag. Can't get more American than that.

Tis the Season

Well we at the Jackaroo house are in full swing of holidayness. Grammy and Papa arrived last week from Michigan. It looks like they outran the ice and major snowstorm as they headed south. I don't think they miss the white stuff.

After all the warm warm days, we finally got a bit chilly here with it dipping below freezing two nights ago. I have to admit, Christmas just isn't the same being 80 degrees.

Jack has been a little star these past few days. Last Thursday was the big play/production at his school. It was put on by the K3 - 5th grade and it was cute. Jack was in front singing and did pretty good for the first half. The K3 stepped off stage for a bit and came back in as sheep singing Deck the Halls but instead of singing Falalala, they were singing "baa baa baa". Yes the cuteness factor was on overload. They even had little sheep hats on that they made with cotton balls. And this is where it went downhill very fast for the K3 class. You see, they now had weapons with which to hit each other (sheep hats) and I am afraid that all kinds of chaos broke out. Every single person in that church gave the two K3 teachers silent prayers for what they have to put up with on a daily basis.

I did get good pictures and video of the whole thing, however, my computer is acting up and I can't post any pics or videos. And I just haven't had the time to care to fix it right now with everything going on. So hopefully soon, I can post and ya'll can see the chaos for yourselves.

Also on Sunday, the children sang their little songs up front and Jack again entertained the masses. Like I said, he has been quite the star lately.

We have been kept busy doing stuff with Grammy and Papa. And Laura comes in on Thursday, then on Saturday, we are hosting the Christmas dinner/party for Jim's family since he has to work both Christmas Eve night and Christmas night. So we are doing it on Saturday. I think the final head count of all who is going to be here is 20. Should be fun.

I hope everybody who is still reading my little blog (yes I know it has been awhile and few and far between posts) are having a wonderful Christmas holiday.

Are You Sure It Is Christimas Time?

It is in the mid 80's and very humid! This just is not right!

Nothing Like It

Nothing like a good color and cut to make you feel better about the world and yourself. Oh and my new Arbonne skin care. Talk about life changing! My skin has never ever felt so good as it does with Arbonne. Wish I could afford the whole system, but maybe later. Love It!

Trip to Michaels

Because I wanted to waste a bit of time before going home and possibly waking Daddy up before he should get up, I decided to do a little detour to Michaels craft store after picking Jack up from school. Yeah um not the place to take a toddler who wants every single thing in the store. He wanted the Thomas stickers, every color of paint they had, the train puzzle, the candy, the ginger bread house (yeah tried that three years ago, never again), and a multi-colored slinky. I let him have the $1.00 slinky and thats it. But if anybody out there is looking for cheap stocking stuffers, Michaels is the place for them. I seriously am going back there tomorrow without the boy in tow to pick some up for both him and Laura.

So I am now completely and utterly done with the shopping, except for the boy. We are planning a trip (it is sad that we have to travel an hour either north, east, or west) to Target and Toys R Us with Grammy and Papa, who will be here next week just for the boy. I did order him a silver bell from ebay that looks just like the one on The Polar Express (the movie that we have seen 587 times). It even came in a red and white striped box and has a card in it that says "Believe". I plan on writing a card from Santa just like the movie. Ahhh love this age.

Jack's Christmas program at school is next week. They have been practicing it three times a week for the last two weeks and it should be pretty cute. Jack is in the choir and try as I might, the boy will not divulge any songs that they are singing. Of course, the video camera will be in use and will be posting the sappy video soon afterward. And of course, I will be crying my eyeballs out, so ya know.

Happy Birthday Laura!

Today is Laura's 12th Birthday!!!! She is no longer a little girl, but on the brink of teenagedom! Oh my! We are looking forward to having her come here in 15 days and yes we are counting the days. We miss her very much.

The Weekend, The Big Rat, and Sugar Overload

Seems like we have busy weekend after busy weekend around here. It is getting so that I am never getting anything done around the house like I should. Don't get me started about how much laundry I have to do at this moment. Ugh!

Anyway, we were on the go all weekend long. It started off Friday night with our small group at church which is always fun. I love our small group and getting together every week really does ground me. It is fun to connect with people like we do and for the most part, everybody in our group are really good friends.

On Saturday, Jack and I went to the church to help decorate it for Christmas. They had ordered over 200 poinsettias and wow when they are all lined up, that is a lot of red flowers! The church ended up looking absolutely gorgeous and I have to say we did a really good job. It was really fun and got us all in the Christmasy spirit. However, that feeling soon ended when I had to go to Walmart with 50,000 other people. Ugh. But I had to because I had to buy a birthday present for Jack's friend at school, whose birthday party we went to last night.

Yesterday, we left the house at 10:00 in the morning to go to church and did not get home until after 7:00. It was one long day going from church to friends house for lunch to the birthday party at the big Rat's house. And I hate Chuck E Cheese, but I took Jack there anyway. Mother of the Year award brownie points I think. I felt kind of bad for the little boy's mother who planned the party because Jack was the only one who showed up from school. She had this elaborate Transformers themed party with a huge cake and there were only 3 kids total, including the birthday boy. I could tell she was upset and quite frankly I think I would have been upset also. But Jack had a blast and he had so many tokens to play the games with because of only three kids. He was on game overload I think.

And because there were only three kids, the mother cut these absolutely huge pieces of cake to serve to the kids and Jack ate the whole thing. Which, I am sure you can guess the result of so much sugar intake into the boy's system? Yeah he was wired and bouncing off the walls until after 10 last night. I kept trying to get him to go to sleep, but he was jumping all over the bed and at some point, he thought throwing pillows all over my room would be a big hoot. I was practically begging him to go to sleep because I was the complete opposite of being wired. I am glad it is Monday and I can now recover from the weekend. Oh and yeah do my laundry.