Trying to Catch Up

I have been trying to catch up on my blog reading and posts ... so bear with me this is a little long

• Kindergarten Holiday Party (& Pajama Day) Friday Afternoon - let me preface this by saying I think I win Volunteer of the Year for Chatty's Class and Most Interesting Holiday Party. Shortly after we started decorating the gingerbread houses (minutes after the following pictures were taken) Jordan (who sits at Chatty's table) proceeded to throw up not once but twice in the classroom. As if that wasn't enough, Brandon threw up because he saw Jordan throw up. Abbey's dad sprang into action and started getting paper towels so I began cleaning the lovely mess up! Not like I enjoy cleaning my own kids puke, much less someone elses kid, but if I didn't I was going to be the next one in the nurses office. Luckily a couple other moms helped clean up the other spots! Miss Johnson and the other parents moved the kids and the the gingerbread decorating outside. Good thing it was a lovely 70 degrees here in the desert!

Cous - I didn't chop my hair - just got a little cut off ...

• As if that wasn't enough excitement for the day, we went to the train park with our neighbors on Friday night. We rode the train, carousel and even visited with Santa. It's a crazy year - we now have two pictures with Santa after going 5 years without! Bia wasn't a big fan (as you can see from the photo below, hence the reason Mr. ESPN is in the picture too). You'll also notice a picture below with Chatty covering her face. This was taken during 1 of the 2 timeouts she experienced while we waited for the train ride! Good times!

Don't you just love Bia's look? Making sure the big guy doesn't try anything!

• Saturday a few of my girlfriends came over to decorate cookies and drink wine. It was fun to catch up with them and just chill. I forgot to take any pictures of the girls or the cookies but let me assure you a good time was had by all and our cookies looked fabulous! Only problem is the red icing tastes like crap. Even Mr. ESPN wouldn't eat it today and he eats everything! Too bad I made a bunch of red stocking cookies, guess we will save them for Santa!
• My goal of hitting the gym on Friday and Saturday was not achieved ... oh well ... even OCD people have to deviate from the plan occasionally ... tomorrow no excuses - I will be there! In fact as soon as I am done with this post I am looking up class times!
• On a serious note, please say a prayer for a family in my church. They have two children my kids age (her daughter is in Chatty's Sunday school class - the one I teach). The mom just got diagnosed with Stage IV lymphoma ... such sad news. Also my old neighbor recently miscarried. Both of these women are strong Christian women and I know they would appreciate your prayers.
• If Chatty behaves tomorrow we may venture into cookie baking/decorating tomorrow ... and Bia may join in too!
• I am on vacation for two weeks - woo hoo!!

Busy Busy Weekend

Let's start off with Friday. To preface this story I have to admit I am one of those mean moms who never takes my kid to have their picture taken with Santa. I don't have any pictures of either of my girls with the big guy. My excuse is the time and money. We are always so busy during this time of year and I can't stand waiting in line and paying lots of money for one crappy picture. Honestly, since we have Snowball the Elf, Chatty hasn't even asked to get a picture taken with him. Last Friday Boys and Girls Club hosted a breakfast with Santa. Chatty was so excited to go that morning. Each child got to sit on Santa's lap and tell them what they wanted. When I picked her up from Boys and Girls Club that afternoon, they gave each of the parents pictures of their child with Santa. I had to scan the photo in (hence the crappy quality) ... but alas we have a picture of one of my kids with the Big Guy (Click and you can enlarge it)!

OK and because I (actually Mr. ESPN) was scanning stuff, I (actually Mr. ESPN) scanned our Christmas card too (double click to enlarge) .. I have received several Christmas cards this year with the entire family - which I love and I was feeling guilty I did just the girls, but I decided my hair looked too crappy (must be my word of the day) to have us all on the card. Maybe next year. I really loved the wording on this card and the cute pic of my girls!

Saturday I co-hosted a baby shower for a friend of mine. She is pregnant with twin boys. Since her husband is an Arizona alum, I decided to use Arizona colors (red and blue) for the "theme". My friend the Kingston Queen taught me how to make these pretty iced cookies. She even helped me with some of these. I did all different things on the onesie cookies .. intials, monogram, sailboat, etc.

And here they are packaged up (we gave them out as favors) ..
And here are some pictures of the diaper cake my craft mom made. It turned out super cute and everyone loved it. Thanks Mom!

I used it as the centerpiece for the table during the shower.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the shower. The only problem was we made too much food ... but that means leftovers! Yesterday I taught Sunday school and then came home and made several batches of homeade salsa and chocolate chip cookies to give out to our neighbors. I have been a baking machine ... Friday night I made several dozen mint chocolate chip cookies and cake balls for the shower and then yesterday I made seven dozen peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies! Tonight Chatty and I are going to make sugar cookies. We made the dough last night and will roll them out and use the cookies cutters and bake them tonight. So much to do this week!