Christmas program

A couple more videos!

Xavier's preschool class participated in the church's Sunday school program and had a few songs to sing.

Here's the boys practicing at home:


(they are choosing to clean, not being forced to! I need some kids cleaning stuff, huh?!)

And here he is at the real deal, acting as if he had never heard the song before and he had to follow all the other kids. Oh well...better than last year!

Ruffer pum pum

My boys are OBSESSED with the little drummer boy this year...song (usually Jars of Clay version), book, movie, etc.

Watch for yourself...



(Sorry about the blinding glare off of Jordan's bare skin...his mommy greases him up after bath time because of his eczema :)

And this is how Jordan dances...

Yum...

Just made these:
http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/peppermint-patties-939301/
AND

these:
http://jamespurejoy.blogspot.com/2010/12/salted-caramel-brownie-bites.html
for my MOPS meeting on Tuesday and Xavier's preschool teacher on Wednesday.

I have the right amount for both, so I most withstand temptation now!

Random Thoughts...Christmas edition

1. So we never did Santa Claus growing up. As in I never believed in him. We have made no effort to explain Santa to Xavier and he currently refers to him as NOAH. :) I have not tried to correct him.



Tonight when Matt put him to bed, he wanted to read Noah's Ark in his Jesus Storybook Bible...just getting in the holiday spirit, I suppose.

2. Santa Claus is not real. But if he was, he could not come down my parents' chimney because they had a new cap put on it. You know, so wild animals couldn't get in their house via the chimney.

But apparently that new cap trapped one rather large wild animal in their chimney instead, so he came out to play a few days later. Mr. Raccoon was reportedly 2 feet long and trying to scratch his way into an upstairs bedroom at 2:30 am this morning. The rest of the day involved missing church to deal with said wild beast, calling animal contraol, and cleaning up the huge mess he left behind.

3. This is what I want to get my dad for Christmas. If I only was $34 richer...

4. Our Christmas tree currently only has shatterproof red balls on it and they are all located on the northern half of the tree. Quite beautiful if I do say so myself...

5. I usually have my house fully decorated by the end of Thanksgiving break, but I'm moving more slowly this year. We'll see if anything else actually makes its way out of the boxes.

6. I'm considering putting battery powered Christmas lights on my running stroller. Is that strange?

7. We have continued to sing "Happy Birthday to Jesus" every night as we blow out our Advent wreath candle. Thanks for the new tradition, Xavier!

8. Today was my last photo shoot before Christmas/the end of the year. Yay...I survived. Now a bit more editing and card designing to do...or a lot.

9. When I stay up really late editing, I sometimes sleep on the couch so I don't wake Matt up. And I leave the Christmas tree on. Love it...

10. Can't find all of my Christmas music and it's driving me crazy. At least I have boys to sing for me. Xavier has been singing "Prepare your hearts, Oh joy, joy..." (learned it in preschool). They are singing in church a week from today, so it will be interesting to see how he responds. Please note last year's "singing" at MOPS.

New Tree

We've had the same 4 foot tall Christmas tree for quite some years now and I thought it looked pretty dinky in our house. It was time for a bigger one! So last night I ran out and bought one and set it up (minus any decorations) to surprise the boys in the morning.

And...this is their reactions!

Xavier came down first with Daddy. The quality is horrible because there were no lights on besides the tree and it was still dark outside.



Next came Jordan. Matt is wearing a new hat if that explains anything...



A bit disappointing, eh?

My kids eat spinach for breakfast...

I discovered a month or so ago that if you put spinach in a smoothie that has blueberries in it, it is virtually undetectable. We make a smoothie most mornings and here is one basic recipe (and I use the word "recipe" quite loosely):

blueberries (all fruit is frozen)
strawberries
raspberries
spinach
green tea or juice or even Crystal Light lemonade
vanilla yogurt

Just don't try the spinach without the blueberries there to mask it!

Hmmmm...I wonder if we could use this trick to get Aunt Jamie to eat vegetables??? That might be the true test! ;)

On my mind...a random list of ten.

1. Due to the allergy situation in our household, I’ve given up peanut butter. I like peanut butter. This makes me sad. I need ideas for new quick lunches.

2. We’ve started reading packages much more closely and peanuts (or traces thereof) are in everything. I usually buy off brand or Aldi brand for almost everything. It seems from my package reading that the off brands are much more likely to have traces of peanuts in them. For example, Aldi brand dried cranberries are made on equipment that may also be used for peanuts, but Oceanspray is not. Target brand Teddy Grahams may contain peanuts, but name brand does not. This is not good news. We don’t have money to buy name brand of everything and I don’t have time to coupon clip to any large degree. Apparently, having allergies is expensive.

3. My mom bought me a copy of Dobson’s Bringing Up Boys when we were Black Friday shopping together. I read the first chapter today where he describes what boys are like. I suppose this was intended to make me feel better because my boys are “normal,” but instead I felt a bit depressed…you mean they are not going to grow out of this crazy behavior?? Perhaps I should read past halfway through Chapter 2 before getting too depressed though.

4. I’m thinking about joining a gym. And then I remembered that Jordan can’t bear to be separated from his mommy and I’m not sure what would happen. I don’t think I could get much of a workout in if they call me back after he’s been crying for 10 minutes. He’s a little spoiled with mommy staying at home and really only having been left with Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Erica, Uncle Jon, Aunt Jamie, etc.

5. Speaking of leaving my kids with Grandma, Grandpa, and Erica…Matt and I went on a date on Friday night and saw the movie Today’s Special. It was good. It made us hungry. So then we ate Indian food at 9:30 at night. Yum.

6. I dug the Advent wreath out of the Christmas decorations tonight, put the new candles in, lit the first one, and THEN opened up the devotional. Which read December 1st. Darn. So I told Xavier that we would sing a song instead of reading a devotion. And what do you think he wanted to sing? Yes, Happy Birthday. To Jesus. It’s kind of appropriate though considering he celebrates everyone’s birthday for about a month leading up to it. So maybe we’ll sing Happy Birthday to Jesus every night before we blow out the candles. :)

7. Xavier was in his room for a timeout yesterday. When he got out of timeout, he asked Matt if he was ready to say he was sorry. When Matt asked him why he needed to say he was sorry, Xavier replied—for not coming to get me.

8. I’m probably going to run the Frostbite Series of races that the St. Louis Track Club puts on during December-February. I’m trying to decide between the long set of races (12K up to half marathon) and the short set of races (3K up to 4 miles). I need to decide quite soon because I either need to start running much longer or much faster in my workouts. Hmmmm...

9. Jordan refuses to eat meat for the most part. He’s had very small quantities of meat a couple of times in some soup (chicken) and one pizza (ham). But I seriously can’t remember him ever just eating a piece of meat before. Tonight he did for the first time. And it was….a hot dog. Great. So healthy and nutritious.

10. We watched the movie Babies this weekend with our kids around. Their reactions? Xavier said about forty times—“What are those babies doing?!” and Jordan wanted mama milk after watching…