Happy Birthday!

Arden turned 2 on December 27! She is becoming such a big girl now. She slept in a queen size bed which was the first time out of a crib last week on our trip to a hotel in Camden. She is convinced that she wants to use the big potty and keeps taking off her clothing multiple times each day to get on the potty, but nothing is really happening yet. However, she is very interested, and this is not my idea at all. I want to wait until school is out to begin potty training! She is still tall, according to her recent two year old checkup this week. She is in the 90th percentile for height and 75th for weight. Right now, she is about 36 inches tall (3 feet), weighs 29.5 lbs, and she is wearing size 2 clothing and size 7 - 7 1/2 shoes. Arden is a great sleeper and still takes a long 3 hour afternoon nap on days when she is home. She only naps about 1 to 1 1/2 hours at daycare since other kids wake her up. She goes to bed around 7:30 and sleeps until 7 a.m on school days and 8 or later on weekends!

We didn't have a huge party for her birthday since she's so young, plus organizing a post-Christmas party is really hard! We celebrated once with Mama Bea and Papaw and all of Arden's cousins from Ohio when we were doing early Christmas in Camden last week. Then, on Arden's actual birthday, Stuart and I took the three kids to Jump Zone to play and then did a McDonald's dinner. Her final party was yesterday at her preschool where she attended just two days this week in order to ease back into school resuming for me next week. I sent Dora plates, Dora napkins, Dora cupcakes, and goodie bags for the six children in her class for their afternoon snack. She had a lot of fun seeing her friends again after ten days and had to hug her best friend Chesa at least ten times!

Happy birthday, Arden! We love you so much!

White Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

So . . . we survived first semester! The last week of school was so fun but busy. I think the elementary teachers were trying to kill me with all the things that I had to remember to send with my children each day! I was sending sprinkles, graham crackers, money for a formal dinner, a gift for a gift exchange, teacher gifts, and ornaments for the class tree. Then, I had to remember which child had pajama day on a certain day, so that I didn't send the wrong boy to school in pajamas when it wasn't his day to wear them. I literally had to make myself a list of everything to send to school with the boys each day and what they were to wear; it was crazy! They had a fantastic final week, and Hudson loved "The Polar Express" themed activities that his kindergarten class did. Arden's class each got wrapped toys which were donated by a local vendor, and she came home with the cutest stuffed animal to play with.

We went to Camden for three days this week to do Christmas with Stuart's family. The children really enjoyed playing with their cousins who had come in from Ohio. We hadn't seen them much this year, and the kids love playing together. It is so sweet to see my teenage cousins play with my preschooler and actually enjoy it! The one full day that we were there had wonderful, mild weather, so the kids enjoyed playing outside and throwing the football around. Arden got a wagon ride, and no one even had to wear coats!

When we returned to Bentonville, there were reports of inclement weather brewing, and we are supposedly getting several inches of snow tonight on Christmas Eve. However, the weather caused my mother to cancel her plans of driving here today since she was afraid to take a chance with the impending snow. So, we will be here alone this Christmas, but at least we will have plenty to do inside. I think Stuart bought all the snacks that Walmart sells, and a cake is baking in the oven right now, and I'm trying to get a few more goodies made today.

We brought in the play kitchen out of the garage today (the one I bought her last month on Craigslist) and put it in Arden's room for her Christmas present. She loves it, and so does Hudson. They have spent a better part of today fixing up all sorts of meals and bringing them to me. Their favorite item to use in the kitchen is a Melissa and Doug Stir Fry set of wooden vegetables with a wok. It was one of Arden's gifts that she opened in Camden. I guess they have inherited my love for Chinese food already!

I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if we wake up to a white Christmas, but I know I'm glad to be home to enjoy whatever the weather may be. Merry CHRISTmas to you and your family!

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

It is my yearly tradition to read the kids The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson during the month of December. I try to read one chapter a night for the week before Christmas since the book only has seven chapters.

It is a delightful, funny book that also touches on the real meaning of Christmas as well as such themes as forgiveness, redemption, love, friendship, and thankfulness. This year, I started reading one chapter out loud each day to my 7th grade English students since we are now counting down to the last seven days before Christmas break. I read chapter one today (complete with voices for all the characters), and they seemed to really like it! There was lots of laughing out loud, and it made me feel like we were all getting into the Christmas spirit. Next week, I'm adding a week-long holiday unit with the classic holiday short stories "A Christmas Memory" and "The Gift of the Magi." I'm going to try to work in some video clips from "Christmas Vacation," "A Christmas Story," and "Grinch" to go along with the themes. Hopefully, learning and fun will be had by all!

If you have never read this little book, I encourage you to try it this year with your own house! It's so hilarious and touching. I promise that your kids of all ages will love it.

Weekend Top Ten

1. I enjoyed a couple of those good Lifetime television Christmas movies on DVR
2. The boys enjoyed "cookies with Santa" when he came to our neighborhood for a kids' party on Friday night. It was our first Christmas party in Bentonville.
3. Owen and I laughed out loud and enjoyed a local theater performance of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" on Saturday night. The girl who played Gladys Herdman was a riot!
4. I finally made it back to our community group meeting tonight after missing the last three with someone who was sick.
5. We enjoyed a really fun birthday party with Arden and Hudson's friends at a local Gymboree. It was fun to see Arden play in that setting for the first time.
6. I got all the monthly bills paid and paper work is done. Not fun, but necessary.
7. Stuart got me two different types of egg nog at the grocery store. Yum!
8. Arden noticed Christmas lights for the first time and went spastic yelling at them in the van. It was so cute to see her excitement.
9. We enjoyed a great visit with long-time friend Rebekah Hollaway and one of her daughters who were in town for a swim meet. It was great to catch up and have them spend the night with us!
10. Arden was super affectionate this weekend and gave all of us lots of hugs and kisses . . . what a treat!

Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho, It's back to work (school) we go!

The Thanksgiving break went by much too quickly! I really enjoyed having more leisurely time with the kids, and we did get the Christmas trees and other decorations up this weekend. We still have some outdoor reindeer that may or may not get put out this year, depending on how the next few weeks go.

Unfortunately, we can't seem to stay healthy for more than a week or two at a time this winter. It wasn't anything serious, but Hudson started running fever and was lethargic and coughing on Wednesday. He lay around and didn't want to do much on Thanksgiving Day. Sure enough, Arden woke up with a high fever on Friday morning and turned into a crying, clingy, runny-nosed monster for Friday and Saturday. She's better today, but she's still not eating as much and sleeping more than usual. I got the sore throat and congestion yesterday, but I feel better day. Ugh! I feel like we lost half the break with someone being sick . . . again.

The Christmas trees look good; we have the big one downstairs and let the boys decorate a smaller "kids" tree upstairs in the bonus room. Arden is really understanding Christmas this year and is talking about Santa and saying, "ho, ho, ho." She has pulled off the Dora ornament off the tree and is carrying it around with her everywhere!

We have three more weeks until Christmas break, and I'm excited to have that break also. A week was nice, but two weeks will surely help us all to feel rested and ready to face second semester. I've got a lot to do to wrap up my unit with my classes and finish all the grading and projects to end the semester grades in these few weeks, so it will probably just fly by. We will be going to Stuart's parent's house for a few days for Christmas, but it will be relaxing to spend the majority of the time right here at home!

I'm taking Owen to see the play The Best Christmas Pageant Ever next weekend, and then Stuart and I will go to The Messiah the following weekend. I love this time of year! Maybe we'll even get a little snow!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe that November is almost over. It seems like Halloween was just last week. Time is flying by, and Christmas will be here soon.

I enjoyed Christmas shopping yesterday since I was out of school, and the kids stayed in childcare for one extra day. I had to get a couple fillings at the dentist in the morning and needed childcare for that, and then I decided to use the rest of the time without kids to finish my shopping. I got most of the gifts bought, and I enjoyed shopping when it wasn't overly crowded. A couple gifts were out-of-stock, but I hope they will get more before Christmas since I got rainchecks.

We went to the lighting of the Bentonville square on Saturday and enjoyed hearing live Christmas music and looking at all the lights after dark. The boys thought that some of the songs were very silly like, "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Clause" and "Santa Baby." They asked me why Mommy would kiss Santa and why would she call him "Baby." I wasn't quite sure how to answer that since the kids really believe in Santa! I just told them that Santa must be cute!

I've been getting a lot of projects done around the house with hired help while I've been out of school. A handyman spent four hours here last week and replaced deadbolts, installed a new doorbell, and installed decorative trim on the garage doors. Today a plumber is coming to install my new kitchen sink and fix a dripping shower. My stainless sink has two pinholes in it -- inside the actual sink bottom! I have no idea what happened since the sink was used by two previous owners before us, but that sink basket also was damaged on that side and had to be replaced once we moved in. So, the only thing to do was get a new sink, so that I could use both sides without having water flood the cabinet below. I guess that is my Christmas present!

The boys are looking forward to watching some football games over the holiday weekend. They have really gotten into the sport after Owen got to attend the last two Razorback home games in Fayetteville with Stuart due to some generous, free tickets we were given. Now, all Owen talks about is football, and he is reading the sports page every day!

We hope you and your family have a great Thanksgiving weekend! We all have much to be thankful for.