Christmas

 The traditional Jesus birthday cake made on Christmas eve.

The socks and garters from Uncle Jim

We went to Chris' for dinner and opened the presents from the kids and the santa hats Pat and Jim gave the boys. It was very loud with three of them going at once. Goldie was afraid of it at first and now she gets all excited when she hears the hat.

 Brandon's Santa gifts

Jessie's Santa gifts

The kids got up at 4AM. I didn't find out until later that they had flashlights and peeked at the presents. I made them go back to bed and they slept until 6:30. They opened stockings and their santa gifts. Jess got a purple ukele and a box for her seashell collection. Brandon got a firetruck pumper and a military jeep. They were very happy. We went over to Mom's to open our stockings and then back to our house for the rest. GG came for lunch and stayed for the gift opening. It was a good day. No one was sick, no arguments, and everyone got what the wanted.

The doll house we made for Jessie. The boys built it and Mom and I painted it and decorated it.

I asked Brandon if there was something he would like us to make for him since we were making the dollhouse for Jessie and he wanted a me to paint him a landscape

 
Mom, Brandon, Jessie and I made a four generation painting with some of GG's paintings.

Christmas

I can't believe it is already Christmas Eve. It has gone by so fast. The last few weeks were rushed because I got behind between helping at the Santa shop at school all day for a week and then with the kids being sick off and on. Santa shop was fun. I love seeing what the kids pick out for their families. We didn't make it to the riverwalk this year because Brandon was sick but we still went to the Electricritters with everyone. We also went to Chris' Christmas party. We were going to go to the nature center but found out that it wasn't much and decided it wasn't worth driving all the way out there. Last night we went to Scott's family and met the two new babies. Get this one of them is named Harrison Jones. Go figure that we would have two in our family. They were really looking forward to seeing babies but didn't much know what to do with them once they saw them.  Tonite we are going to Chris' house for the Eve party and during the day we will read the Christmas story and bake the Jesus birthday cake. The kids figure Christmas Eve is just as good as Christmas because we keep them so busy and they still get to open presents. They both still believe in Santa but I think at least for Brandon it is more of a choosing to because he doesn't want us to tell him it is not so. This will probably be the last year. Jessie is doubting too. In some ways I will be glad because it is so much work making sure they don't find out. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas.

Goldie's blog of shame and other pics

 In case you can't read the sign it says " I got on the counter and Mommy's sugar cookies twice! I also like to steal Daddy's chair and I am not sorry at all." Don't let the look fool you. she just doesn't like having her picture taken. She has been really onery lately. It's like she has two personalities. The shy, I know you are going to beat me one, and the I don't care if I get into trouble, I will do it anyway.

 Here is when she is being sweet. Her and Socks are best buddies. You wouldn't know it to look at her that she tries to eat any other cat.

                                                      Beautiful Colorado sunset

                                   BJ being a good boy pretending to be the sweet one. This will be his second    Christmas and Goldie's first at our house.

Sick kids

Jessie was sick with a real bad cold last week. She was well enough to participate in Thanksgiving but she lost her voice. She is so funny trying to read a story out loud with her squeaky voice. Now Brandon has the cold. We thought it might be strep at first but I don't think so. He is so bad that he had trouble breathing and then gets scared because he feels like he is suffocating. I hate that there isn't more that I can do for him. Jess stayed home today also even though she is not really sick any more but I was to tired to argue with her. She doesn't like riding the bus by herself, so if he is sick, I have to take her to school or she freaks out or makes herself sick. Hopefully I can get them both well and no one else will get this since we have so many Christmas stuff coming up and I am supposed to work the Santa shop at school all next week. Wish us luck and prayers that everyone gets well and stays well. I hope everyone else is doing okay also.

Halloween

The kids were Indiana Jones and a vampire princess this year. Jess decided she wanted to be scary this year. They had their school parties and parade. This year they were both in the afternoon so we only had to go once this time. We came home and spent a few minutes with the dogs then left again to go see GG. They got some treats there and then we went to Chris's neighborhood. It was kind of hit and miss there but they got enough and then we went to Chris' house and ordered pizza for dinner. We went to Rachel's Aunt's house after dinner because they really decorate and have a small spook house. They did a few houses over there but by that time they were getting tired and since it was a school night we called it quits. They still got enough and had fun going around the houses. There were some beautiful houses in Chris's neighborhood.  The kids also had a family reading night that we went to the school and had dinner and learned different things to help with reading. The got perfect attendance certificates at their end of quarter awards ceremony and Brandon made honor roll. He is doing better most of the time. It is kind of hit and miss, one week he does great and the next week he flips cards, forgets homework, does bad on tests. At least it is not a constant bad and we were very proud of him for making honor roll. Jessie is doing really well also and is excelling in class especially reading. So we are very proud of both of them.

Dad's surgery again

Dad just got out of the hospital again. He formed a blood clot from the previous surgery and they had to put him on major meds to dissolve it. He is now home and doing okay. He is on blood thinners for at least awhile. Dad thinks they will keep him on for the rest of his life. We will see I guess. It is kind of scary because they tell you if you bruise or hit any part of your body hard you should have it checked out to make sure you don't bleed to death. Plus you have to watch the foods you eat because you can't have too much vitamin K. Hopefully this will be the end for quite awhile now. He was pretty much told he can't fight fires anymore. He was thinking of giving it up anyway but you never like to be told you can't. It would have been nice if it was his idea. He is a little sad about that and is disappointed because he was going to dress up while he drove the SRDA van today and now he isn't working and doesn't even feel like going out with the kids tonite. Keep him in your prayers.

Brandon's imagination

Last night Brandon was trying to keep me in his room instead of going to sleep. We were sitting there talking about what we were going to do today. The kids were already hyped up because we went to the airport museum yesterday and they loved looking at all the old planes. Especially Brandon.  Anyway we were talking about chores and he said his chores for today were to milk the cow, feed the chickens, grind up pumpkin for the pigs and plow the fields. Then he said that he had to fix the buggy. I asked him what was wrong with the buggy and he said the wheel broke off. He needs the buggy to pick up rocks because he is making a fence out of rock to keep the cows in. He also needs to buy a new rope. Now by this time I'm thinking he is asleep and dreaming, which he has been known to do, but then he looked over at me and said what are you doing, patting Socks? He also remembers it this morning so he was awake. I don't know where he got all of that from, especially when we were looking at old planes not farming equipment. His imagination will take him far one day if I can just get him through school first.  Doing homework with him is a major drain on my patience. Being ten does not help his focus issues at all. I swear his brain disappeared. It took him about forty minutes to do his math homework the other day, and he got several of them wrong. This is math that he did last year so it is not even new to him. Simple mistakes that he should know better.  One problem he was supposed to find the perimeter of the two inch sided square. He added 6+5. He doesn't even know where he got those numbers. But then I asked him how he got the measurements for a rectangle he was supposed to measure and find the periemter on and he said he guessed. When I made him measure with the ruler, he was right. Go figure. He also had no problems with finding the radius of a circle, which was a new concept for him, so I am thinking he does much better with geometry because there are pictures so it is more visual than just numbers. Sometimes I am not sure we are going to survive school. At least he has his imagination.