Mama treasured all these things in her heart....

Now I am writing two posts at one time. One has pics and they take forever to load so I am just going to write a new post and post 2. Lately as I have held my boys close I think about the verse that says "and Mary treasured all of these things in her heart." That is how I feel. Treasureing all these sweet moments with my little boys. Because a mama knows, little boys won't always sit on her lap and snuggle. Last night was a relaxing evening. We were supposed to go to the church Christmas play, and we were planning too... right up until 30 min before. I have been battling morning sickness... and yesterday... it turned to evening sickness. So we scratched our plans... and I made a big pot of mac and cheese and called it good. And lest one think it was real... it was not.... it was from a blue box :) Then everyone got in their footie jammies and we watched grinch and wrapped presents in front of the tree. And the big boys fought over who was going sit in my lap. After the show... I got to take a rare bath and read my fave Christmas book.... Shephards Abiding, a Christmas in Mitford with Father Tim. How I love a cozy book.... while I read the boys all wrapped my presents... oh how they know how mommy loves presents.

Gifts are my love language :) Not ashamed of that... cause I love to give too!! I find it hard to stop buying presents... I cannot be one of those who shops all year for people, cause then I would end up with way too many things for people. We also cannot be one of those families that gives 3 presents to their kids because Jesus recieved 3 gifts. Not because I give way more than that... I just would be able to count say a bag of socks as one gift. It would feel like I was lying if I said it was one present and then really it was 5 pairs of socks. I have several friends who are doing this right now, but I just would never be able to say 3 unless it were actually only 3 finite items. In fact, oldest boy is really only getting one toy (but its Legos) so then I would have to say 324 toy peices. Weird, I know.

Then we put the boys to bed. And after they had just fallen asleep... hubs decided it might be fun to go for a coon hunt. (racoon hunt, for those of you who don't speak Sandhills). So we got the boys all up, into their coveralls and loaded in the pickup. We listened to Christmas music and sang, and got hold the cuddly tired baby, and it was just about perfect. And Mama treasured all these things in her heart....The End

Christmas Cookies

Lets establish one thing right now, this is not a crafting blog. Not that anyone thought it might be... lets just clarify. The following are not going to win any awards... but we did have fun... and that was the point! The first pic is all of us... that is pretty much how we look... Crew is actually smiling, mid growl. Baby is eating a cookie.

This was a cookie, I made, that turned out looking quite demonic. I was trying to do a cute reindeer smiling, but instead it morphed into something evil. Oops.

Either its a pic with Crew smiling, or his eyes open, I went with smiling. He was pretty pleased with his chicken, we are big chicken fans around here, we have what I call free ranging chickens wandering the yard.

Clay was pretty pleased with his work.

And here is a pic of Cal, cause I just think he is the cutest baby! So happy.

Dad was in on cookie baking as well...

Or snitching :) Note the 25 lb yellow bag of rice on my table... still not sure how to store that thing!

Cal wants in on the action.

Ah, sweet success. And below is what we look like not 5min later. Stripped down, wrestling and beating each other with wrapping paper swords. Good times!!

Good Morning!

I have 30 min before I am supposed to leave for work, so why not update a blog you havn't seen since July?? Well, yesterday I did. But that was super long post... guess thats what you get for posting at 4am. I assure you, it is not 4am now. 8:05. Headed to work, but today I get to hear my babies heartbeat again! I hope. I have a Dr. appt. anyway. Not really sure what the point of these early dr. appts are, but I go anyway just to hear the heartbeat. Last night was a classic night at my house. One child made 2 children bleed. By punching one in the nose, and rocking the other in his highchair so he hit his little teeth on the tray. I love my little blondie, but he is a wild one. He promptly cried and yelled "I don't want spanked." Not that we spank or anything... wonder why he would say that?? ;) He ought to say, "I don't want biblically chastised" cause thats what we practice. In other news Big C (age 6) gathered the eggs last night and reported that he had to break them cause there was "snow" in them. It was such a cute thing to say, cause he doesn't really mistake words much anymore. He wanted to save the snowy eggs for dad to show him and wondered how the snow got in there. Just so you know, if you leave eggs out in 15 degree weather, they freeze. Can you use frozen eggs? In cookies or something? Hmm. Comment if you know. That means you mom!! Alright now I have 18 min to get ready for work and I still have a towel on my head. Happy Tuesday!

Of mice and babies

4am. Why not update your blog that you haven't seen since July at 4am on a Monday morning. I see no good reason not too! I am up with a quiet dark house, save for the Christmas tree. Love that. And a mouse. Don't so much love that. I can hear him prowling around.... don't judge, I live in the country. Mice are practically housepets. If you attempted to kill your housepets daily... which you probably don't. Why am up you ask?? Bc one of my dearest friends just recieved her baby. In China. Which is amazing. The rest of us back here can't hardly the stand the wait... I don't know how she did it for 18 months or so of the adoption process. Which is now over.... and I am sooo glad and happy for her. It has been fun following her in China, she blogs at Madmousel.blogspot.com. I love a good adoption blog.

In other news. Its been a big weekend. Friday night we took the kids to a singing Christmas tree performance at a nearby church. The kids did pretty well... I like for them to learn how to sit through and enjoy such things. Then we drove around and looked at Christmas lights which I love. The largest town by us... 25,000 or so 40 min away has this park where they set up Christmas houses. So you drive by slowly and roll your windows down and listen to the music and check out the Christmas houses which have moveable characters in them. Very cute.

Saturday was shopping in a town 1.5 hours away. Because I am pretty sure I can't do Christmas without Target. Any of you who live 5 min away from a Target, you take a moment and say a prayer of thanks for your geographical location. I'll wait. Ok now. Doesn't gratitude feel good? After shopping came a visit to my Grandma's house... which there is nothing better than a trip to granny's. After that, we dropped the kids of at their other granny's and then we went to a card party. Where, frankly my partner and I dominated. Pitch is super fun. And we really only won half of our games... but we won when it counted the most. Ie... we were paired up with the cockiest players of the party. (including my husband who shall remain nameless.)

Sunday would normally involve church, save for the cows. Any excuse I have for missing church, ALWAYS involves livestock. Because unfortunatly, cows still need fed on Sundays. But we got to hang at my MILs house, where she fixed us lunch, which I never mind not cooking on Sunday... so it was all good. We came home, just relaxed and watched Rudolf the Red nosed reindeer while eating popcorn. We love popcorn on a Sunday night.

So that brings us to Monday. Here we are! The start of a brand new busy week. Tonight I get to go learn how to bake bread from one of my fave homemakers. So looking forward to that. I know how to bake bread, and do... but this involves a Bosch. Which is serious. And involves grinding your own wheat, a level of bread baking that I have yet to attain. But that I want to... because my family is expanding. Which brings us to one more paragraph and then I'm done.

We are approx 10 wks 4 days pregnant. I must say it like that, bc I am type A in certain areas. Not a lot mind you... but a few. Because if I said 3 months, that would be giving myself 2 extra weeks and when you hit 3 months you should be past morning sickness, which I am decidely not, thus, I feel the need to say 10wks 4days. Due July 7 which is my oldest childs birthday. And while we are on the subject.... lets talk briefly about what NOT to say to pregnant people. Or at least this one. Since I already have 3 boys.... please do not say...."maybe its a girl" with a hopeful glimmer in your eye. This is extremely hurtful. Every mom of boys has at one point wished for a girl. Every mom of girls has at one point wished for a boy. But sometimes, it just doesn't happen... and to say "I hope you have a girl now" is like saying "a girl would be the best thing that could happen, but I guess if its a boy, thats ok." I want to be excited about my baby. I AM excited about this baby. I LOVE little boys. And big boys. Having another boy is not "less than." And then if you find out the sex and you tell people its another boy... its like "oh, well thats fun too." Even though the look on their face, makes it appear as if a root canal would be more fun. No one needs to point out that it could be a girl.... of course I know that. The. End.

Not really the end, just the end of that soapbox. The unfortuante thing is that basically just my mom reads this, and she already knows how I feel! Anyway. Well, now its 440. Do I go back to bed? Do I just stay up and read the Bible by the light of the tree? I am going to be soo tired by bread baking time... I don't want to miss something key. I will try and come back and post any bread baking tips I learn. Have a great Monday!!