FYI

my365 2010

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Images from Christmas

I'm late to the party, as usual. I wish there was a way that I could connect my computer to my head and think about what I want to write on my blog. I think about all kinds of interesting things to write about during the day and then at night, bleh. I don't ever feel like it. I think I'm going to try out the 365 photo a day blog this year too (I know. You're thinking ha HA! She can't even keep up with her regular blog). I'll give it a shot anyway.

Waiting with apprehensive breath

Man, oh man, is the excitement running high around here tonight! Maggie can't wait to see what Santa brought her tomorrow morning. BUT. During dinner tonight, David sneaked out and rang the sleigh bells that my mom and dad have hanging up and stomped around upstairs for awhile and about scared Maggie to death. She thought Santa had come while she was still awake and promptly told me that she was ready to go to bed that instant. We tracked Santa on the NORAD tracker and found that he was way down in South America so we all breathed a sigh of relief. We also watched him fly over the Great Wall of China.

Here are just a few pictures of our Christmas Eve day!

Performed a little hard labor

at the sink with Grandpa

Played some tunes on the "pi-nano" with Nuria

Got some cookies ready for Santa

And left them sitting on the hearth

for him!

David tried to tell Maggie that Santa would prefer Vault over milk but she wasn't having it. Of course, that wasn't all we did today. David, Jeff (my brother), ReRe (David's mom, who is joining us this year) and I went on what's becoming our annual Christmas Eve shopping trip. We also went to church tonight and had a yummy family dinner. Maggie and Nuria are all snug in their beds and David and I have a few presents left to wrap and then we might be following them.

4 year old Christmas is super fun. Maggie really gets what's going on this year and I can't wait to open presents with her tomorrow. With that, I hope everyone has the merriest of Christmases!

Giving thanks

Alrighty, on Monday we were supposed to do something for a poor family we personally know, but I couldn't think of anyone. BUT, we did take an angel off the angel tree at the gym so on Saturday, we did our shopping for the 4 year old girl whose name we drew. Maggie helped pick out a Memory game, some Play doh, a Dora coloring book and an outfit. I love doing stuff like that. I hope Maggie will learn to love it too. We also put a dollar in our gold box.

Today when I picked Maggie up at school, the kids had "written" letters to Santa. Maggie's said that she wanted a dollhouse and books. I've got the books covered but just between us, Santa's not bringing a dollhouse. I thought she wanted a video game! This was the first I heard of a dollhouse! I told Maggie on the way home that Santa might not bring all of that and she might just get one thing. She told me, "I'm going to be upset if I just get one present!" Yikes. We've gotta work on the giving thing some more and we will.

On Sunday night, we also put up our Christmas tree. It looks so pretty but I don't really have many great pictures of the final product. Rege and Barb brought their artificial tree out and gave it to us because they said it was just too big for their house. Maggie helped quite a bit so we ended up with lots of ornaments around the bottom third of the tree. David went back and did some doctoring after she went to bed.

Maggie really liked this ornament.

I think she called it a seed.

On Tuesday, we were supposed to be thankful that we were not starving like much of the world and put in a penny for each overweight pound. UGH. There's only one overweight person in my house and it's not David or Maggie. I put in some money. Let's just leave it at that.

Then today, we gave thanks for peanut butter and jelly! Seven cents for each jar of PB and 3 cents for each jar of jelly. Ten cents if anyone ate a PB&J (David did) today.

Tonight, Maggie and I picked up dinner at a Chinese restaurant and took it to David at school. Then we stayed for the basketball game. The kids behind us were calling "Air ball! Air ball!" during one of the free throws and Maggie said, "Mommy, those kids are saying el-bow, el-bow!" Hee! Maggie was HIGHLY interested in the cheerleaders and watched them for most of the game. She also watched a lot of high schoolers beating each other in the head with those inflatable thunder sticks. I am getting too old to sit on gym bleachers, I think. Or my rear end is.

Embarrassed

I got behind just a bit so I am using Sunday as our catch up day. On Friday, we gave thanks that we have adequate (and maybe MORE than adequate) clothing and we counted our socks. I had to help quite a bit as we began to get up into numbers that Maggie doesn't know very well. We gave 2 cents for each pair and we had a grand total of.....135 pairs of socks!!!!!!!! That is crazy and like my title says, rather embarrassing.

Then yesterday, we gave thanks that we have the ability to communicate by phone and email with family and friends. 5 cents per phone (2) and 15 cents each for email.

And finally, here is my mantel. Oh, how I love it. I told David tonight that I'm leaving it up all year because I love it so much. You need to imagine a mirror above it though. We haven't gotten quite that far yet.

We are slowly getting the house decorated for the holidays. David put all of our Snow Village houses out yesterday and I got the Christmas china out as well. Maggie helped me put the Christmas placemats on the table and we are putting our tree up tomorrow. I love Christmas-time.

Staying warm

I am so thankful for our soft beds, squishy pillows and warm blankets, especially at this time of year. I am cold-natured and usually sit under a blanket even when the fire is burning. Tonight, we counted all of our blankets and put a penny in our box for each one. We had 18, counting bedspreads and comforters. Wow!

You know what the students of today should be thankful for? Easybib.com. OMG. That site does your entire works cited page for you. I taught (well, attempted to teach, as many of my students looked as if I were asking them to perform surgery) my students how to use it today and I could not BELIEVE how easy it was. Instead of flipping through a million pages and writing down dates and publishers and cities, you just copy and paste the website name into the site and it does the entire thing for you. Of course, I went to a college with an actual card catalog so what do I know about this newfangled technology?

We are reading "A Christmas Carol" this month and the students have to create a character who would have lived during Scrooge's time and write a character sketch about said person. Today, I had to tell one boy that he could not have multiple wives, another boy that he could not be gay (punishable by death! Plus, I'm not going there with that RIDICULOUSNESS) and another boy that his Victorian name could not be Dr. Evil. I also discouraged another boy from choosing a girl for his character. You see, the kids also have to dress as their character and present to the class. And lest you think I'm being closed-minded and not allowing my cross dressing and homosexual students to express their freedoms, I am NOT. These were just dumb boys being dumb. My patience is rather thin at this point in the year.

I think I'd better do another list of 5 things I'm thankful for, huh?

• The pouring down rain we had all day yesterday.
• A surprise dinner visit from Kimberly, Mark and AK last night
• Looking for Christmas lights on the way home from school with Maggie
• My mantel decorations that look just the way I wanted them to
• Christmas tree scented candles

Getting clean!

Today, we gave thanks for the blessing of bathtubs and showers with running water in our home. We put in 12 cents for each person who took a bath or shower today which was all 3 of us!We started opening the doors on our Advent calendar yesterday too. The middle is metal and each door contains a magnetized piece inside to put inside the stable. Yesterday, door #1 contained a star which Maggie promptly put in the stable. This morning, a man was inside door #2. When Maggie pulled him out, she said, "It's GOD!" Hee. She decided he needed to go in the stable too. When I told her that I thought it might be Joseph, she scoffed at me and said, "MOMMY. That's not Joefus!"

Finally, in response to some comments and questions:

Kristi and Cindy--Kylie and Caroline SO need pink trees. It was only $15 at Walmart! And it's pre-lit! You know you want one too.

Kristi--I will send you a copy of my list but I need to type it up first.

Jon--Yes, we have a list that we are following!

And tomorrow, blankets!