The Aftermath

It was a tough reentry back to Grandparent free life. We had to do laundry,make our own food and the children had to find ways to entertain themselves. It was ok until Annalise started following me around begging for marshmellows to take care of her sugar crashes. So I told them to find one of their many Christmas presents. I didn't mean all of them,but the girls took it that they had to do every craft within the last two days. Annalise made this pretty bag that Tinkerbell also fits in. There are lots of modes of transport for that goat.
Evie busted out the Candy Jewelry maker. Think along the lines of Easy Bake Oven, but melting candy instead of baking cakes.

We popped the finished product out of the mold.

Annalise models her candy earrings.

Evie has candy earring and a necklace.

annalise did do some work today. She folded these towels. Perfect.

And the paper from the paper recycling kit. It was ok,but mom did most of the work and it took all night for the paper to dry. Aunt Becky, your thank you note is on the way. Treasure it because it might be the last paper recycled for a while.

And Evie works on her Cross stitch butterfly. So that completes most of the Christmas crafts. Now they will go back to fighting over pillows and blankets and hanging off the chairs.

The Doug Seibert Christmas recap

We stayed at Grandma and Grandpa Seibert's house to celebrate another Christmas. I don't have any pictures of the bedlam that ensued while the presents were being opened because June was in the same bedroom as our camera. Aunt Becky says never wake a sleeping Juner. So, hopefully Aunt Becky posts some stuff soon. We gave everyone else remote control helocopters. Uncle Kevin only crashed it into the Christmas tree once.
The kids were getting bored so Aunt Becky took them outside to run off some energy.

Annalise tries out her new sleeping bag as Aunt Elizabeth tries to take a nap.

The guys were pretty involved with playing with the Ipod Touches. They played air hockey against one another and downloaded a bunch of apps.

Juner woke up and had fun playing in the sleeping bag too.

Mom has lots of fun with all the kiddos.

Wagner Christmas Party recap

We loaded up the station wagon and headed up to NWO for a few more Christmas parties. First stop was in Paulding,OH for the Wagner family Christmas. Great Aunt Mary and Great Aunt Linda are going to make awesome Grandmas someday. They each gave presents to all the kids.
There were coloring books, bracelets and a bag that can carry "Tinkerbell" the baby goat perfectly.

Tessa hammed it up in her super cute dress and fuzzy boots.

Annalise and Dad take a break for a cuddle.

We all had a great time visiting, drinking, and eating. It was great to see everyone!

Christmas Day recap

Santa found us while we were sleeping. The kids slept until 7:15 am. That's pretty good in this house. They even waited patiently for all the grown ups to get up and get dressed or robed up. Here they are checking out the presents under the tree. The girls ran into a problem that some of the presents weren't labeled.
So they dug into their stockings. Hey, the wrapping paper in their stockings matched some of the presents! That Santa is clever.

Evie had lots of fun opening her stocking stuffers.

Grandpa and Grandma got presents in their stockings too!

And Santa came through for Annalise with a baby goat. Unforunately, it wasn't a live baby goat, but Santa must know that we can't have livestock in the subdivision.

Grandma and Grandpa opened up some more presents.

Evie and Annalise gave mom a present of yarn. So I can knit them hats. Lucky me.

And they tore into some presents from their cousins in TX.

And then they settled down to play with the Barbie house. For about 30 seconds. Then Evie took off to play Wii and Annalise stacked all her baby goats on the sundeck of the Barbie house.

Christmas Eve recap

Ok, we are catching up on a lot of blogging tonight. So get comfy. On Christmas Eve, I lifted the ban on meat and got a brisket. I made it according to the super secret special recipe from Moe and Jen. Here I am in disbelief that I have his huge hunk of meat in my house. At least I got it from the local butcher.
Jim jumps on the chance to bust out a summer sausage while the meat ban is lifted.

Meanwhile,down in the basement, the girls were playing with some long forgotten toys. They made these "bugs". Note, Annalise stayed in her jammies until Mass at 7 pm. Then she put on clean jammies for bed.

Evie and her creation.

The brisket shrunk during the cooking process. While it was tasty, it just wasn't as good as Moe and Jen's. I guess Catholic guilt doesn't subsitute for Jewish guilt.

Evie made some reindeer food to attract Santa's reindeer to our house. She spread it by the house near the chimney.

You can't really see it but there is oatmeal and glitter out there on the grass..

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you and yours. We are still in our jammies (except for Evie who was too embarassed to be photographed in her pj's) and it's almost supper time. Love to all our readers.

Annalise the Christmas Blob

Is it possible to have too much Christmas before Christmas is even here? Annalise is having a hard time getting moving this morning and has thrown about 37 tantrums already despite all the warnings that Santa is still watching. Everyone, pray for a nap!

Weeekend Catch Up

This past week, the girls wrapped up school for the year. They both had fun at their class parties. We celebrated the end of the school year by going to see the lights at the zoo. Evie stops off at the hot dog stand for a snack.
Mom and her girls. it was even warm enough to go without snow pants!

Saturday, the super fun Advent activity was to construct a foam Christmas Tree. They did a great job of working together. Mom only had to help when the hot glue gun was needed (I'm so glad I bought a new one. We use it all the time!)

Shlee. Here's a funny story. When Jim comes home from work, we hug and kiss (because we are still in love--awww) and Annalise always tries to squeeze in between us. So we jokingly call her the Holy Spirit (as in Make Room for the Holy Spirit at Church Dances). Well, on Sunday morning, she didn't have ambition to put on pants after changing out of her church clothes. Jim and I were sitting together and she squeezed in between. We commented on her lack of clothes and she said "The Holy Spirit doesn't wear clothes"

Here's the "Holy Spirit" picking her nose. It took her a good hour to get dressed.

She found these heart things and licked them to put them on her face. Gross.

Monday night, Evie decided it would be fun if we braided her hair while it was wet so it would be bumpy in the morning. This is the braid shot. Turns out she thought it was too bumpy and didn't like it.

Today, we woke up to a nice coating of wet snow. Evie and Annalise spent about 2 hours outside this morning. While we were out, we constructed a couple of snowmen with the neighbor girl help.

The kid who is always hot loved being out in the snow today. Much different from last year.

The other giant snowman. It took all four of us to roll the bottom snowball into place. Sadly, we are expecting freezing rain tomorrow, so the snowmen will be no more.

Christmas Pj's

This year, we all opened early Christmas presents of Jammies to wear on Christmas day. The girls got their's a couple of weeks ago. Jim got his today. On Christmas, we'll have a fashion show.Evie's not holding the pj's up, she's wearing them! And if you zoom in on the pic, you can see the moon crown that Evie made today.
Annalise had to try them on too. That is both of her legs in one of the leg holes. and there was room to spare!

Our aspiring ballerinas enjoy the Christmas music.

Mom finds her Christmas Spirit--and it cost less at Walmart

I took the day off from Christmas music yesterday to reset my Christmas spirit. Instead I listened to the classic rock and "alt" rock stations in the car. I got my fill of STP, G&R, the Foo, some Beatles, and the Allman Bros. I felt recharged and ready to face some Gloria Estefan "Christmas in your Eyes" (yuck).

So what should my wondering eyes to appear when I opened the morning paper? A Walmart Ad.

I guess when you are done shopping for all your Snuggies, TV's, and remote control cars, come on back to Walmart. Cause they have low prices on the stuff you really need for the holidays. (This is an actual ad in our paper--I swear I didn't photoshop this) This put so much happiness into my heart as I thought up smart comments to make on the blog. I think my heart grew three times its size today. What a Christmas....to Remember.