Monday, December 27, 2010

The Christmas Card that Never Was

I have not sent real snail mail Christmas cards in years. I usually do the whole e-mail card with a picture of the kids. That's all family wants anyway... a picture of the kids. Well this year I took the pictures and started tinkering around with my card maker program, but just never finished. Anyway, here is the one I took for the blog. You can consider it your belated Merry Christmas card. LOL!

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Favorite What?!?!

WARNING! Do Not read this post if you are offended by the use of names representing female anatomy!




We were out grocery shopping and the kids were in the back seat waiting and playing a memory game of "What's Your Favorite...?" They were discussing colors, music and foods. My 6 yr old foster daughter said in answering favorite food that she liked, "Vagina"  The boys moaned with disgust; the 12 year old goes into the "We don't talk inappropriate" speech and the 6 year old looks confused. She says, "But I like vagina; it's my fav-wit"  I ask her to describe it and she says it has noodles, cheese and "veg-tupples." I realize she is trying to say, "lasagna" and she says with the brightest smile, "Yes!!! Vagina!"

Uhhhh, yeah.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Easy Chains and Tough Pinata!

Every years we do the simple, yet surprisingly beloved activity of making paper chains. I am always amazed that they want to do this every year and still like to do them.










We put up our little "Cha*rlie Br*wn" tree and decorated the house. We have yet to decorate the tree; for now there are 3 gingerbread men on there. They smell sooooooo good.

The pinata.

 Let's just say it was not going to give up the candy without a fight. That little paper bag was so difficult to break. I kept putting starter holes in it and they kept whacking it, but it would not break. I finally had to puncture it all around and still ended up having to rip it more to get the rest of the candy out. It was a mad dash to the floor and I had to crack up because after all the candy had been gathered, there were stickers and other small trinkets left on the floor. No rush to claim those. Ha Ha ha! But the candy was clutched tight!

It was a fun, peaceful day. Our church Christmas program is tomorrow and then we have 3 more days of school before a short break.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Fashion Week

The Princess (aka, 7th grade, aka, Jordan) has a new hobby. It's cheap and keeps her happy (which keeps mommy happy!)

Princess Puppy

Monday, December 13, 2010

SNOW DAY!!!

So pretty much every school in my state was closed today. My 7th grader was watching the closing crawler across the television screen last night as if there was some kind of prize forthcoming. Then she went to get a piece of tape to write our school name on it so that she could tape it to the t.v. LOL! Most of the time I don't pay attention to public school snow days, but every once in a while we do. So they took today off, except 3rd grade, who worked for a couple of hours.

Jordan is very appreciative to everyone who responded to her personal need closet that she is starting. She is very excited and we will have our first distribution soon.

Peace

Friday, December 10, 2010

The Family Bid'Ness

The children have been working at a local food bank for about 2 years now and really enjoy it. We sing the "Workin' for Jesus" song as we fill orders and stock shelves. The families that are serviced are given an assortment of juices, PB&J, cereals (hot & cold), pasta/rice, canned goods, frozen meat, eggs and then coupons for fresh meat and milk. Sometimes people may donate some personal needs items that are set up on a table for families to get while they are waiting for their food. Jordan "mans" this table most times with the instruction that people can only have 1 item. This was very hard for her.

A few months ago, a family with many people came in and they had a large order. The mother of the large family picked up a roll of toilet paper and a bar of soap. The staff person told her, "Only 1 item" and you could see the mother literally weighing the items back and forth trying to decide which they needed most. It broke Jordan's heart and she began whispering to me, "Why should people have to choose between soap and toilet paper? I wanna start my own personal needs closet where people won't have to choose!"

And so an idea was born and we started planning, Entertaining Angels Personal Needs Closet. We approached the Pastor at our new church with a draft flier of our idea and he said he would get back to us. He scheduled a meeting with us for yesterday and Jordan typed up the agenda for the meeting. She had some really great ideas for the system of referral and service and he was impressed. He even made a donation right there towards the purchase of the prepaid cell phone that would be used as the closet's phone number. I was a proud mamma with how she ran the meeting. We plan to start off very small at first. We are excited!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Pinata

I think for art tomorrow we are going to try to make a Christmas pinata. I have so many candy canes that different ladies at church have given the kids that I think I will just put those in with a few stickers and homework passes. Pinatas are fun, but they seem like a lot of work for a quick destruction. LOL! I will be sure to take pictures.

BTW ~ my foster child cut a large majority of her bangs and side hair off while at school yesterday. The teacher aid felt so bad because she had left the group during art time. Scissors in the hands of kindergartners without an adult = really short, lopsided bangs. Of course it was before a parent visit, so I had to rush home and try to even it out before taking her for the visit. Oh well, it could have been a jar of paste. LOL!

Monday, December 6, 2010

New Week

Not much other than school, school and more school going on this last week. Clipping right along.

We have a new chore chart that seems to be working well. I've had to re-vamp it from time to time in the past, but this one seems to be easier for everyone to complete the basic everyday chores that get sloughed off first.

We are planning to do $ Store Christmas again this year. We have identified the family that we are going to adopt and have started gathering presents for them. So fun! In the past we have had live Christmas trees, but for the last 5 years we have had a little plastic one. I offered the kids a live Christmas tree this year; even the chance to go cut one down. I was so very surprised when they said that wanted the little fake one instead! It's kinda "Ch*rlie Br*wnish", but they like it.

We had dinner guest after church yesterday. It is the first time we have had guest at the house in over a year and it was an unplanned invite. We had so much fun, baked and frosted Christmas cookies and chatted for hours. It was very nice to talk to another adult. I don't get much of that. 7th grade wrote a post about it here.

Thursday, December 2, 2010