It is quieter here today

I forgot to mention when I wrote my Christmas post that Zoe and Emily received #3, #4, & #5 of the Harry Potter movies, so they slept over at my parents' house on Christmas to watch them. They had a great time! Zoe just finished the 7th Harry Potter book today. Emily is reading the 6th book.

My friend, Courtney is getting her house ready to sell since her family is moving to New Mexico in a few months, so I watched her 3 kids yesterday. Courtney and her husband, Matt were able to have a productive day around their house. We don't get to see the Wilson kids much besides at church because of distance, so the kids had a great time playing together! I got a picture of the entire gang before lunch.

We have 8 chairs, so we made Spencer his own table from one of the American Girl doll boxes and he sat in Noah's new camp chair (which is another one of my sweet Goodwill finds - $1.99!).


Emma enjoyed watching Zach play on Webkinz.

The girls played school and Barbies. They also watched Eleanor's new Barbie Three Musketeers movie.

I didn't put Noah down for his nap, so he crashed at dinnertime. One minute he was awake, and the next...


It was a loud, busy day, but it was a good day. The kids played well together and Eleanor was able to get a play date in with her best friend during vacation. :-)

I am down to 4 kids now. Zoe and Emily left about an hour ago for a sleepover at Caitlin's and Cassidy's house. What a difference from yesterday!

Would be snow day

It snowed throughout the night last night, so we woke up to about 4 inches of new snow. Everything is so white and beautiful outside! I'm glad it snowed because it had rained on Sunday and most of the snow was gone. The kids didn't play outside today as much as I thought they would, but they did go out for a little bit this afternoon. It must have been pretty cold outside because usually Zoe lasts a lot longer out in the snow. She came in complaining that she couldn't feel her fingers. I sent the camera out with Emily and she took this picture of Zoe. No wonder she was cold!


Yesterday, I started thinking about some red felt that was in our closet and I wondered what to do with it. I then realized that I have flannel board figures that have never been cut out and will need felt on the back when they are cut out.

I spent a little bit of time yesterday cutting out these flannel board figures and gluing the red felt on the back of them. I have more to cut out, but I focused on this set yesterday. Seeing these flannel board figures inspired Eleanor to use some other figures we have that were already cut out for her FHE lesson. Yay, we used our flannel board and figures that we haven't used in awhile! I like it.

I cleaned the kids' room today and cleaned off their dresser, which I haven't done in awhile. I decided that we didn't need to hang on to these trophies any longer. I took a picture of them and told Zoe that we now have a picture of them and I am going to get rid of them. They are trophies that she received after participating in the basketball programs in Bucksport and Orland over the last several years. We didn't really have room for them and they were just collecting dust. Goodbye trophies. For the record, I did keep her softball trophy that she earned this past Spring. I'll get rid of that one when she earns a new one. I would care more about these trophies if they were meant for Zoe specifically for a certain achievement, but they are generic trophies that everyone received.


Here is a record of Eleanor's artwork that I simplified today.

Can you imagine the amount of artwork we would have if I didn't have it in me to simplify most of it?!

And here is a picture of Noah using one of his Christmas gifts. I love this Goodwill find! So cute.

1000th post!

I feel like this post should have something special in it. So, along with our Christmas happenings, I will let you in on our plan and motto for 2010.

Use it or lose it!...2010
The idea is to use everything this year that we own. What we don't use or know that we will never use, we get rid of it. Do you have items in your home that you keep because SOMEDAY you may use them, but when an opportunity comes to use them, you don't. One example for me is keeping disposable decorating bags. I used them years ago, but now they just take up space and I keep them because I may decide SOMEDAY to use them again...although I haven't used them for several years. I am determined to keep them, so now I need a plan to actually use them. My plan is to use them for Valentine's Day goodies.

Another item that is on my mind is Zoe's picture frame that she received several years ago after her baptism. We have yet to put a picture in it! We need to put a picture in it or get rid of it. I will get Zoe's input of whether or not to keep the frame and if she does want to keep it, then she needs to decide what picture to put in it, I will get the picture printed, and we will put the picture in the frame.

I mentioned to Matt that sometimes I wear items of clothing just because I have them, but I don't love them. So a question to ask ourselves is, "Do we use an item just because we have it or do we really love it?" This thought motivated Matt to go through his clothes this morning and get rid of the items that he doesn't love. This motivated me to do the same. Matt took a large garbage bag of clothes to the dump this morning. :-) The clothes go in a clothes bin for other people to go through and take what they want.

I'll keep you posted on our progress. Use it or lose it!...2010.

Now on to Christmas...every gift we received, we will use! This is not a problem because we received awesome gifts. :-) As I give gifts this year, I will keep in mind the usefulness of the gift. I don't want my gift to be clutter or have little meaning.

I will start my overview of our Christmas happenings on Wednesday evening when Eleanor and Zach went over to my parents' home to spend the night and I took Emily shopping, so she could buy Zoe a gift. While Emily and I were gone, Zoe made Emily's gift. This is the first year that a child of mine has come up with a gift idea for someone on their own and carried it out, which was nice. Zoe was excited about making the gift and having Emily open it. Since Zoe was making Emily a gift, we decided to have Emily give Zoe a gift, Eleanor and Zach exchanged gifts and Kate and Noah exchanged gifts. The kids have so much fun shopping for each other and opening their sibling gifts.

Christmas Eve morning was super busy as I made applesauce cookies (Matt's favorite) and sugar cookies (my favorite). When the cookies were done and Matt came home from work, we met the missionaries to go caroling at the Foster's, the Tyne's, the Daigle's, Mary's, the Noonan's, the Leeman's, and the Brown's. Zoe, Emily, and Noah came with us while my parents watched Eleanor, Zach, and Kate. It was fun to see our friends on Christmas Eve and at the last home, we were sounding pretty good, I think. :-)

We did some last minute shopping in town and picked up Chinese food before coming home. I took Christmas Eve and Christmas day off from dieting. Matt and I noticed, though that we crave a lot of yummy food while dieting, but we didn't crave anything when we could eat whatever we wanted to. It was still fun to eat whatever we wanted and it tasted yummy, but food is more appealing when you can't have it. That's the way it is with a lot of things isn't it. Anyway, while I was enjoying my Chinese food, the kids watched, "A Christmas Memory" and Matt went to the post office (which had just closed) after talking with one of the post office workers about picking up a package that could not be delivered that day (one of Kate's Christmas presents) because we weren't home. The worker said she would stay until Matt got there, which was so nice! However, the worker couldn't get to the package after all because the room the package was in was locked. My mom and I had a backup plan in case this package didn't arrive in time, so it worked out anyway. We'll save this gift for Kate's birthday.

Kate and Noah started fighting over a book, so I suggested that Kate read the book to Noah. She thought that was a great idea. I captured this cute picture of them in the chair together.


We watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", which is our Christmas Eve tradition and then we sent the kids to bed. Matt and I stayed up to watch "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", which has also become a tradition. We watched it one year after flipping through the channels when we had cable and now we borrow mom's copy to watch. The movie ended at 1am and we made it to bed around 2:30am. The kids woke us up at 6am.

We had a great Christmas! My parents and my grandmother came over in the morning. We let the kids open their stockings (we have new stockings this year thanks to Sunshine!) and they opened one gift before we ate breakfast.


Santa was very generous this year. Emily got a bed for her AG dolls, Emily & Nikki.

Eleanor got an AG doll, Ruthie (who she frequently calls Rudy) and Kate received Fancy Nancy.

Zoe received Julie's bed. Julie & Josephina share the bed.

Zach received a Thomas the Train set and Noah got a big box of legos. I don't have pictures for them, though. My camera battery died soon after we started unwrapping presents, so I only have a few pictures. Here are a few more pictures that I took.

We have a fish! A very lazy fish if you ask everyone. The fish does not move. We keep expecting to find it belly side up. The fish came in a small container, so we wonder if it just got used to being still. The kids are bored of him already. We're thinking of naming him slug or some other lazy term.

We find more enjoyment out of Zoe's swedish fish aquarium that she made for Emily. The swedish fish moves more than our real fish!

Noah became a pro at unwrapping presents. After awhile, when we would hand him a gift he would exclaim, "Yeah!" Then he would find a spot to sit down and unwrap his present. So cute!


Zach was very pleased with his coloring book and crayons from his Primary teacher, Sister Liza.

He chose to color in his coloring book instead of eating breakfast.

Matt took pictures of us eating. I am so glad I was able to make our traditional egg sausage casserole this year. I can prepare most of it on Christmas Eve and it is so yummy!

Zoe wanted us to try to make waffles again (we tried last Christmas, but failed), but we stuck with pancakes. Delicious!


All of the kids, except for Noah, received a new webkinz. Now Zach has a webkinz cat of his very own.

Zach really loved this cat until Eleanor received a Fur Real puppy. He wanted to claim the puppy, but we wouldn't let him. He was very mad about that! Now we know what to get him for his birthday.

Zoe is excited to go ice skating!
Kate was the only kid concerned about getting her wrapping paper into the trash bag when she unwrapped her presents. When she received a present, she would move close to the trash bag. She would tear a piece of wrapping paper off her present and then stick it in the trash bag. We loved it! Her example didn't catch on, though.


Zoe, Emily, and Eleanor received earring trees. I may be more excited about these gifts then they are. I love the organized earrings! Now they can pick a pair of earrings to wear without searching for a match. Eleanor received her first pair of earrings for Christmas and she got her ears pierced today! She was so nervous, but she did it and she is happy that she did!



Her earrings are emerald flowers. So pretty!

We went over to mom and dad's for dinner on Christmas. We don't usually have a Christmas dinner, but we just had to plan a delicious dinner while Matt and I had the day off from dieting! We took some pictures with grammie before dad brought her home.


We're glad you spent Christmas with us, grammie!

Is that a long enough post for my 1000th? It's probably a good thing that my camera battery died while opening presents!

Okay, so I have a few more pictures. Noah is such a cuddle bug. We love it!



And here are Zach and Matt building one of Zach's new lego sets this evening. Zach loves the legos! He got to stay up a bit past his bedtime to finish his lego creation. :-)


Did I mention that I got the Twilight series for Christmas? Use it or lose it...it's time for me to go use this gift. :-)

Naughty or Nice?

This little boy was naughty today.

He broke Eleanor's red ball ornament that had her name and the year she was born on it. Now I have to make her a new one. I don't need extra things to do, Noah!

All of the kids were nice last night while we were at Jerry and Judy's home with the Barrett family for FHE. Sunshine read us the Christmas story from Luke and then all of the non-dieters ate Judy's delicious baked goods. LUCKY! Maybe last night should have been our night to pig out instead of Christmas day.

It is so nice to have all of the wrapping done! I went over to my parents' home this evening to wrap presents with my mom. It is so wonderful to have someone to wrap presents with!

What is on the camera?

We have pictures from my dad's birthday party, which we had last night. Today my dad is 60! Happy Birthday, dad!






Victoria was supposed to be in North Carolina, but her flight on Saturday was canceled due to the weather. We enjoyed having her at the party! Hopefully, she will make it home tomorrow.

We have pictures of the kids using their birthday hats in creative ways. We have birds...


beards...

an eye patch...

and a unicorn...

Such silly children!

We have pictures from our branch Christmas party that we went to Saturday night.


Zoe, Eleanor, and Zach were shepherds in the Nativity play. Emily was a donkey.

The scenery for the play was incredible and the gym was decorated so nice for our potluck dinner before the play. As Matt and I ate the salad that we brought, I came to the conclusion that we should have brought something more filling for us to eat! We were good though.

We have pictures of our Christmas tree!







We spent several family councils deciding if we were going to get a regular sized tree or a table top tree this year. Matt was strongly for the table top tree and Zoe was strongly for the regular sized tree. We've never had a couch before, so we really did wonder where we were going to fit a tree. We discussed moving things around and/or taking some things out of the living room, but then we didn't know where to move the stuff to. In the end, we moved the couch toward the wall a few inches and the chair toward the bookcase a few inches and made room for a regular sized tree (for our house anyway!). It fits perfectly!

We also have 1 picture of man camp.


The men claim it wasn't that bad this year. They went through A LOT of firewood and got very little sleep, but they are calling it a success! My mom, Victoria, and I had our own little adventure getting my mom out of the snowbank in our driveway after we played a game of Phase 10. We did it, though!

What is on your camera?