The Birth of Jesus

Today we started our Christmas Unit Study. I looked up a quick site to read the Christmas story to the kids real quick and found this site. There is another story at the top. I just skipped that part. There are also some coloring pages, crafts and activities at the bottom. It's a cute little site to add to our study.

Merry Christmas!

It's the Holiday Season!

My favorite time of the year! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at Uncle John and Aunt Leslie's! They always do a great job and we have a good time. The kids love to play there with their girls and their cousin. We have a lot to be thankful for and we are.

Meghan and I went out Black Friday shopping a little bit. I was mainly wanting to get a vacuum cleaner that was on sale because we need one and an Advent calendar. I will be filling the calendar with things for us to do each day, (an idea I got from 24/7 moms last week where I also won a pair of shoes!!)

Now we can get ready for Christmas. We are getting out the Christmas decorations as we unpack all our stuff and get settled. We really have done a lot. Still plenty to do but I can see the end. I hope to get most of it done (other than books because I have to get a shelf first) and be ready to do other things next week. We will be starting our Christmas unit study on Monday so that should be a lot of fun. We need to find the closest library and sign up quick.

I also have a list of things I want to make. This week I hope to make different kinds of breads as we need them. I have pumpkin bread, cranberry bread and monkey bread on the list. I also want to make puppy chow and maybe some sort of popcorn.

What are you doing this week that is Christmas related?

Christmas Gifts

Since we just moved again I have been thinking about the toy situation. I have slowly been weeding out some toys that either the kids are too old for or things they don't play with. I also like the idea of rotating toys so they get "new" things to play with every so often as well. My thoughts though have been turning to things that aren't toys. I don't think they need a million new toys for Christmas, because then not long after that they each have a birthday. So some gift ideas I am contemplating for my kiddo's...

Board games- we have a lot of games but I like games. They have to play together and think about how to play and win. I also like the Wii games and there are learning type games for that too.

Memberships- We have a couple zoo's close and the Science Center. I might look into those. This would provide year long fun and learning! (With the added bonus of taking up no space. :))

Movie tickets or memberships- I don't know if they have any sort of membership but I would love to take the kids to a movie once in a while. I will be looking into that. This could be extended to trips to the bounce house places like Bounce U and to roller skating or ice skating.

Classes- Meghan has been asking for a lot of different classes. I haven't had time to find any close yet but I will look into it. She has most recently asked about ballet and acting classes. Kaden would probably love a gymnastics class.

Hmmm I am still thinking about this but I am really interested in things that we won't accumulate more "stuff". Since we home school also I love ideas that give us things to do all year long.

Do you have any ideas for gifts that are not toys? Please share!

Finally... our Halloween pictures

I never seem to get things up right away! BUT better late than never right. :)

I had a Hannah Montana (people asked if she was Lady Gaga a lot and she didn't care for that! I guess her wig was too blond), a Wow Wow Wubbzy and a Monkey. First thing we did was go to the mall.

Then we went to our church festival where Kaden played games,

and Meghan played games, 

and Kaden and Ellie pet the animals.

Ellie loved the animals! She stayed there the longest.

Meghan got her face painted.

They all did crafts.

After the festival we took them trick or treating. They had a blast and it was fun because the neighborhood really participated and there were lots of kids out. It was cool to see groups of neighbors out in front of a house with a fire, chatting and having fun.

Of course they got plenty of candy which is now being rationed out. :)

A New Home

So we finally moved into our own home again. (For those that don't know we have been living with my in laws for the last 8 months while my hubby found work and we figured everything out) My in laws made it possible for us to quickly come back to AZ. As much as we appreciate being able to come back "home", we are so happy to have our own place again. Right now everything is a mess of course. There are boxes being sorted and put away everywhere and from the looks of it I need a bookshelf STAT, but it feels good! Everyone seems to be happy about the arrangement as well. Ellie and Meghan are sharing a room and Ellie hasn't been fussy at bedtime at all. She goes to sleep pretty easily and I have to think that is because Meghan is in there with her. A bonus to that is Meghan has decided she likes to change diapers so when they wake up in the morning she just changes her, doesn't even tell me. Yesterday she changed a poopy one too! Ellie has also only been waking up once at night so that is a huge improvement. Hopefully she continues and maybe she might stop waking at all... I can hope. I was concerned also that Kaden wouldn't like having his own room because he had been sharing with Meghan and he isn't always the best at accepting change. He has gone to bed pretty easily and fell asleep quickly as well.
So all in all a great week here and then we get Thanksgiving dinner too. YAY We are blessed!

$100 giveaway

My friend Shannon over at Bento Lunch is having a great giveaway for a $100 visa gift card. Check it out and enter! You will love her blog if you haven't seen it before!