… and all through the house…

all were  finally ready (maybe even the mouse!)… but don’t tell Karen if there are mice in the house!  She will FR.EAK!

The reindeer were fed:

Although it was raining, Ethan and Ryan wanted to help too!

The stockings were hung (and almost full!)

Cookies, milk, and even notes to Santa’s reindeer were left out!

Gifts were displayed

And these lovely children finally went down to bed!

Merry Christmas to all.. and to all, a good night!  I will finally sleep well tonight…Vince is almost here!  His flight was delayed due to bad weather… but he is almost here!

I am going to be quiet for a few days (yay!  how long do you  think I can last?) … Vince is flying in December 24th to spend Christmas with us – but not until 9PM!  The children have been missing him… so we are finally going to spend some quality family time together.   Morgan couldn’t sleep tonight because she was so excited… but I had to remind her that he will not fly in until after she is asleep TOMORROW night!

Karen (my wonderful sister) has been a wonderful hostess.  She is a wonderful cook, so we’ve gained quite a bit of weight already!  Yikes! (I won’t even attempt to make any promises about going on a diet upon my return to CA!)

Mom is having fun getting to know her other grandchildren, Peter and Ryan.  Ryan is getting to know all of us — strangers invading his home and other little strangers playing with his toys.  His favorite word to these small strangers (mostly Ethan) has been, “MINE!”  I don’t blame him!  The last time we saw him, he was barely 5 months old!  Now he is running everywhere and telling us what he wants! 

Matthew, Peter, and Morgan have quickly re-acquainted themselves and are becoming the best of friends.  Peter, one morning, said to Michael (his dad), “I wish I could marry Morgan.”  So, I *guess* he likes her!  Don’t worry, we quickly told him that that would NOT be possible! 

(When viewing the inside of the card, you can click on the children's photos for the enlarged image.) 

See the red "leave a comment" button down below?  Go on... click on it and leave a comment!  I'd love to hear from you!  (Especially if I have not heard from you in a long time!)

If you scroll down and read a few more posts, you'll see that I made another Ecard using the same photos... just having fun! 

We spent the afternoon roaming around the Chattahoochee Nature Center yesterday.  It is a great non-profit place that truly brings you back in touch with nature and allows children the ability to touch everything!

We started out by exploring the nature room:

See the fish and turtles swimming?!

Oh, the snake!  Matthew loved this tunnel!

They created a food chain using a pencil rubbing technique:

 Then we headed out doors and chose the easiest trail which led us through the aviary, beaver pond, and butterfly garden (although the butterflies were no where to be seen due to the cool weather – obviously they are pretty smart!).

The various birds they saw:

the barn owl

The red-tailed hawk:

 the bald eagle… although I don’t really see them in this picture. Maybe I was just aiming for a photo of all 5!

 They wandered off the trail for a bit of imaginative play — always trying to make that campfire!  Ma is supervising closely – she’s afraid they’ll fall in the river!

Ma found a bird’s nest that had fallen:

The huge beaver!  Wow… I never thought they would be so big in person!

These two boys are learning to be docents.  They (along with the help of mom) told the children so much about birds!  The children were able to create some stamping projects, look through magnifying glasses, observe some sand prints of various bird tracks, touch some bird eggs, feet/talons, and feathers!  These boys were really good, so I’ll be sure to write a letter on their behalf when I have time this week.

This boy (Bret) was pretty patient with Ethan:

footprints in the sand activity:

owl talon:

ostrich egg:

Ryan with magnifying glass:

Owl wings — the feathers are close to each other which means that when they fly, they are quiet. We also saw an eagle’s feather and they made a lot of noise!

Boy if holding the eagle feather, mom is holding owl wings:

Inside the educational center/trading center — apparently, this place is set up so that children can sign up to trade items for their collection.  If you bring in something, they are given a point value which will allow you to trade for another item — they had some pretty cool stuff!

Peter is listening for the ocean waves!

Ethan thought it was a good idea..

Then Nikki, who works there full time, gave a talk about a box turtle they had rescued.  She was involved in a car accident – the car didn’t see her.  They tried to save her leg but couldn’t.  Well, truth be told,I couldn’t even tell her leg was missing!  She was pertty quick!

During the talk he was getting anxious and wanted to touch the turtle…but since he couldn’t he was even more upset.  But once the talk was over he could touch the shell of a different turtle – he was fine with that!

It was a full afternoon!  We will return to walk a trail maybe… there were tons of trails but we didn’t have the motivation to go with 5 children today…  maybe next time we can visit the wetlands!

Hey.. any of you throwing these away?  If you are, consider saving them and sending them to us to support Morgan’s school!  We’ve started collecting them around Karen’s house… I guess I forgot to mention that to her!  Although, she’s so busy here that I did not want to give her one more thing to do!  If you can help, that would be AWESOME!

Some brands that have box tops printed on their packaging/boxes: Betty Crocker, Kleenex, Kraft, etc.

Thanks!

Could they be any cuter???

Matching jammies help make them even cuter!

Just playing around with some ecards... thought this was a cute one.  Will email out to friends and family soon...  Consider yours sent if you are viewing this now!  (hee-hee) 

The children are having a great time here... and I am getting some rest!  How are you all doing?!


Make a Smilebox greeting

Ethan has taken a liking to his cousin Peter — they play well together because Peter actually listens to him!  Ethan will bring pretend food to Peter and Peter will pretend to eat the food — so cute!  Here they are doing what boys do best and having a great time! 

We’ve been busy making my “usual” holiday art projects — our annual hand print projects:

Wreaths:

Poor thing – he was just about to sneeze when I took this photo!

Ma taught Morgan and Peter how to make red pom poms for Rudolph’s nose:

trimming the pom poms:

Peter gets a one on one lesson — he was pretty patient…

Ma even made a needle out of cardboard to help poke the yarn through:

Ethan decorated his reindeer with eyes and a red nose — his eyes were everywhere!  So cute!

 Peter’s was very proud of his reindeer:

 A few days before, we made ornaments:

 It was a basic mosaic project — Morgan and Peter were pretty patient with this project.  Matthew lost interest after awhile, but he was able to complete the project.  They turned out really cute and they hung them on the tree.

 Uncle Michael “supervising” the crew:

Morgan and I had some alone time today… the boys (Peter and Matthew) went to the park with Michael.  So we baked:

She’s so grown up now…

Ethan had to supervise:

Sugar cookies:

Chocolate oatmeal cookies – Ethan helped to roll some too:

end result:

Then the children decorated the cookies that Morgan made — yes, she made them all herself!  She rolled, flattened, and cut out various shapes.  I put vanilla frosting then they decorated using edible markers — pretty neat, huh?

Ethan approves!  Yummy!

 They saw Santa today (okay, Santa’s helper to be exact… that’s the story!)  and they all did it… no tears were shed, no screaming, no pushing or shoving… they did it all on their own — but it helped that this Santa was awesome!

We snuck in a photo when the children were done…. 

These two are having so much fun together!

Santa read The Night Before Christmas…

 Aren’t they so cute???  Ryan refused to go anywhere near Santa… so we’re missing one cousin here:

Tomorrow should be a relaxing day… maybe even a walk to the creek?  Matthew is dying to go!