Still celebrating Christmas!

We have enjoyed our time off from school with games, activities and small outings (pet stores & ice cream). But.....we have missed having Christmas with my family. Our van is not working right now and Kevin is extremely swamped with orders (this is a good thing) and it would be difficult for him to be away for a couple of days. I have cried and cried about missing my family at Christmas and despite all efforts for us to get together... it just isn't working out.

My mom called last night and said that she was coming over today! Hoorah! Not sure if dad is coming or not....there's that "work thing" that he'd have to work out first. It won't be the same opening presents without him or Uncle Matt and "almost" Aunt Liz, but we'll take what we can get!

So we are cleaning today.... stinky bunny cage, laundry & putting misc. Christmas away.

My mom's birthday is New Year's Day so we have plenty to celebrate..... Christmas, New Years and a Birthday... I think that's a pie, brownies and a cake!

Anyone out there doing anything special for New Year's? Any great resolutions in store for 2009?
May God pour out His greatest blessings on all of you in this new year!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family! We are home and enjoying a wonderful day together. The girls are running around in new "dress up outfits" and Zach and Kevin are putting together a new game table for the basement playroom - this one comes with a basketball hoop, ping pong, bean bag toss, air hockey,pool and many other games. We've opened Dora's, barbies and babies.....exploding volcanoes and "learn to crochet" kits. (You are all getting scarves next year for Christmas)

Abby has a new love for Rudolph - after we watched the show that all she talks about and she has been asking to watch it all day!

We pray your Christmas is blessed as you celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Friday,Dec.19,2008

We are learning to play the drums around here.... with a DVD we picked up at the library. Last night K and I just had to make the kids get off so that we could play a little bit (me the piano & K the drums). No one has practiced the bass yet today, but I'm sure that those strings will be plucked before the end of the night. M & Chelle, we will be ready for "real band fun" whenever we are all together next. I can picture it now, singing & dancing while kids are jamming on the drums, bass, piano, tambourines and maracas! Of course, Gavin will dance! I still remember his moves!!!

Rach and Abby have been in princess dresses all day....Snow White, an angel, Ariel & princess Barbie....these dresses aren't made for the wear and tear that my girls put them through

Jord has BB practice tonight, Zach a birthday party. Tomorrow they have their first game!

I plan on wrapping this weekend and catching up on some chores so that I don't have too much to do next week. We'll see!

I see the Lorow's POD in their driveway.....we are so sad that they are moving.

Finally Christmas Break - or is it?

We are officially finished with school for the year .....except.... Zach has a history research report due the first week back in January that we haven't worked on much.... and Jord needs to do some flashcards often or I'm afraid we will be relearning multiplication tables and division facts.
Rach is doing well with reading 2 and 3 letter words, but we will need to keep her practicing over the break! Other than that.... we are on a school break!
Today we kept our neighbor friend Aidan while his mom took an exam for nursing! Then this afternoon we kept Crystal and Jasmine for a few hours - (their baby brother Samuel is in the hospital after he was born with a diaphragmic hernia last week). We made brownies and a Christmas lapbook!
So, in the last week my husband has purchased a bass guitar and now a drum set. Both of which he found on Craigslist. My evening has been filled with lots of drumming!!!!!
Maybe someday we will put together 'The Brown Family Band' - who knows!
But for now the Brown house if filled with lots of drumming, singing & bassing (is that a word?)
If you need peace and quiet, don't come by my house for awhile! Maybe I'll come to your house!

A Bunny Bath and Christmas Program

So, we decided to give the bunny a bath - have never done this before, but he seemed to enjoy it. He really does stink, but he is a good bunny! (All the kids kept their undies on for this bath)

We had a Christmas program at church on Sunday and all the kids participated. Zach was the angel Gabriel, delivering the message to Mary about baby Jesus. Jord, Rach and Abby were part of the angel choir that sang "Hark the Herald Angels". Abby also participated in the bell choir , which you can see she started out ringing her bell with such enthusiasm and then quickly became embarrassed, put her hands over her face and eventually laid on the stage face down and cried! (the pics are not in the right order - sorry!)

We are only doing school Monday and Tuesday this week and we will be finished for the year! Yeah! But we have lots of projects that we have to work on before Christmas.

Please pray for my neighbors and dear friends, the Finzers. Their baby was born on Thurs and is now at Children's Hospital here in Columbus. Here's the link to dad's blog so that you can read.

http://www.wewillrulethegalaxytogether.blogspot.com/

So Hungry

After the "yak" episode yesterday, Abby just begged and begged for food. I kept finding her sneaking around the kitchen and wanting the other kids to get food for her. I had gotten preoccupied with putting laundry away upstairs and came down to find her devouring a piece of bologna - to which she admitted - "I didt hab anober one" - that meant that she was on her 2nd piece! Praise the Lord - none of it came back up! She had tons of energy last night and ate everything she could get her hands on and kept everything down. Thanks my friends for praying. We all know what it's like to have a "bug" go through the whole family - it would be a week before we were all finished with it! Car sickness? Too hot in the car? Who knows? Just glad the bologna stayed down!!!!

A Big Yak!

So, I took the kids to run some errands today. Zach had a gift card burning a hole in his pocket for Best Buy (he won it at youth group), so we went there and then headed for the library. After that, I pull into the parking lot at Target to get more $1 items to fill shoe boxes and before I could even get the van turned off - Abby was vomiting all over herself and the van! Horrific! A canvas bag that we take to the library, a box of wet wipes and a change of clothes that I always keep in the back of the van and I was able to clean up enough to get us home.
After she was all cleaned up she said, "Mom, that was a BIG YAK - I don't want to do that again!" I agreed!

Fun in the Snow & Christmas Parties

I wrote this blog on Sat. and am just now getting the pics with it and posting - sorry!

It's snowing here today - about 1-2 inches right now. The kids are using the "kids size" snow shovels that I bought Black Friday shopping and toted home. We have Kane and Gabriel, our nephews, for the weekend so it took a good 30-45 minutes just to get on everyone's boots, gloves, hats and coats - we didn't even do snowpants this time! Abby lasted about 20 minutes, Rachel about 35 minutes, everyone else is still outside as I am writing this. The hot chocolate is ready and waiting.

On Thursday our homeschool group had a Christmas party and we enjoyed hearing Rach's class sing songs(Abby joined in) and Jord's class sing about their body parts. Zach's Cooking class received an apron with their names printed on it - now let's see if I can get him to be Chef Zach here at home! He did offer to chop some veggies for me the other day and he did a great job - who knows?

After the party we went to the Nursing Home across the street and sang Christmas carols and passed out candy canes. All the kids did a great job of singing and talking to the residents. In the van on the way over there Zach and Jord were saying how they remembered going to the Nursing Home last year and how much fun they had - I love seeing the pureness of their heart, by this age most kids would have to be dragged into a Nursing Home to sing for "old people" - but trudging up and down the halls singing "Joy to the World" and "Go Tell it on the Mountain" was a group of homeschooled students who loved every minute of it - they were even giving out hugs and posing for pictures!

After church tomorrow we have a birthday party for Lynne (Kev's mom) at Dave & Busters so that will be a nice treat for everyone. A great way to end the weekend!

A Princess Day

We had a princess day around here yesterday - the girls wore their dresses all day and watched the Tinkerbell Movie twice.