My kids crack me up-sometimes

Out of the blue the other day Sadie informed me that a girl in her class has hair on her bottom.
"How do you know?"
"I see it when we sit on the carpet at story time."
"Hmm."
"She also stinks."
Don't worry, I made sure that she hasn't pointed either of these things out to the poor girl, (and that she doesn't plan to in the future.)

The kids had a babysitter the other day.  We've used the same girl every time (all 3 of them).  On the way home she gave me this report:
Sadie:  In a valiant bid for soda, evidently Sadie tried to convince her that soda was good for her aching back.
Samuel: He asked how old she is and when she replied that she was 17 he asked her if she had a boyfriend.  She told him no, but asked him if he wanted to be her boyfriend.  He declined.
Henry:  After farting (evidently it was a big one), told her that he farts at school to keep away the girls.  Geez!

December 11th

So on Henry's real birthday we had a soccer game, snow at the outdoor mall, and the church Christmas party.  We managed to find the time to open a few presents.  He got guitar Hero for DS, and money.  He has already spent some money on a Beyblade stadium.  (Think plastic stadium for fancy tops).  The ward party was fun.  It was around a bonfire with smores, a hay ride and a visit from Santa.  The kids made me plenty of smores and brought me lots of cocoa and food.  Thanks!  Sadie wouldn't visit Santa, but she was first in line for the hay ride.  She was so excited, and loved it!

Snow in Florida?

Yep, these pictures were taken in Florida.  Of course the dead giveaway is the fact that the kids are wearing shorts.  I think this was a perfect way to experience snow.

Note Sadie's conspicuous absence from any snow activity.  I guess she doesn't care if it's Florida or Pennsylvania - SHE DOES NOT LIKE SNOW!

Spice Rack

After 5 months of living here I got one room done (if the pantry counts as a room :)).  It's all organized with extra shelves I built (nothing fancy), labeled and organized tupperware, and my new spice rack.  Spices have been a bane of my existence.  They are all different sizes, thrown into 3 shoeboxes.  I finally took the time to make a spice rack for my 42 spices, 9 flavorings, and 3 bullion flavors.

So, if you can't tell, it's four different spice racks that you pull out of a box.  It's not perfect, but it's way better than the shoeboxes.

Surrey with the fringe on top (or Henry's 10th Birthday)

A couple of months ago when we were at Downtown Disney we ran across RideMakerz.  This is like Build-a-bear, but for remote control cars.  Henry really, really wanted one, however, like good parents, we made him wait for his birthday, or pay for it himself.  Yesterday we celebrated his birthday by heading to RideMakerz.  Henry also wanted to ride one of the Surrey bicycles that you can rent at various spots around Disney.  We headed to the Boardwalk first to ride the bicycles.  I thought it would be fun.  While it was fun, it was also a lot of work, or I am sorely out of shape.  Ok, it's probably that I am really out of shape.  

After the bike ride, the kids found some grass and ran around a bit and we took a picture of one of the trees.

Then it was off to make the much anticipated car.

The finished product (you will kindly ignore the mess that Sadie is cleaning as we speak):

So kissable

William loves kisses, and look at him.  Who wouldn't want to kiss him?

Operation Santa

Apparently our town has a Christmas tradition that to my knowledge has not happened in any of the other places that we have lived.  The fire and police department drive a float around to all of the different subdivisions (or communities as we call them in FL) and collect toys for those in need.  This takes about 6 different evenings.  The pictures are horrible.  The weather was about 45 degrees (it was a little warmer in our unheated home.)  We stayed outside for about 20 minutes waiting for this event.  Samuel ran back to the house to get something and missed the whole thing.  We walked back to the house, looked at the map and realized that the float would be exiting our neighborhood right where we saw it come in.  We raced back out to the street and waited another 20 minutes (Ben came driving home and watched with us) so that Samuel could witness the excitement.

Samuel in soccer

Hopefully I will take more pictures of Samuel actually playing soccer.  However, just in case I don't here is one during warm-ups.

Henry in Cubscouts

On November 30th Henry got his Bear in cubscouts.  Here are a couple of photos.

 Henry attempting to pin the mother's pin on me.

Eating "Bear Grub" (oreos and gummy worms)

Today

Today we celebrate Henry's "pretend" birthday.  Tomorrow is jam packed with other stuff, so today is the special day.  Ben is home from work, so hopefully he will get homework done and he will be able to celebrate with us.  For the first time since 1st grade Henry asked me to bring a cake to school.  Life would be so much cheaper if I could take something homemade.  Life was so much easier (sometimes) back in the day.