Charlie Brown and warm chocolate

We started a semi-new tradition this year. During the holidays, Charlie Brown always comes on. We watch it every year and it's so much fun to see how the kids look forward to it. They laugh the whole way through the show. This year we've added warm chocolate to our tradition of watching Charlie Brown. (We can't have "hot" chocolate so we have "warm" instead.)

So far we've watched the Halloween and Thanksgiving shows. The Christmas one comes on next week. I'm sure we'll watch that one too.

The Nutcracker

We started a new Christmas tradition four years ago. Each year we buy a different nutcracker.

This year we bought the Indiana Jones nutcracker.

It comes with his whip and satchel.

Here he is talking. "Snakes! Why does it have to be snakes?!"

I'll put up pictures of our other nutcrackers once I get the Christmas stuff out, but don't expect any pics until at least December 20Th. I've got a million other things to do, believe it or not.

Books we are reading

Hot Hubby is reading a book to Briley and Will at night. They are reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Maybe Hot Hubby is reading, or maybe he is sleeping. (Sorry about the picture, Hot Hubby!)

While they read their book, I take the other kids upstairs and read to them. I am reading The Coral Island with Elijah. Lucy brings me any book she can find. We love reading!

The Tooth Fairy

Elijah lost another tooth the other day. It was one of his "fangs." He thought he would try and see if the Tooth Fairy was real so he didn't tell anyone that he had lost his tooth.




Well, sure enough, she came! When he got up in the morning there was a book about dinosaurs under his pillow. Now all the kids are working on trying to loosen up their teeth.

Dressing up

I know it's almost a whole month late, but here are some pics of the kids on Halloween:

Here is Briley who decided to be a ballerina. Imagine that! She's yelling something. It appears to be something happy so we won't worry about that.

Here is her sweet little face. Isn't she just beautiful?

Will decided to be an Indian after many, many, many other ideas. He wanted everything painted. We stuck to the face and hands. He was Little Bear from The Indian In The Cupboard.

He's a savage. Fierce. Ferocious. Scary. Watch out, he might scalp you!


Little Lucy wanted to be Cinderella.

Elijah is helping her walk for the cake walk.

She had plenty of make up on, not that she needed it.

Here's our cowboy. He's got his six-shooter, wild caveman hunting bag, and his pirate sword. That Indian better watch out!


Growin' hair a little young, don't you think?

And finally our Little Pumpkin.

He had a great time hanging on to mommy. (Or in this picture, daddy.)

Pumpkins!

Well, it's that time of the year again. We all watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and had our first taste of Hot chocolate for the fall. We finally got around to carving our pumpkins. (Unlike painting the Easter eggs which are still sitting in my fridge waiting to be painted.) I was a good mommy this time.

Here is what the pumpkins looked like when they were lit:

This is Elijah-The Professor-posing by his pumpkin. You can't tell from the picture, but his pajama's are about 5 inches to short.

Here is Briley-The Princess-pretending to run behind her pumpkin. Pay no attention to her outfit. When we were cutting out the mouth of her pumpkin a tooth accidentally popped out. She said, "Hey, now it kind of looks like me!"


This is Will-The Pirate-squatting behind his pumpkin. Yes, he has a huge hole in his pants. (Which he wants to bring to his Grandma's house because, "Grandma's a better sew-er then you, mom.) I told him to get his shoes on and you can see that he ended up with one croc and one flip flop. Nice.

Finally there is Lucy-The Politician. She was scared to death of the pumpkins and didn't want to go anywhere near them. But this is her pumpkin:
So that's our pumpkin story. Now I get asked ALL DAY LONG when we can light the pumpkins. The joys of motherhood.