Well this year got a little complicated when Timmy wrote out his Christmas list….

Yup that’s a Puppy. And yea our Santa does not disappoint and he kinda takes it to the max. So we have an English Mastiff named Rosary now. There is nothing like a puppy under the tree. Nothing. Best Christmas ever.

Christmas time in pictures…

There was a Santa’s Spa Party and I tho k it’s a new tradition that is gonna stick. It was too cute.

There was also a Christmas in Naples. My mom is the cutest. Her and Tom go all out for these kids and by all out I mean they got them a unicorn 🦄 for Christmas. It was a beautiful little mini vacation for Christmas.

Christmas Eve Snowman Contest! And the Christmas Eve pageant 💗

And this man. Ugh. I’m so blessed to call him mine.

Timmy’s birthday was so awesome minus the fact that he was totally sick day 2 of the celebration. I don’t know that we will be able to top it in the years to come. We went a little overboard but it was worth it. It’s hard to believe he’s 6 and I want to soak up all the magic before he’s grown and too cool for us.

Every year we go away for Timmy’s birthday and usually to Disney. Because Timmy’s birthday is in December we never want him to feel like it is overlooked because it’s so close to Christmas. This year we went to Orlando for the Polar Express train. This is Timmy’s all time favorite movie. It’s safe to say we’ve watched it 100 times in the last 6 years. I can’t say enough good things about it. It was so magical.

All the characters were spot on. Outside there were elves and Christmas light displays. Inside hot chocolate, cookies and a bell for everyone. Santa. The kid who knew everything. The homeless ghost guy. It was just so amazing.

Our vacation didn’t stop there. We took Timmy zip lining and Florida ice skating in our favorite little town with Florida snow and to Sea World. Memaw, Tom, Sam and Nick all cane with us. It would have been perfect if Timmy was feeling better. I don’t know what happened but he got like a 24 hour bug with fever and puking. Even Grace got some special treatment. Aunt Sam took her on a Cinderella horse carriage.

It was a celebration for a prince and he totally deserves it. I love him because he is my first baby and my only son but I also love him because he is such a good person. He loves people and Jesus in a way that I could never have taught him. He really inspires me and Tim to be better people and he doesn’t even know it. He tells me he loves me at least 5 times a day every single day. He makes my life so sweet.

This is one of my favorite things. This show just puts us right in the mood for Christmas. I don’t know that there will be another one though because Grace just doesn’t love ballet. Well that’s not 100% true. Grace loves ballet, Grace does NOT love being told how to do ballet. She actually told me she doesn’t need lessons because she already knows it all. I mean can she get any cuter or sassy. She was a beautiful ballerina while it lasted and maybe she.’lol go back one day.

Now Timmy. He stole the show. He just loves being on stage. Watching him up there made me realize how little he still is. In our house he’s the big boy but on stage he was just a little 5 year old boy dancing his heart out.

He was so proud of himself. In this last picture he’s doing a cartwheel. Now I didn’t know it at the time but all week he was practicing cartwheels in the backyard. When he got off stage he was like mom did you seeee! I did a cartwheel even tho Ms Devin said I wasn’t ready to do cartwheels!

In these pictures you’ll see why I’m so sad Grace doesn’t want to do ballet anymore. Hopefully one day she changes her mind because she is the most beautiful little ballerina angel.

Timmy was so excited Max was there to cheer him on. That’s how Grace really feels about ballet lessons. Lol

It’s March. 2018. Every year I do the same thing. I get wrapped up in the holiday busyness and neglect my blog. And every year I hate my self for it.

So here’s to catching up and hoping I remember all the goodness.

Thanksgiving was awesome this year. We actually celebrated with our family on Friday instead of Thursday. That’s because we have a new family member, Brandon, Torias fiancé who works most holidays. And honestly I loved it.

Thanksgiving morning I woke up early with my little crew and started our baking.

They were so excited to help me. For our little family dinner we had lasagna. The next day we had the real turkey dinner with all my favorite people.We started a tradition last year where we put up the nativity the day after Thanksgiving and Tim surprised me with a few new pieces to our set.

One of the perks of homeschooling is that I can really focus on the hearts of my children as much as or even more than just the academics.

I hope these small moments really impact the way they live their adult lives.

One of the projects we worked on to show our thankfulness was thanksgiving boxes for deployed soldiers. We had the kids bring in all their hard candy from Halloween and I sent the moms a grocery list of the best care package items. I event decorated one of the boxes with a turkey. I let the kids decorate the other boxes.

We were given 4 addresses for deployed soldiers and we were so overwhelmed with the response for donations that we were able to pack up NINE boxes!

The kids wrote letters, colored pictures and then packed up the boxes. I had to do some rearranging after because the boxes were so overflowing.

We went to a turkey canvas painting class.

Our church packs up all the ingredients for a thanksgiving meal for families in need. This year we let Timmy and Grace do the grocery shopping. Then after mass we all gathered round to bless all that packed up bags of food. We were blessed to even see the people picking up their food. It is so special when you get a glimpse of the joy that your stewardship can bring others.

We are also fostering 2 little kittens this November. It is always a good lesson when you can show your kids that even Gods smallest creatures are worth our time. These 2 kittens cane to us at 2 weeks old because their mother became ill and stopped nursing. They are 4 weeks old now and doing well.

So I’m attempting a no photo November kind like no shave for the men. I’m not gonna take any pictures of my kids. Honestly I don’t think it’s healthy at least not at the rate that I’m snapping their photo. So here goes.

Disclaimer: I almost never stick to the goals that I set.

Since I’ll have no photos of the fun things they do I’ll have to do a better job of writing it all down.

Update: Totally failed. Made it 5 days without my camera.

Monday

They put together a time capsule. In Timmy’s was a bunny, a drum stick, mino’s food bowl & a baby book so that we can think about Lydia when she grows up and moves away. Grace won’t tell me what’s in hers. Typical Grace. They buried it themselves in the backyard.

Later in the day we laid on a blanket and red poetry from Where the Sidewalk Ends.

Timmy had piano and voice lessons. My church choir director seems to think very highly of Timmy and has offered him free lessons so we are grateful for that.

Timmy and Grace both had religious education and learned about helping others.

And hmmm guess I fell way behind because that was Monday like 3 weeks ago. So this is what we’ve been up to this November.

Baking.

Nature Hunts.

Frogs.

Went to a chocolate factory.

Had a Fall Festival and Mama was the face painter.

Grace came into my room tonight with a bunch of questions: Mom who did you play with when you were a kid, what kind of toys did you have, what shows did you watch? When I told her I played with my sisters she couldn’t understand why I still didn’t live with them because sisters live together. Funny how when you’re a kid you don’t realize that we don’t live together forever. & sad at the same time. She wanted to watch the Same shows I used to watch but Eurekas Castle isn’t on anymore lol. I found it on YouTube and we watched an episode of that and muppet babies and she she fell asleep in my arms. Such a sweet end to our day.

I’m burnt to a crisp. Only in Florida to you get a summer sunburn in late October. Luckily Dr Timmy lives here. He is just the sweetest. He brought my ice water and kept feeding it to me and touching my skin insisting I still needed more to cool down. “Mom what else can I do for you?” I could eat him up.

Lydia is selective with her lovin. Sometimes you ask her for a kiss and you get a big ole wet one, other times it’s quick shake of the head nooooooo. She thinks she’s so funny.

Grace just asked me if I knew who Santas girlfriend was. Lol

Lydia says Ready Set Gooooo

This year Timmy picked our theme and he wanted it to be spooky. Which makes zero sense because the boy is afraid of his own shadow. My kids think Snow White is scary so this should be interesting.

Timmy is a Vampire, Grace is a witch and Lydia is a cat.

Lydia is probably not going to love these photos when she gets older but she makes for the cutest little booty pumpkin.

All she wants to do is eat the pumpkins and Grace for real ate them when we were carving. Is that normal & safe? I do not know.

Timmy was very serious about this pumpkin thing because he wants the seeds for his garden. He plants everything these days.

Which brings me to this video. I had such high hopes for the magic of this idea..until he found the price tag. Oops.

Well we tried. Lol

We went to the Pumpkin Patch on the most beautiful Florida day. Look at these cute littles in their boots. I love it so much I want to hang it in my house. Reminds me how me and Tim met country line dancing and now we have three kids rocking their cowboy boots.

We went through the corn maze and on a hayride. Then we played in the pumpkin patch and I loaded them all into a wagon for a ride.

Check out this new little pumpkin! Presentinggggg Benjamin Bayer.

Grace and Max are the cutest. The love is real!

We made some bat snacks for Aunt Erica’s growing bump too. Pretty soon between me and my sisters we could open our own school with all our kids.

Total Pinterest fail was this crayon melting pumpkin. It’s hard work and the wax goes everywhere.

Ahhhh mummies!

We invited some Jesus into our pumpkin celebration too.

And just more photos of Lydia being the cutest baby ever!

We rocked Trunk or Treat! My whole family came up even Sam’s boyfriend did a trunk and the two of them totally had the best trunks!

It’s Halloween week! Sorta. Halloween is on a Tuesday so everything is happening this week.

We had a lot of pumpkin fun learning. First we did a pumpkin investigation. It was awesome. They had to guess how many lines, the circumference, the height in cubes, the weight and whether the pumpkin would float.

Then we tested all our guesses. The kids love this kind of work.

We also did a pumpkin life cycle craft that my friend so graciously gave us from her tpt store. That website is the best invention ever.

We wrote down what Timmy knew about pumpkins.

We drew Halloween word pictures to match these letter sounds.

We made pumpkin playdoh with pumpkin purée.

For our Stewardship Club we had a Halloween parade at the local nursing home.

Timmy learned read a Level 1 book – Clifford’s Halloween Parade. He’s a great reader. It is so excited to see him putting it all together.

Timmy drew a map of the adventure he wants to take for his 18th birthday. He has big plans. First we sail the ocean, then hike the jungle, cross the Great Wall of china and then to Australian to see kangaroos.

In his kitchen class he learned how to crack and egg and peal a hard boiled egg.

Lots going on this week! Monday is Columbus Day and it’s Fire Safety Week.

My Busy Hive Club was all things Christopher Columbus. The kids had the best time. We started the party tracing and cutting out our Columbus hats and then decorating toilet paper telescopes.

How cute are those kids! Next we did a sink or float experiment. The kids made their guesses and then we tested it out together.

For snack we made apple boats with fruit leather sails. While they ate I read to them some facts about Christopher Columbus.

Next each kid had to make a boat out of tin foil. I remember doing this as a kid. I had a pretend ocean in our sandbox and I printed a map of Spain on one end of our “ocean” and the Bahamas on the other end. I showed the kids on our globe how far Columbus sailed. Then it was their turn to race toward the Bahamas. Using straws they raced their boats with a partner.

Last thing we did was see which boat could hold the most weight by adding pennies. It really was a super successful day.

To celebrate Fire Safety Week we went to visit our fire station. They put on such a nice tour. One guy gets all suited up and shows the kids not to be afraid if they see someone dressed like that. Which I never thought of because I bet had they never seen a fire fighter before it would be scary. They talked about crawling under smoke, calling 911 and emergency plans. Each kid was sent home with blueprint paper to draw up an emergency plan.

This is Timmy’s devotional journal. It says The Lord keeps us safe. We are full of joy because of Him. He drew a fire truck because it talked about safety.

We ended the week with a cooking lesson. Mini chocolate chip pumpkin loafs.