Emily turns the BIG 1-3!

It is hard to believe that Emily turned the BIG 13 today. It just seems like yesterday we were waiting her arrival and the start of this whole roller coaster of parenthood! She got the best birthday present ever - a cell phone! She does not have texting but she is still pretty excited. She is a good kid and we are very blessed to have her as our oldest dughter!

My name is Kelley and I am a facebook addict

So I saw where someone was starting a facebook blackout from December 15th 6:00pm to December 16th 6:00pm. I am not really sure the reason, they want facebook to do more for us or something like that. Anyway, I felt it would be a great opportunity to see if I really do have an addiction to facebook. Okay, well, it's been almost 20 hours and even though I would love to click on that little button on my computer that would take me there I haven't. I think I am going to make it the full 24 hours, I do miss Scrabble though today. Hmmmmm...It's just a fun way to stay connected with friends and family all over the country and well now world since I have friend from high school that just accepted my friendship who is stationed in Germany. What can I say? I'm a social butterfly...

The Bible Book of Hang Glider?

Benjamin last week came home from Awanas very proud of himself. He had learned a new bible verse. I asked him to recite the verse ~ "in the beginning God cweated the heavens and the earth". I said "very good buddy. What book does that come out of?" He says "hang glider". I look at him perplexed and then Hannah explains to me that is the name of his Sparks book. I look at the cover and lo and behold it is called "Hang Glider". What a smart boy!

Community Service

You do the crime, you do the time? Is that the saying. Oh my little litter bug. I don't know what it is with Benjamin but he feels a need to drop garbage on the ground rather than in a trash can. I told him next he was caught littering I was going to drive him to a park and make him pick up the garbage on the ground. Well after church on Sunday he got busted again. We were invited to Maura's for a family Christmas party ~ which Benjamin had a blast at last year. Dan dropped off the girls at the party and Benjamin had to go to Linda Vista Park and pick up garbage. Boy, he was crying. "I'm going to miss arts & crafts time" ~ last year Maura had them decorate cookies and a frame ornament for the tree and he did not want to miss that. We explained he was in trouble and had to do his time and then could go to the party. Dan asked him what he learned from the experience and he said "that he has garbage to pick up at the park". Well, yes but not that was what he was supposed to learn. We will see if he litters again! By the way he did not miss arts & crafts and was able to decorate cookies & an ornament!

Ho, Ho, Ho

Hard to believe Christmas is almost here. Working on my Christmas cards, trying to find the perfect cookie for my cookie exchange, most of the presents are wrapped, the house is decorated...what else have I forgot? This is kind of going too smoothly this year.

I took the kids to see Santa last week. I was surprised that Emily was okay with going but she was. Benjamin told me he was going to ask Santa for an I-Dog and I reminded him he really wanted a Nintendo DS. "Oh yeah", he said he had forgot. Santa asked Emily what she wanted and all she wanted was a cell phone, the Aeropostle store, an ipod... Santa asked Benjmain if his sisters were good and Benjamin pointed to Emily and said she was but that Hannah wasn't. Emily then agreed. Santa asked Hannah what she wanted but she just kept being goofy and never answered him. Thursday night we had our BUNCO Christmas party ~ again at Kristin's work. As you can see we are a pretty bunch (kidding), as you can see we had lots of fun!

Fred

So I never let everyone know that we did get a new vehicle. Fred! Fred is a red, 1998 Chevrolet Blazer. Dan is now the driver of Fred and Mike is back to being mine. Emily thought I, since I am the mom, should drive the mini van and that Dad would look more professional not in a mini van. Whatever. Iris is sitting in front of our home looking for a new family. I am in cahoots with a local preacher who gives away vehicles to needy people. We are trying to find someone to fix Iris, at hopefully no charge, so we can give her to a needy family this holid, oops, no, I mean, Christmas season. I hate when people take CHRIST out of the season...but that's another gripe for another day.

So Thankful...

I complain a lot but I do have a pretty good life; the love of my family, we are all healthy, we have food in our bellys (is that spelled right?) and we have a roof over our heads. Here are a couple of pics from Thanksgiving ~ Dennis & JoAnn came over from Billings and Dan prepared us a yummy meal. Grandpa and I took Hannah & Benjamin down to the carousel to ride the ponies a few times and we played PIT later that night. The next day we had to get up and get decorating for the Holiday Season. I'll add those pics later. I am also thankful for all of you ~ my trusty readers of our never boring life!