Chocolate Chip Cookie...

Chocolate Chip Cookie

has eaten

an entire serving!!!!!!!

of Deb's Tator Tot Casserole!!!!!!!

in one sitting!!!!!!!!!

and it only took 35 minutes!!!!!!!!

She is SOOOOOO

proud of herself!!!!!!!!

and so am I!!!!!

Homeschool Group

FUN!! FUN!!! FUN!!

:-) Oh, we just love homeschooling! :-)

;-) And it just keeps getting better! :-)

:-) Even when we are sure it can't! :-)
LOL!

We went to a homeschool group Park Day today. :-))
At the top is a picture of the park.

A picture of the playground.

And one of Chocolate Chip on the monkey bars.

We have all been looking forward to the meeting and have been excited at the prospect of finding new friends, getting outside and venturing...

There was a very nice young lady there that had this hat on.

The girls tried it on for the camera.

We arrived at 11:30am and got home at 5pm. It was tons of fun! We met LOTS of new people! It was almost overwhelming at how nice everyone was. They all introduced themselves and their kids to us and I really felt at ease. It was a lovely day here, about 65 and mostly sunny. The park was very nice, clean, and open. I don't remember the last time the girls were across the way from me and I wasn't flipping out. Ahhh!

A couple of the 16 year olds were giving guitar lessons for $2.00.

Can't beat that!

The joy of seeing them laughing, running, and playing! And meeting friends! :-)

 Later, at home, I gave Mini Chip this Cutie Clementine. He loved playing with it. Then I noticed that he seemed to be chewing on something. Yup! He chewed right through. So, I got out...

...that contraption I mentioned before and he made orange juice.
Mmmm!!
He loves it!

Today I also joined AFHE (Arizona Families for Home Education) and we are looking forward to the homeschool conference in July. They even have some classes for kids 12 and over. So exciting!

I was wondering...

I have a friend who says that this little fella looks like...

... Curious George.

What do you think?

I WIN!!

See this box of chocolates?

My Mom gets one for me every Christmas and this year she even got one for my husband! :-)

Now we don't have to share the maple cream!

Mmmm!

Thanks Mom!!!

I found that box of chocolates when I was cleaning up the Christmas stuff.

And so, I was munching and cleaning, and sorting and munching... mmmm!

And guess what...

I WIN!!!

(Course, it never really had a chance!)

:-) LOL!! :-)

New Year's Day

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The first day of a brand new year!
It's so exciting!
Oh, the possibilities!!

On the last day of 2010 this is what we did...

See those little tiny orange looking things on the bananas by the little Cuties clementines? Those are kumquats. They are only about the size of the end of my thumb. We used to live on kumquat street and never knew what a kumquat was. So, in honor of all the new things we have experienced in 2010, we tried something new on the last day too. Oreo LOVES them because they are VERY, VERY sour.

Little fella tried something new too. A banana in a contraption. He LOVES bananas and this 'fresh food feeder' by Munchkin lets him chew on one. Pretty cool invention since I do not have to worry about him choking on it. In the short time between babies they have come up with some pretty cool new stuff.

This is our favorite food of 2010 menu that we decided on:

Nachos

Beef tips, carrots, celery, and aus jus

(Resembles pot roast, but it's not really.)

Fruit tray with chocolate fondue

'Don't you want me babies' with whipped cream

(More commonly known as Chips Ahoy cookies, Chocolate Chip has lovingly called them by this name since the commercials sang that song in a car... LOL!)

It seems we had a theme going... something to do with dips... Lol!

Mini Chip is trying to stand all of a sudden! Uh-Oh! Lol!

We played the new games the girls received for Christmas gifts while we waited for the clock to turn to the new year. (We actually toasted twice. Once with Minnesota and once with Arizona. Butterscotch Chip just couldn't keep going to the Arizona celebration, so, she went to bed after the Minnesota one.)

I Spy Eagle Eye was tons of fun and we kept playing for a long time. We will play this one again for sure!

In A Pickle was super fun too, but required more brain power than our overtired brains had. What a great game for school! I look forward to utilizing this one to expand the girls vocabulary and increase their understanding of words and how they can work together. Yeah!!

Sumoku! Oh My! My little math lover and her sister both liked this one. Again, we only played about a half of a game due to our lack of energy and brain power (we are definitely a family that NEEDS our beauty sleep)! LOL! It was great fun though and we will definitely be playing this one lots!

Just look at my beauties!

I am a most blessed woman to have such wonderful, thoughtful, sweet, adorable, smart, creative... children!
I love them soo much!

I am hoping you had a wonderful last day of the year 2010 also!

XOXO
Christina

New Year's Eve

This year is going to be very different for New Year's Eve.

I must admit that I have grown quite tired of the new, new, new.

:-(

Not that I am ready to be done with our adventure, just that I could really use some good old normal. You know, like not having any plans and just hanging out at home with my people and enjoying them.
Soon I am told, soon.

:-))

And so, my little-ish people and I have been planning and planning for our New Year's celebration. Everyone chose a favorite food of the year and we will have those things banquet style tonight. I wanted to try playing every game in the house before midnight, but the kids are a little too intimidated to do that. We will still play some games and make lists of goals for the next year and memories from the past year. We will probably watch a movie and then watch the ball drop, toast with our yummy sparkling cider to a wonderful and adventurous new year, and snuggle til morning in a tent in the living room... :-) Bliss... well, almost... I will miss my honey... but he will be home soon from the sand dunes. He and Peanut Butter are there with my brother and his friends riding quads and sand rails... boy stuff.

Hope you have wonderful plans or a sweet lack thereof.

{{HUGS}}

Christina

Sooo Blessed!

Oh My! We are soo blessed in so many ways!

This time I am talking about a couple of packages that have arrived...

For our classroom we have received a VERY generous and VERY wonderful and VERY spectacular gift!

Well, several of them actually...

Four Microscopes

Four Magic Rocks

and Four Giant Volcanoes!

Can you stand it!! Even the teacher gets to participate first hand!

We love Science around here (and History and Reading and Math and... come to think of it, we love all subjects, even Spelling... Homeschool is the BEST!!)

Oh My!

What blessings!

Thank you! Thank you! To our wonderful blesser! Thank you!

XOXO

Christina

P.S. We found scorpion #14 on the master bedroom wall this morning around 5am. Please keep us in your prayers that no one is hurt by them and that our efforts to safeguard our home and family from them are successful soon. Thank you.

HE'S HERE!! :-)

Our big boy...

...has arrived!

:-)   :-)   :-)   ;-)   :-)   :-)   :-)