Christmas Play Part 1

Last night was Landon's school play. I will post more on that later as I haven't had time to upload the pictures and edit them. {He did AWESOME by the way}

Anyway...every year his elementary has the first graders and third graders perform on the same night. The 1st graders sing songs and then after those kids have left with their families, the 3rd graders get to take the stage for their program. This means, as parents of 3rd graders, we get to sit through...... I mean ........enjoy the 1st grade performance while waiting for our kids to perform. Though the 3rd grade play alternates from year to year, the 1st grade song selections are the same EVERY year. I watched Landon do the same routine two years ago when he was in 1st grade. :0) This year, of course, Mackenzee was older. Where I knew that Santa would make an appearance during the 1st grade performance, we were pumped to see her reaction to the jolly old man. As always, the last song of the 1st grade performance is "Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train". The kids, Santa, and Rudolph, take to the aisles and do a line dance of sorts around the auditorium. Santa walked right by our seats! The video is of little Mackenzee watching Santa boogie up the aisle at the end of the song. He was only two rows behind us.

Sorry for the poor picture quality...Jaysen shot this video with his cell phone. I didn't even know he had taken the video until after it was all over. :0)

Happy Birthday Landon!

Yesterday we celebrated Landon's 9th birthday. Where his true birthday is so close to Christmas it makes it hard to have the party on the actual date. So, instead we have always done it at the beginning of the month. This year Landon chose 'Ben 10' for his party theme. For those of you not aware of who or what this is, I will briefly explain....
Ben Tennyson is a ten year old boy who happens upon an alien watch in the forest. When he touches it, it mysteriously becomes latched onto his wrist and will not come off...AT ALL. Through trial and error he finds that with this watch {called the Omnitrix} he is able to transform himself into 10 different aliens....all with different abilities. Crazy...I know. Landon loves to watch this show. The only problem is....what do you do at a Ben 10 party for a bunch of 9 year old boys? Sigh. After much deliberation with Landon we figured out a few things that he thought were "cool" enough and that I thought were feasible enough.


Though Landon wasn't super thrilled with pin the tail on the donkey...his friends thought it was wicked awesome fun. Brady ended up being closest to the tail and won this ginormous chocolate bar. {Sorry Brady's parents!}
After we were done with that game we played a bit of...."Who Knows Landon Best". Which basically consisted of me asking the guests questions about Landon and whoever got the right answer first won a piece of candy. :0) His friends know him pretty well......When that was done we all gathered around the table for a cookie decorating contest. They each got three cookies to decorate however they wanted. Those with the prettiest, ugliest, coolest and most creative cookies won EVEN MORE candy. Jadyn won prettiest as he color coded his cookies just as I would have done. Gotta love an organized cookie decorator! :0) Cole won most creative as he decorated one of his cookies to look like the omnitrix. He did a good job too! I can't quite remember who won the coolest...sorry. It was a crazy afternoon! BUT....I will tell you that EVERYONE won a piece of candy for the ugliest cookies. Seriously....there were some ugly looking cookies made by these boys. Wow....Pictured here from the bottom left hand corner of the table all the way around are Kaden, Gage, Jadyn, Kaleb, Jesse, Landon, Brady, Noah, Cole, Hatim and at the bottom of the picture here is Rhett. It was quite the group! :0)

After cookie decorating we opened up presents. Landon is now the proud owner of some really awesome toys. He has the best friends a kid could want. :0) He ended up with three Bakugan, a Bakugan belt clip, a Bakugan wrist launcher, a Power Ranger, Nerf guns, a Bionicle, a Ben 10 school set, a Wii golf club, a Lego Star Wars Wii game, a Ben 10 DVD game, a martian making machine, a Target gift card, and a couple of books. Yes...my child is spoiled rotten. I don't even think he needs Christmas now. :0)

After presents we brought out the pinata...which totally bombed as apparently Landon had snuck a peek at which string to pull and broke it open with the very first string. :0( Sigh. Oh well. All the kids cared about was getting more candy anyway.

Then, it was time to sing happy birthday and eat some yummy birthday cake. I made his cake to look like the main part of the Omnitrix watch. Talk about stressful!

But, it was all worth it in the end when Landon bragged to all of his friends how his mom made his Omnitrix cake without ANY help. I was beaming. :0)

Happy Birthday my Landon. I can't believe you are already 9 years old. Where has all the time gone?

And a big thanks to all of Landon's friends! You are all such awesome boys. Thanks for sharing in his big day.

December craziness continued...

This month is almost half over! Holy cow! Is anyone else tired?

I feel as though I've been going a hundred miles a minute for the last several weeks. We had the Arnold family Christmas party at my Grandma Casperson's house last weekend. This event always includes a rousing game of gift bingo. Me and Mackenzee went home with our arms full of fun treasures {a Dora letter book, Hello Kitty light up stamp, Dora necklace, oven mitts, iTunes gift card, coasters, and colored pencils to name a few}. Jaysen....he won a tube of chapstick. :0) Oh! And because my grandma felt sorry for him she gave him the gift certificate to Cold Stone that she had won.

I had my annual Christmas goodie making day this last week and have so much sugary sweet goodness in my kitchen right now it's scary. This year I ended up with fudge, sweet Chex Mix, White Chocolate Popcorn, Orange Creamsicle Fudge, chocolate truffles, peanut butter cups, peppermint patties, oreo cookie bark, peppermint bark, and crispy peanut butter balls. I broke my no sweets rule that day, too. :0) I HAD to sample everything to make sure it tasted good!

I also helped the kids make gingerbread cookies. In the past, they have both wanted to help roll out the dough but couldn't because my rolling pin is so heavy. So, I was so excited when I found a junior wooden rolling pin and a mini plastic rolling pin set in the dollar section of Target this year. Both my kids each rolled out their own dough and made all sorts of Christmasy shapes with cookie cutters. Sure...I couldn't tell you what each cookie came from which cookie cutter...but they had fun. And, they had even more fun frosting and decorating them. Me? I got to have "fun" cleaning up the mess left behind. Can I tell you how glad I am that we don't have carpet in the dining room anymore? :0)

Mackenzee watched the Polar Express for the first time this year and is infatuated with it. The day after she first watched it she NEEDED to go and see Santa Claus. Landon was with Jeff and so it was just her we took this year. :0( She was so funny about it though. She could hardly contain her excitement and picked out a special outfit to wear for the occassion. She told me that she was going to give Santa a hug and tell him that she loved him. And, actually, she was sure she needed to take Santa a present. It was cute. She told Santa that she wanted Dora for Christmas. I'm not sure if that means she literally wants Dora to come to our house, or if she will just settle for a Dora toy. I'm hoping for the latter. :0) After we left she became really upset because she didn't get to see Santa's reindeer or go on a train ride like the little boy from the movie did. Silly girl.

Last night was girls night and we did a gift exchange similar to the kind we did at my grandma's house. Everyone went home with something fun and we got to eat lots of yummy treats {again!} Insanely, at 9:15 the girls remaining decided they wanted to go to the movies. I had to finish up a homework assignment and so I told them to have fun. Apparently this was unacceptable to them. After we found out we had 20 minutes to get to the theatre, I was told that they would help me finish up my homework so that I could go too. So, we all crammed into my computer room down here to get it all done in time. Let's just say that this was the first "educational" girls night I think we've ever had and those girls are WAY more informed about proper nutrition throughout the different stages of life than they were before. We made it to the theatre about 10 minutes after the movie had started. CRAZY! Thanks so much ladies for your help though! That was the quickest I have ever finished up a power point presentation. I'll let you know our grade! :0)

Tomorrow is Landon's birthday party, so we will continue to be busy as the week ends. I am going to be attempting a Ben 10 birthday cake today...so wish me luck. Next week: Landon's Christmas play, my Grandpa's birthday, family Christmas, and class party.

Ready......

BREAK!

Wow...I look kind of scary in this picture now that I see it up close. :0) It was one of my no makeup, don't do my hair days. You know...my usual. :0)

I don't have oodles of pictures of me and Mackenzee and so was so excited to see that this one ended up in my camera after the holiday weekend. I am usually the one taking the pictures. So, even though I'm scary looking...which is not so rare of a sight...the picture is a rarity. She's a doll. Everyone says she looks just like her mom...but based on this picture...I'm not seeing it. :0)

Time to play catch up

Has it been crazy for everyone else? Holy cow!

I figured I needed to hurry and catch everyone up on what has been going on this last week.

We started out on Tuesday night with Landon's piano recital. My mom decided to forego the Christmas recital this year and hold it in November instead. The theme was American folk songs relating to patriotism as this year was an election year. So, songs like 'God Bless America' and 'Yankee Doodle' were played. Landon played Yankee Doodle Boy, County Fair, and then You Are My Sunshine with me as a duet. He worked so hard on all of his songs and did such a good job! You Are My Sunshine is one of the lullaby's I sang to both my kids when they were babies. Mackenzee still requests it. So, it was really nice to be able to play that one with Landon this year. County Fair was played by four kids at once, on three pianos. They each have their own part and so the song ends up having the main melody with three different harmonies playing along with it. They did SO good with their counting and were able to stay together through most of the song. Landon enjoyed having his cousin Taryn to play next to as well. At the end of the recital my mom played a medley of different patriotic songs. It was amazing. I haven't heard my mom play like that in years and I know it's hard for her to do. She did beautifully and everyone around me was in awe. {I'm not kidding mom!} It was good to have her students hear it too because not all of them knew she could play like that. :0)

Wednesday night my siblings showed up for the Thanksgiving weekend. My kids were DYING from impatience. We just love having family come and visit and end up practically living over at my mom's house when they are here. We don't get to see them nearly as often as we'd like and I know the kids miss their cousins immensely. They don't get to chat on the phone or swap emails with each other like us adults do. :0)

My whole family {minus a few kids who were with their mom this year} was able to be here for the holiday this year. So, Landon got to hang with the boys and Kenzee got to run around with the little girls. She was so excited when her "nana nana" got here. That is her nickname for her cousin, Savanna, whom she adores. I'm pretty sure she would shrivel and die without her. :0)

Of course, Thursday was Thanksgiving and we went to my Grandma Casperson's house for the day. She roasted an amazing turkey. There was so much food there, it was insane! Everyone filled their tummies, and then filled their tummies some more. Of course, my neices and nephews filled their tummies mostly with my mom's layered jello salad. They can never get enough of that one. :0)

Thanksgiving night is the official lighting ceremony for my Grandpa Casperson's outdoor Christmas display. He has been working for months on it and the kids were SO excited for him to turn them on. Mackenzee couldn't wait, so I took her and her cousin, Alina, out for a walk to check out the displays before it got dark.

When the clock finally struck 5:00 pm it was time! Everyone went out to see the lights on and to see what additions my Grandpa had made this year. He has something new every year and has added so many lights over the years that he actually decorates the entire street. It is awesome. The kids were amazed at the display and oohed and aahed at all the lights. The boys decided to play "statues" afterwards, which involved them posing behind the displays on the front lawn when the cars drove past. Even Shelby got in on the fun and had the boys walk up and down the street singing Christmas carols.

On Friday night my sisters and I went to go and see the movie, Twilight. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that I enjoyed the company, but the movie was kind of lame. It definitely did not do the book any justice. Afterwards, Jaysen, my brother, brother-in-law and my sisters brother-in-law {did that make sense?} went to go and watch a movie of their own. Apparently they didn't want to be left out. :0) This only meant that the kids felt they were being left out of the movie loop. So they were promised a movie night the next day at my mom's house too.

Saturday afternoon, though, we had a birthday party for my neice, Greta, and my nephew, Riley. Greta turned five this last week and Riley turns four on Wednesday. I can't believe they are getting so big. It's crazy!

When we were done, my sister Crystal had to get home. After saying our goodbyes and giving hugs, the rest of us girls went to get the boys their movie and a promise of movie candy was made. Each kid was promised they would get their own movie-sized candy. Holy cow...there was a lot of candy being passed around. The girls piled all of their onto a blanket like they were having their own little candy picnic. Of course, due to the rush from the sugar intake my little Mackenzee and her cousin Alina went psycho! They were running around screaming and giggling. It was crazy! But, they had so much fun together.

Saturday night was our night to say goodbye as everyone was heading home the next day. Though it was a whirlwind of a weekend, we enjoyed seeing everyone. With the Christmas holidays now in full swing, I don't foresee things slowing down any time soon. It's time to break out the Christmas music and to wear our pretty Christmas dresses. :0) Landon is already playing Christmas carols on the piano and we are putting up the tree tonight. Tis the season!

Just say no to weirdo freaks

SO, after much deliberation and discussion, I have decided to go private. For those of you wanting an invite, please let me know and I will add you to the list. If you are not sure if I have your email address, please add that info to your comment so you will be sure to be included.

I figure it is better to be safe than sorry. My kids are so dang cute, but the pictures I take of them are for me and close friends and family members. Not for weirdo freaks who stalk blogs looking for cute pictures of kids. :0(

If anyone is unsure how to set up a google account in order to gain access to my blog after receiving an invite, let me know and I can help.

Thanks all!

A Happy Working Song

All right, everyone! Let's tidy things up!

Come my little friends As we all sing a happy little working song

Merry little voices clear and strong

Come and roll your sleeves up,

So to speak, and pitch in

Cleaning crud up in the kitchen As we sing along

Trill a cheery tune in the tub As we scrub a stubborn mildew stain

Pluck a hairball from the shower drain

To that gay refrain Of a happy working song

We’ll keep singing without fail Otherwise we’d spoil it

Hosing down the garbage pail And scrubbing up the toilet

Ooh!How we all enjoy letting loose with a little"La-da-dum-dum-dum"

While we’re emptying the vacu-um

It’s such fun to hum A happy working song

Hmmm

A happy working song

You can do a lot when you've got Such a happy working tune to hum

While you’re sponging up the soapy scum

We adore each filthy chore That we determine

So friends even though you’re vermin We’re a happy working throng

Singing as we fetch the detergent box

For the smelly shirts and the stinky socks

Sing along

If you can not sing then hum along

As we’re finishing our happy working song!

Ahh...Wasn't this fun?

One of our favorite movies around here is Enchanted. {Landon would never admit that though} If you haven't seen it, you are truly missing out. It is such a fun, cute story and the songs are just awesome. As many of you know, I keep my iPod hooked up in the kitchen so that I can sing and boogie while I cook and do the dishes. Mackenzee has been requesting "A Happy Working Song" from Enchanted for the last several weeks while she "helps" in the kitchen.

Well, miracle of all miracles.....Landon hopped up from the dinner table tonight and asked if I would play it for him too. He then proceeded to grab the bottle of cleaner and a towel and not only clean off the dining room table, but he took care of the stovetop, kitchen counter, bathroom, walls, and back door. Of course, Kenzee pitched in and they had such a ball singing their happy little working song OVER AND OVER while they cleaned "crud up in the kitchen". I honestly think they were disappointed when there was nothing left to wipe off. :0)

Who'd have thunk it? Both my kids...cleaning...together...happily....while singing merry tunes.

This may have been a once in a lifetime thing.

Or maybe I need to find more happy working songs. :0)