Today, we went to our annual homeschool Christmas Craft party. It is always a little messy, a little busy, and a lot of fun! Each family sets up a table with a craft project and the kids just go from table to table creating great Christmas projects. Here’s some pics of my kids having a blast with their friends.

Here’s Asa making oragomi ornaments.

Justus tying a ribbon on his cute yarn candycane.

Malachi taking a pause from getting into all the supplies to pose for a picture.

And, craft, schmaft! Elias just wanted to play Legos with the other five year old BUSY boys! We didn’t come home with any handcrafted treasures from Elias this year. 
I think Elias and his buddies played Legos for two solid hours….
(until it was time for refreshments, of course!).

We have some college students staying with us this weekend, so we needed to prepare! So,  last night, we cleared out what we call our “game room” and put matresses down on the floor. The boys decided that they needed to check it all out to see if it would work for our company, so, they pulled down their pillows and blankets and crashed on the matresses for a “sleep-over”. When I headed up for bed, I couldn’t resist snapping some pictures, because they looked so sweet, four boys all lined up in a row, asleep! (Ah, listen to the quiet!)

Keep in mind that it was completely dark when I took the pictures, and I couldn’t see what I was taking until the camera flashed (after I snapped the picture!)  Hey, I did my best! I couldn’t quite get all of them in one shot either, since they were all spread out and I was not able to hang from the ceiling or dangle myself out of the window to get them all in. Sorry. 

It’s a little louder at my house right now than it was when I took those pictures,
because we borrowed two extra boys for the afternoon. 
Six boys all playing some kind of tag through the house. 
You can be amazed that I actually typed complete sentences (at least I think I did!?)

Last night was hair cut night at our house. With four boys and a daddy, I just line ’em up and snip away! Sometimes this can turn into a fight with one or two (Daddy is usually pleasant, of course). Last night however, went without a hitch and we got all the haircuts done so that we would all look nice for worship today. THEN, we got a call letting us know that due to the snow, there would be no church service today! Well, at least we got our hair cuts out of the way!

I had one willing participant for before and after shots:

Here’s Malachi BEFORE his hair cut, looking a little scraggly!

Here’s his first picture AFTER his hair cut, with a cheesy little grin!

OH, so many itchy hairs!

But, it was worth it because I’m sooo cute!

Well, we woke up today to a beautiful snow. The boys bundled up and went out to enjoy it. When they came in, Elias declared it to be “one of the best days ever!” 

Here’s Malachi in the “cutest snow pants ever!”

They’re all ready to go (and it only took about 45 minutes).

The three big boys in the snow (sorry for the rear end shots…the photographer [me] didn’t have on snow gear and therefore didn’t want to go be in it to get a better shot).

Malachi was intimidated by the deepness of the snow, so he opted to eat snow from the sidewalk that Daddy had cleared.

Hope your day is the “best day ever!”

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it! Ps. 118:24

I’ve decided that it must be great to be a UPS man . I mean, everyone is always happy to see you, they rush to the door to greet you and thank you profusely for whatever it is you deliver, like YOU have something to do with whatever is in the box.

So yesterday, we got a BIG box from my friend (the UPS man), I mean from my friend Deb. We were sooo excited. 

I had to share with you the contents of the box. Deb is always so creative! She came up with a great gift. 

Isn’t this a great idea? Each day, the kids will open a little box and see what’s inside! What fun! The boys are so excited to enjoy this special “count down to Christmas”!

Thanks Deb!

Well, we finally got the job done. The most fun part was looking at all the ornaments the boys have made through the years. We also enjoyed finding ornaments my mom (the boy’s Grammy) had made for them each Christmas before she died. What special memories.

Oh, by the way…remind me next year NOT to clean the living room before we put up the tree. The boys swept and vacuumed very nicely this morning. Then, we pulled down the boxes from the attic with a year’s worth of dust on them. And, many (plastic) pine needles fell all over the floor as we were assembling the tree. So, we got to clean again after we finished. (What good practice for the kids. I’m sure they were thankful.)

After we had cleaned up the mess, I sent the boys upstairs to play for a while. When I called them back down to take pictures by the tree, apparently our third son, Elias, didn’t want to be interupted to mess with these memory-making pictures. Now, I’m no photographer (as you can probably tell) so I was focussed on getting at least one picture that was sort of centered without heads cut off. So, I took five, then uploaded them. This is when I noticed that Elias was less than happy to comply with  my request. I have to show you all five!

Okay, this one isn’t too bad (Elias is the third tallest, by the way)

Here he goes with some silliness…

“I am not even looking up this time”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, another one?”

This one is my favorite (of course I’m not telling him that!)

We lugged it all down. We spread it all out. We exclaimed and got excited (and quite loud). We made a BIG mess. We broke a thing or two. 

We aren’t even done yet…

Asa helping Malachi…what a good big brother!

Elias hanging an ornament…notice how they’re all being hung in the same area on the tree!

Justus hanging an ornament and Elias showing me another one.

Come back later for Puttin’ Up the Christmas Tree, part 2!