So Happy It's Thursday or SHIT!

I have had a fairly smooth week.  Monday was a little rough.  Busy day at work and something put me in a bad mood all day.  I got over myself and the rest of the week went good.  I am fitting in at work pretty good.  Starting to settle in to my new position and the challenges it brings being a working mother.  I don't like the time away from them, but I do know that it is good for us all. 

I am re connecting with the adult world and that feels good.  I missed that while I was home.  I had some deep conversations with old friends and new friends and it felt wonderful.  I am feeling a little bit like the old me. 


Last weekend we made Christmas cookies with a friend and her daughter.  It was a lot of work and a lot fun at the same time.  I am hoping to fit that into my schedule with my kids this weekend.  I am finally going Christmas shopping for Tim.  I haven't shopped this late in a long time. 

The next couple of weeks promise to be busy.  I am trying to step back from the craziness of it all and enjoy.  Enjoy my kids and their eagerness for Christmas.  Enjoy Payton.  He has a new thing he does where he tenses all of his muscles up and smiles huge.  He looks so funny.  He does it when he gets really excited about things.  Enjoy time with family.  I need them right now.  Not only blood family but friends that feel like family. 

My mom, dad and sister will be visiting next week.  Dad is officially retiring.  We are having a little get together here for his commencement.  It should be fun.  Something else to enjoy.  So many things going on this month.  It will be good to see them before Christmas.  I don't know when they will be back down after this.  Still feels weird that my family lives in Michigan and I live here.

Loving life right now.  One more full week of work and school and it's Christmas.  Time for family and church.  Giving and receiving.  Playing and remembering! 

Happenings

Not much going on this weekend.  Just soaking up some quiet family time minus my big kids.  Tim and Layne went Christmas shopping and Payton and I stayed home Saturday.  It was a gray hazy day.  Perfect for staying inside and snuggling with my one year old.  Pot roast was made for dinner.  Campbell came over in the evening.  We played.  She loves my camera and takes 50 pictures while she is here.  I delete most of them but I will show you a few good ones!  Maybe we should get her a camera of her own.  I think we may have a future photographer.

It is finally chilly here and feels like it should before Christmas.  The kids and I took 2 nights this past week to drive around and take in all the Christmas lights.  I love seeing how people decorate.  I love the tradition of it.  We found a house nearby that has over 70,000 LCD lights on their house.  They time it to music.  Ummm, I could have sat in my van all night watching!  They take donations and give them to a local food ministry.  We are going back next weekend when we have everyone here.  


The kids are doing great in school.  Jaxon still carries straight A's.  Rena doesn't get graded on a letter scale yet but gets mostly 2's and 3's.  Which are equivalent to A's and B's.  So proud of those too.  Serena has a slight behavior problem.  I don't think that I have ever mentioned it on here before.  She has been acting out on the bus and at home.  We have seen a doctor and are going to pursue counseling.  We have a big blended family and I bet it is really hard for her to cope sometimes.  I know it is for me.  Can't imagine what it would be like for a 7 year old.  Payton is doing great.  Getting in to a good grove with being at the babysitters.  He even slept through the night 5 nights in a row last week.  Last night was doosey.  He is teething and has a tough time with the pain.  Poor baby.  4 molars and 2 eye teeth all coming in at the same time. 
                                We got a Fischer Price nativity set.  Cute and Payton can play with it!

                               This is one of Campbell's!

                                Self portrait

                                Payton wants to start his own blog.

16 days until Christmas.  The kids are getting excited.  I am getting excited.  There is nothing like seeing the joy on your kids face on Christmas.  We have a Celtic Christmas program that we are going to attend at my grandmothers church tonight.  Should be fun.  We will see how Payton does. 

Whats been going on in my neck of the woods!

                                         Alexis Renee my niece

                                        Layne,McKenna,Jaxon, Serena,Kiera and Payton

                                         Grammy,mom and sister.
We have been busy busy busy.  My sister and her 4 kiddos were in town for Thanksgiving.  They stayed here at the house with us.  We had our family plus mom and dad plus 5 guests!  My nieces and nephews did stay st their friends houses some of the nights.  It was so nice to see them.  You don't realize how much you miss someone until they don't live 10 minutes away anymore.  It was so nice to have everyone here.  Talk about being thankful!  Shauna and family left Sunday late morning.  Then mom and dad left Monday early morning.  Dad is officially retired from work and they moved to Michigan!  While it was a little crazy having them stay with us I miss them.  They will living in a rental house up there while they have a home built on some property they own.  They are closer to our family in Michigan.  This is the farthest I have ever lived from my parents.  It is quite the adjustment.

We celebrated Jaxon's 10th Birthday.  His day fell on Thanksgiving this year so we did cake and a present the following weekend.  He got a video game for the xbox he had been wanting.

I made a cookie cake for him.  Not bad for my first attempt! I got the wrong kind of icing but it looked ok and tasted awesome!  So hard to believe he is 10.  He is such a little gentleman and I am so proud of the child that he is!

We decorated our home for Christmas the same weekend that we did Jaxon's birthday.  Last year we put our tree downstairs so the kids would have more room to open gifts.  It just didn't feel like Christmas with no tree upstairs.  So I had an idea to put a smaller tree upstairs and the big one downstairs.  We have my dad's HUGE TV downstairs right now.  So we decided to just put the small tree upstairs.  This is also in hopes that Payton will stay away from the ornaments!!
The kids did a ginger bread house!

One last thing to update.  Payton got his first hair cut on 12/1/12.  He HATED it.  Cried the whole time and I had to hold his head still.  He looks like a big boy now.  All his crazy curls are gone. His hair still looks wavy.  So I have a feeling that he will have curly hair.  Tim and I both do.