School was only a half day today.


Jasmine had pajama day at school. I might stay in PJs all day if I were that cute in them.




Jessica and a friend exchange gifts.







Jessica and friend watch a movie together and eat pizza. No, she is not drinking out of the 2-liter. The cap is on.





Jasmine and a friend borrow my little TV and watch Night in the Museum 2 and eat pizza in the girl's room.



Ty and a friend play Wii.



Work detail due to issues at school



The girls play games.



Adam takes a turn. We had a cold rain so he couldn't finish his outside project today.


Jessica grilled hamburgers. Then she and Ty had to work. Jasmine, Adam and I watched movies.

Christmas Parties

This is Jasmine with her teacher. That's the goody bowl she took to her teacher sitting in front of them. It had homemade goodies and a $10 sonic's card. We are blessed to have a really nice teacher who looks for ways to help each child. Jasmine is finally starting to get the extra help she needs for her special needs.



Class party

The girls brought a book suitable for a girl and the boys brought for the boys. They sat in a circle and passed them left and right as the teacher read a story that had the words "left" and "right" in it.



You opened the book you were holding when it ended.






But what happened was, Jasmine received a used book that was scribbled in with pen, pages yellowed and the binding was broken! I guess the mom just went and grabbed a book off their book shelf that no one wanted and wrapped it up. I doubt she even looked inside. But certainly she could see that it was old by the warped and yellowed pages!

Jasmine was very brave about it. We discovered it at home and I e-mailed the teacher. She had extra books in case anyone forgot theirs or a family couldn't afford it and she said she'll give Jasmine a new book.

That's why I really DON'T LIKE gift exchanges. We try to get a nice book, gift or whatever that someone would like to get. And many times we get dollar store stuff back that isn't even suitable. One year when Jasmine was about 4 we took a nice view master gift set and she got a dollar store puzzle that was both way beyond her age level and downright ugly. I know we are suppose to teach our kids to be grateful for what they get. But that's not easy when they see someone else get the nice present they bought and they get something they can't even use.

It's better when it's a puzzle exchange or a book exchange but even this time someone took the joy out of it for Jasmine by bringing a book that should have been discarded.

And on top that, the girl who got the Magic Tree House book we took obviously is not a fan of Jasmine's. She looked at who the book was from even before she opened it and tried to get someone to trade with her. Then after she opened it, she went around begging people to exchange with her. There were three other Magic Tree House books in the exchange so I know it was an appropriate book. When no one traded with her she sat down at her desk and just stuck it in her desk and didn't even look at it! Arg.

Thankfully Jasmine had fun with her classmates. The teacher gave each child a Christmas joke book and they had pizza, cookies and chips.




Jessica made this stocking in sewing class.






The two oldest had their Explorers party tonight. They always have a dirty Santa gift exchange (you can take someone else's gift if you like it better). Jessica took one of the new Bop It games.

Ty took a little holiday etch a sketch and a $10 Target gift card.

Unfortunately, not everyone brought a nice gift this year. Jessica got a game which she is sort of okay with but Ty got three Sponge Bob kid's watches that were from cereal or a kid's meal or something. Someone else gave him a can of hot chocolate mix they didn't want so he was okay with it. But I think everyone should bring a gift that they would like to go home with. There is a $20 limit but you don't have to spend that much. Still, it's not really fair for someone to bring three little plastic watches but get a nice gift--in fact, he got the Bop It Jessica took.

I guess I'm not really big on gift exchanges because of hurt feelings. Last year Jessica took a nice gift to the youth group part and got a can of corn! The paper said a white elephant gift worth $10 so Jessica took a nice gift but some people just took junk. If that's what they had in mind, they should have said "Find a gag gift from you old junk" not a $10 gift.

It seems like some people expect something nice but don't take something nice. Yep, I'm going off on this so I'll just shut up for now.

School is out early today. Ty, Jessica and Jasmine each have a friend coming over today for a pizza lunch and then movies (girls) and Wii Ty & friend. The other child chose not to do this by getting an ISS for defiance toward the cafeteria workers and a truancy. Choices, choices.

Next week Jessica and I have to drive 5 1/2 hours for fingerprints. Then Jasmine needs special x-rays for her bone graft and that is five hours. And we have to pick Jeff up and that is 4 1/2 hours. Unfortunately, they aren't all the same direction. The two girls and I are going to be gone M, T & W to accomplish all these things. The fingerprints and Jeff are in the same direction, but unfortunately, Jasmine's appointment is not so we are going back and forth due to scheduling.

Will post more pictures later.

Christmas Goodies

We've spent several hours the last two days making goodies for teachers/bus drivers.

Jessica got up at 5 a.m. yesterday (after getting in from work at 11:30 the night before) and made muffins for Ignite club. Then she walked out the door without them and I had to rush them to school. I do not take everything the kids forget to school for them because I want to encourage responsibility, but she'd gotten up so early to make these. She also ran errands and picked up twenty bricks at Lowes for me and often does errands willingly so I don't mind helping her out.

This was a packaged brownie mix that I made in a mini muffin pan. I filled these a little too full but forgot the sprinkles on the second batch.

Jasmine is making peanut butter brownies from scratch.

Peanut Butter Brownies
1 c flour 1/2 c solid Crisco
1/2 tsp baking powder 3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c sugar 6 oz chocolate chips
1/2 c peanut butter

Mix flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Cream sugar,
peanut butter, shortening, eggs and vanilla. Gradually beat
in flour mixture. Mix until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips.
Spread in well greased 9x13” pan. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.
Cut into bars while warm.

We also baked these in the mini muffin pan for 20 min rather than in a 9x13 pan.

One full pack of oreos and one package of cream cheese bites the dust.
(Adam wasn't the one who left the beater in the bowl which knocked it over but he volunteered to clean it up. This picture is after the majority was cleaned up. It wasn't pretty.)

Goody bowl ready to go.





Jessica was suppose to cook something for cultural day. She was looking through a bunch of complicated recipes. I told her to make peanut butter fudge and say it was All-American. She liked that idea.

The texture came out weird but they tasted great. Don't have picture of them finished.

Oreo balls (which we nick named snowman poop for the obvious reason). We are not doing something right because they should be nice smooth balls. We used the mint oreos.

Gingerbread Trains

I just realized that I never posted these pictures from Thanksgiving. Last year we replaced an outgrown tradition with building gingerbread houses. This year I saw these trains and thought they were cute and might be fun to build (and eat afterward!).



The girls built one train and the boys another.







Getting the pieces to stand up was a little bit of a challenge.










Sometimes more of the candy was being eaten than used to decorate the train.



























The finished trains. I love how colorful and fun looking they are. Like something out of CandyLand.

Microwave Smores

A family came down and we grilled and played games.








But the highlight was the microwave smores. Who knew? Cheap entertainment--who can get the poofiest marshmellows?













Gotta wear off all the calories.

My Girls

both had Christmas programs at the church. Jasmine's was last Sunday and you can see a song from it in a previous post. Jessica is in the church orchestra so performed at the adult program last night and will perform again this afternoon.



Tuning up before the program.

Some of the little ones waiting for the program to start. The choir, orchestra and performers had to be there an hour early.

All ready for church.

Christmas Cookies

We tried to give the twins some new experiences and create memories in our very short time there. Monday night we had stockings and gifts, Tues we went to the grocery store and Tues evening we frosted Christmas cookies. They did pretty well with it.



Kayla really enjoyed frosting the cookies.

Kaleb did pretty well too. You can see that he has no idea how to hold the knife.

Jasmine is an old pro at it.