What is wrong with our family?!

Is it just our family or do other families torture their children too? Josh has made it a point to do something to humiliate each one of our children and he documents it with a photo (for future use, of course)! So yesterday was Boe's first encounter with daddy. Josh titles this one Baby Mr. Higgins (he says he's a butler).

I'll have to find the one of Tate to post later...he was carrot man!

Grandpa Blaine and Grandma Dawn made a quick stop by the house yesterday bearing gifts. We didn't tell the kids that they were coming so they were pleasantly surprised to say the least! Unfortunately the boys didn't get any golfing in this visit, but great for Dawn and I, we got to talk crafts. She made us the cutest advent calendar for Christmas, you take the magnets off each day and put them on the back of the cookie sheet to count down to Christmas day. The kids love doing it! Here's a photo...

A little bit sad

I never EVER thought I would say that I missed the farm we lived on...it was just so much darn work! This morning Tate wanted to take some of the photos of the animals from the farm, the kids at school didn't believe that he lived on a farm. It actually made me a little sad flipping through the photos. It made me miss all the animals believe it or not. I do have to say that was the greatest learning our family has ever had. Not just about the animals, but about what our family could endure, how much sleep you really can live off of when cows are birthing, how fast sheep can run not to mention how high they can jump (it's really true!), the experience of a new baby calf being born (I never thought that was a sight I would miss). You learn so much about life and death. We had a few lambs die and a cow. The kids usually handled it better than Josh and I did.

This photo is one I love. How many kids do you know who have a calf for a pet? That is CowPatty and Tate. When ever we go out to the farm she still comes when we call her and she will still let you pet her. She is MUCH bigger however.

Just a little reminiscing for the day.

Only 21 more days of Shopping!

I don't know how many of you have finished your Christmas shopping already, but we have not even begun! I am starting to feel the pressure now. I was reminded this morning that there is only 22 days until Christmas, 21 if you don't count Christmas Day! I can remember this thought as a child made me so excited, now all I feel is anxious about what needs to be done. I asked the kids what they would think if Santa decided to take the year off. That didn't go over so well. Every year I tell Josh that this year will be different, we're going to keep it simple and every year we look around and think where did all of this JUNK come from? It was from all of the time we spent looking for the perfect gift and picking up 10 others along the way that were not so perfect.
Then we pile on the stress of neighbor gifts! What do you get for an entire neighborhood? Our brillant friend Pam came up with a marvelous idea for this year! Instead of buying neighbor gifts we are having a canned food drive and donating it to the food bank. Not to mention she is providing hot chocolate too! Now if I could just convince my kids to go for something like that.
One thing that has worked out well so far is our Christmas tree. I decided this year that I was not going to go out and spend a small fortune on decorations for the tree. Let me explain:
Every New Years Day as we are taking down the tree Josh says "lets just get new ones next year", and then he throws them all away. So this year I decided we would make our decorations. While I was thinking of what we could make, my grandma was telling me about some geneology that she came across. Then the idea hit me, we'll have a real Family Tree! So we are going to cut out circles from cardstock and tie ribbon on them and write names from our pedigree charts on them. Yeah, not expensive and our kids might learn a little about our ancestors. When we are done I'll try and post a photo. Who knows it may end up looking horrible, but at least it didn't cost anything!
If anyone has some great ideas for simplifying Christmas (that won't put our children into shock) so we can celebrate the real reason for the season PLEASE let me know.