Christmas 2011

Maybe I'll just set aside lofty aspirations of writing for the moment.  Or the next several years, anyway.  I'd be doing great if I could just post some current pictures every now and then!  I don't think I've posted any pictures of my little Charli's angel since she was born, so I'll back up 'til Christmas and try and catch up!!

Ring those bells, Bud!!  

That's my little Lamb!!

She finally lost her first tooth!

Augh, LOVE 'EM!!!  (Even more than they love those Christmas jammies, which is hard to imagine.)

First Christmas:)

We debated long and hard about where to find the best sledding hill.  And then we decided the street right in front of our house would work just fine!  The dumping we got just as my family was coming into town made for great sledding weather with the the uncles.

Just because I forced my almost two year old to sled, when she was convinced she wanted no part in that, does not make me a parent.  Really.  I was trying to teach her to find the fun in life! 

Pretty much, forget having the "perfect picture" with 4 little kids.  At least the perfect "posed" picture.  Because this one is pretty much perfect in the sense that it did a pretty good job of capturing personalities of each one of them.

She's not convinced if his motives are really to help her get into her present, or if he just wants to play himself.

Probably my favorite picture from this Christmas.

What this boy doesn't realize is that he is opening the gift that will change is life.  PGA Tour, get ready!

Six Venches

As we were on our way to church yesterday, we somehow found ourselves in the midst of a conversation about walking to church.  Our church isn't exactly the neighborhood church; it's somewhere around 7 miles away and takes an average of about 25 minutes to get there.  Not my favorite thing at 8:30 on Sunday morning as a single parent with 4 small children, striving to get to church on time.  But that's another story.

More often than not, I do not have the radio on in the car while we are driving, because I find that this time is usually when I have the very best conversations with my kids.  I guess there's the blessing in the story, and that rather than bemoan how long it takes us to get to church, I should be thankful for that time when I have my children's usually undivided attention.

Anyway, back to the story at hand.  We were driving. The radio was off.  We were having one of our typical drive time conversations.  This day it happened to be about walking to church.  I was asking the kids if they thought they could do it.

Noah's answer?  "Uh.  I'd have to stop at SIX venches."

(That's Nielson speak for benches, FYI!  Both Sophia and Noah say venches.  Sophia started saying it years ago, and Noah learned it from her.  I used to not bother correcting them because I thought it was so cute.  And then I decided that someday someone else would think my kids were crazy, talking about venches and what-not.  So I tried to correct them.  Really.  I explained up and down that the word was really bench.  Apparently, my kids think I lie to them about word pronunciation on a regular basis.  So I quit trying.  And we still sit on venches in this house.)