Is it bad that I JUST TODAY uploaded my pictures from December from my camera?  Please lie and say it’s fine!  Happens all the time!

{liar}

So…ahem…here’s what we did in December!

Every year we make a gingerbread house.  This year was no exception.

We did add one  two things.  First was our friend Lavender joined us for the candy placing.  And this year we had extra frosting on hand.  And we did the best thing we could with it.

Then there was the trip to the Washington DC Temple to see the lights.  Twice. Because I forgot my camera the first time.

And the great hunt for the missing glove.

Christmas Eve brought us Chinese food. So naturally, Santa got a fortune cookie for his cookie plate.

(Which said, “You will make many changes before settling satisfactorily.” I thought that was very fitting.)

Christmas was a blast!

And on Sunday!  So the kids looked so so cute in the afternoon!

But before that, there were presents to open.

And bikes to ride in the house.

And we always go to Mt. Vernon the week between Christmas and New Year’s.  We saw the sights:

The house.

The Gingerbread House.

The River.

The Gardens.

The Pardoned Turkey from Thanksgiving. (Professor just laughed and laughed when the turkey gobbled.)

Aladdin the Camel. (Which Professor kept a HUGE berth around. I guess camels are “scary”.)

A Distant Relative (aka my Great Aunt!).

So in answer to my above question, it IS okay that I just uploaded my pictures. And it IS okay that it took me 2 days to do this post. You enjoyed it right? That makes it okay!

Safire

So, yeah, I know…it’s been awhile.  I know what has been going on with all of you because I do manage to read blogs a few times a week.  But no one really knows what’s going on with me.  Well, besides me.  And Juice.

Sounds like it’s update time!

• December went by fast and furious!  Christmas was excellent.  Top presents included an American Girl doll for Butterfly (Felicity, because she is a Virginia girl like Butterfly!), 2 wheel push bikes for the boys and a new set of trains, a sword for Juice and a glass table top for me.
• Through December, we decided we were NOT going to move.  Stupid economy.  I’m hopeful we can try again in 2 years or so.
• Also in December, after poking around on Craig’s List just for fun, I decided to get a job.  Like, a job outside of the house.  I am teaching horseback riding lessons about half an hour north of here.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  Yes, it’s outside. Yes, it’s freezing cold some days.  But boy am I having a fun time.
• Sadly, with this job, I’m still trying to figure out my days and how to schedule my time.  Blogging got pushed way back.  I hope that I’ll be able to get back to doing it regularly.  But I’m not making any promises.

That’s what’s been going on in a nutshell.  Life is full and I’m loving it!

Safire

The other night my friend Lolli and I decided that we need a break from all the holiday craziness and my moving craziness.  So we decided to throw a party!  A dancing party!  And thanks to Clever Girls and UbiSoft, we had all the fixings to do just that! Just Dance ABBA style!

We decided to invite a few people, and we all dressed up like’70s and had the time of our lives.  There was a LOT of giggling.  There was some punch drinking and some avocado bean dip eating, and dancing.  Lots of dancing.

Of course, Lolli blew us all out of the water.  She is good at these kinds of games!

These guys make pretty good dancing queens, don’t you think?

Besides the game, which you can get at Amazon, the disco ball was the most talked about party accessory. My kids have decided it’s part of our Christmas decorations. Because everyone needs a party themed room for Christmas.

Oddly enough, it fits in!

We besides the dancing, we also tried out the karaoke feature. Honestly, we ended up laughing (and poking a bit of fun) at the music videos we were singing along to. I really wasn’t all that impressed with the singing part.  We couldn’t figure out if there were points involved or if it was just…singing along.  But the dancing was awesome.

Safire

Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this blog post. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

This past weekend my family had an amazing opportunity to join all my local blogging friends and see ICE at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center.  I had been there a few months ago at a blogging conference and knew it was amazing.  Add Christmas decorations, and you have the most AMAZING place.  Dreamworks partnered with the Gaylord to bring an amazing “Merry Madagascar” theme this year.

We started the day off with cookies and “ogre” milk.

After drinking the milk and being “ogre-fied”,

we headed off to experience ICE (which is actually done across the street in a temperature controlled tent).  We had to convince Professor that Shrek the Ogre was taking a nap, because that was the only thing he wanted to do right then.  But then we were given huge blue parkas (bonus because we were BAD parents and left the kids’ coats at home by the door) and walked into an amazing ice world.

All thoughts of Shrek were dismissed because there were ICE slides.  You read it right.  Huge slides of ice with awesome lights in them that you can slide down.  And slide down we did.

We slid until the boys started shivering.  Then Juice and I gave them our scarves (because WE didn’t forget our OWN coats) and we slid some more.

Even Juice and I got in on some sliding action!

Once we drug everyone away from the slides, we took in the sights of ICE.  Did you know that they start building it a few months before, and people from China come and do it!?  They used 2 MILLION pounds of ice to make all these amazing sculptures.

My favorite?  The Nativity.

After ICE, we decided to try out some ice skating!

This was the boys first time ice skating.  Professor did well.

Pirate flailed around and didn’t spend the whole time on his face because he was hanging on to me.  Butterfly hung on to the edge for dear life.

That would have been me if I hadn’t had flailing Pirate to keep upright.

Juice (who actually knows how to skate) took turns taking the kids around the rink.

From there, we went back across the street to meet up with Shrek.  He, and all of his friends, were no longer napping so it was a great time to get pictures with everyone!

The day ended with an amazing fountain/light/snow/dancing ogre show in the atrium of the hotel.  They make it SNOW.  INSIDE.

That was my favorite part of the whole day.

If your in the area, this is an AMAZING way to spend the day, or even a few nights! Check out Gaylord National’s website for more information and ways to book your ICE experience.

Safire

*Disclosure: My family and I were invited by MomzShare to experience ICE at no cost to us. All opinions are my own and I totally would spend money on this to do it. It’s that good.*

So I failed this month at the whole NaBloPoMo but I have a good excuse. It’s called moving. And gutting my house. It’s really no fun. All my evenings are spent cleaning or organizing or putting things in boxes.

I like the throwing away part. That’s been very happy for some reason.

We’ve spent almost a week on the kitchen alone. Holy cow, was the kitchen dirty. But now my stove looks like it’s brand new (thanks to my awesome Oreck Steam Mop) and the fridge is devoid of magnets.

I also can’t find anything because I rearranged my cupboards.

Send chocolate. Please.

Safire

Today’s list:

1. Cheap movie tickets.  Now we could actually go to the movies and see something!  I think I have 3…no…4 movies I want to see in the theater.  These tickets will help me out!
2. Trying to organize myself for Black Friday.  This will be my first time out!
3. Dogs and the GOOD news they bring.
4. Antibiotics for Butterfly.  Her cough is just so wet and yucky.  Hopefully she’ll sound better soon (because she feels just fine.)
5. Cooler Temperatures.  Makes moving boxes a whole lot easier!

Safire

I’ve decided to write a week of thankfulness posts.  Here’s today’s:

1. Children who behave in Home Depot.  They’ve been in that store 3 times this week.
2. Long walks with friends.  Washing machines.  Boys who notice puddles and won’t stop talking!
3. Thrift stores and longer pants for Pirate.  New pants for me too!
4. Free long distance to call my Mom who has the week off.  Yay!
5. Advil.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Safire

Because I can, here is a list of things that I am thankful for.

1. Totally awesome primary lessons (that I taught!) and seeing kids ‘get’ what I’m trying to say.  Even if I did have to be a meany and separate all the older boys because they were being disruptive!
2. My calender.  I don’t think I could do all the things I do without it.  And in a few weeks, I get to go pick out a new one!
3. New lights in my kitchen.  Hey, did you know that my kitchen is not a dark cave?  Me either!  New found knowledge for everyone!
4. Kids who go to sleep willingly after a VERY long day for them and no naps.
5. Walk in hours at the doctor, starting at 8am tomorrow morning.  Guess who is going to visit?  Butterfly!  She has had a cough for weeks now, and it’s starting to sound very wet.  Time to get it looked at.

What a week of being thankful!

Safire

So here is what I did today. You tell me if you think I got anything done.

Woke up at 6:30am (let’s be honest, I didn’t get up until about 6:50am with a lot of prodding from Juice) and went to the local church. I helped bag over 200 shares of food for Thanksgiving. I came home with 2 bags of food and a turkey. (I now have 2 turkeys. I am crazy.)

Home by 8am. Fed myself breakfast and got the kids all dressed. Juice got ready and I boxed up 2 boxes of kid books and 2 boxes of board games. I fought with the packing tape that kept tearing and ripping. SO frustrating.

By 9:45am, we were ready to head out the door. We stopped off at our storage unit and dropped off the boxes, plus the extra seat to our van. That way we have room to pack the van with boxes and the seat doesn’t have to be in our house.

By 10:15am, we were headed down the road to Ikea. We discovered at 11:20am that ALL of our kids can go into their Smaland (which is their child care area) and we were thrilled! We giggled as we left them swimming in a pit of balls and went on our merry way. We sat on couches. We discussed what kind would be go in our “new” house that we haven’t even bought yet. We saw people from our church there who were couch shopping too!

After lamenting the price of couches, buying new lights for our kitchen and a few other impulse buys, we went back for our kids. Lunch was next on the agenda, and we all had meatballs. Well, Pirate had macaroni and cheese. And some of my meatballs.

We picked up our shelf, browsed the As-Is section, and then loaded the kids into the car. We drove to the LDS bookstore from there, and bought a few things. Juice won a book. The kids all got free candy and flag pins. I got a free Christmas CD.

When we got home around 4pm, we listened to our messages. We had locked our storage unit open. Oops! Juice started to install the new kitchen lights and I ran to the storage unit to fix the problem.

While dinner was cooking (macaroni and cheese, second time for Pirate today!), I helped Juice install the lights. It is now brighter in our kitchen. We discovered we bought the wrong shelf and made plans to go back to Ikea. We broke up a few fights.

We had dinner about 6pm, and then Juice took everyone up to have baths. I did a few reviews and ate way too much candy.

Which brings us to now.

So, do you think I accomplished anything?

Oh I know! I washed all the sheets today. Go me!

Safire

About 3 weeks ago, Juice and I and the kids were driving around doing some errands. I guess it was snowing so it must have been Halloween weekend.

I mentioned that there was a house for sale in the neighborhood near Butterfly’s school. (What, you don’t look at houses for sale in your neighborhood for fun?) I mentioned that it was probably open that Saturday. Juice wanted to go see it.

So we did.

And we fell in love.

And suddenly, we’re talking about what it would take for us to get the house. We go see it again and fall even more in love with it. We have the relator come to our current house and say what we need to do to get ready to put our house on the market.

Today, we bought a few boxes and rented a storage unit. We’re really serious.

Anyone interested in a cute 3 bedroom house? We’ll make you a deal!

Safire