Christmas Morning

Christmas Eve morning...traditional breakfast with our best friends, the Grove's.
Christmas Eve dinner...Grandma & Papa's house, lotsa food, lotsa gifts, lotsa fun.

Christmas Morning...kids woke us up at 7:30am. Gifts from Santa were waiting under the tree and gifts from Grandma & Papa (from the night before) were carefully set up and displayed on the couches for the kids to see when they reached the bottom stair. (Mark stayed up with us last night to help set everything up, since this was his first year knowing that Santa isn't real...now he gets to be in on fooling his siblings!) The time is 8:20am and Daddy and Mommy are heading back to bed!









"Don't bother me...I'm playing with my new dollhouse..."

The Town of MEville

Ryan, Mark & I had the opportunity to be a part of the MEville presentation...a fresh, creative, & dramatic way to tell the Christmas story. It was written, Dr. Seuss-style, by Calvary Church's very talented Children's Pastor...Pastor Michael. Ryan played the role of the Town Rep, I was spoiled, bratty JayME, and Mark was one of the Oompa-Loompa-type King's helpers. Here are a couple snapshots of the castmembers at one of our many rehearsals.

Here are some of the townspeople of MEville.

Here are some of the kids from MEville.

This is LucyME (the town villain) & JayME (the spoiled brat).

Ryan and me...after the Saturday night performance. We had two more on Sunday. Both Sunday services were packed. Praise God! Our prayer was that the whimsy and creativity of this production would be the tool that would tug at people's hearts and remind them of God's gift to us at Christmastime.

"It's a Wonder-Full Life"

I'm finally catching up on my blogging!

We are so proud of Mark! Once again he auditioned for the school play, and this time he landed the lead role! Here's the little guy in action!








Here is Mark with his teacher, Mrs. K. She is one of his very favorite teachers!



I apologize for the poor camera-work. Mommy was trying to film Mark, while handling an antsy 3yr-old Marina. We plan to purchase the professionally filmed dvd for our keepsake...but here's a little taste of Mark's solo from our own (shaky) camcorder.

A Life of Glamour

This video so accurately describes a mother's life!
Check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMhuAtyFCrw

ps: I emailed this to some of you directly. Sorry for the double dose. Altho, I think it's worth a second play. It's so stinkin funny!
xoxo

Riding the Polar Express!

On Saturday, we were invited by our good friends Vicki, Kennedy, and Talon to hop the Polar Express train to the "North Pole" to meet Santa Claus! It was quite an adventure! We had so much fun. And so many laughs along the way. Thank you girls for inviting us! xoxo

Jingle Bells

Rina: "Jeeter Bells, Jeeter Bells. Jeeter all dah way!!!
Jeeter Bells, Jeeter Bells. Jeeter all dah way!!!
Jeeter Bells, Jeeter Bells. Jeeter all dah way!!!"

Reese: "No, that's not how it goes! It goes like this...
Jinger Bells, Jinger Bells. Jinger all dah way!
Olay fun it is to why in a one horse open sleigh!"

Stolen Markers & Sharpened Pencils...

Yesterday was quite an eventful day for my two boys.
First, Reese came home from school...strangely hobbling off the bus in front of our house. When he stepped inside the door, he had the look of mischief in his eyes. He said, "Mommy, guess what I have in my shoe." Um...I can only imagine! "What Reese?" At that point, he whipped out a fat, black dry erase marker. "I have a marker!" he declared with a smile. Normally a marker wouldn't alert my mommy senses, but the fact that he had sneakily brought it home in his shoe caused my suspicions to surface.
"Who's marker is that, Reese?"
"Mr. Hayek's"
"Did you take this from Mr. Hayek's desk?"
"Yes."
"Reese, when you take something that isn't yours, that's called stealing. How do you think that makes Mr. Hayek feel?"
Suddenly Reese's face transformed into one of sheer despair!
"Does it make him feel...SAD?"
"Yes Reese, it makes him feel sad."
He burst into tears, and I felt like the rottenest mother ever for pushing my sweet, naive boy to tears. Especially when this was one of the darlingest thing he's ever done! But true to my role as mother, I helped him close his eyes and tell Jesus sorry for stealing. Then I instructed him to give it back to Mr. Hayek tomorrow, and tell him sorry for taking his marker. Again, Reese busted out crying, "But I want a marker!" OK, he obviously wasn't getting the concept. So the issue was dropped, and I swept him up into the tightest, kissiest hug I could give him. He is my sweetest child!

Then, Mr. Mark came home. He was beaming so bright, he could power all of New York City. What was his secret joy?? He waited until Daddy arrived home before he spilled the beans...apparently, when Mark had entered class that morning, he saw that Grace (his 3-year crush; his dream-girl; the one whom we incessantly tease him about. hehe) was rummaging through Mark's desk. "Grace, what are you doing?"
"Oh, I was cleaning up your desk for you. And I sharpened all your pencils."
Sharpened all his pencils?!?! Oh my! You'd think she'd declared her love for him! He melts into the floor everytime he thinks about her sweet, thoughtful pencil-sharpening skills. And, of course, Ryan and I see it as fresh, new material that we can use to tease him! (Mark laughs his head off when we tease him about Grace. And his face gets beet red. It's great!) So, before bed, when we brought the subject up again, we told him Grace must really like him after his amazing performance in the school play. He had the funniest reply! "She just can't resist showing me how much she likes me!" Oh please!!!! Someone please pop that big fat head before it explodes! LOL.