It is finally snowing here. It started last night and snowed thru the night and most of the day today. I took all three kids out to sled this morning. So fun. I didn't really get to play last year since Hannah was so little. Hopefully this year will bring lots of sled time. I picked up an infant sled in a garage sale last spring and it is perfect for Hannah. I just pull her along behind me and she's as happy as a clam. Today one of her boots fell off on the way out the door and I just went on. Won't do that again. After about 15 minutes, she started grabbing her little foot, I'm sure it was frozen. Oh well, bad mom of the year award there. She doesn't seem to have any ill effects. Robert even got home early enough to get in on the action today. He and the big kids headed across our street to a big hill and start learning the slopes (pun intended). Since we are children of the south, it is as new and fun to Robert and I as it is to our kids.

Christmas was wonderful but not white. I mean, come on, we weren't in Texas after all. They had a white Christmas, at least first thing in the morning before it melted off, we had rain. Oh well, maybe our third Christmas in the north will be a white one. The kids came running in at 8 and yelled, "Mommy, Daddy, it's Jesus' birthday and we get to eat CINNAMON ROLLS!" We were tickled. First, that their excitement was first that it was Jesus's Birthday and second because their next biggest adventure was not just presents. We really try to instill that presents are just a small part of our celebration...only a recognition of the gifts that Jesus received at his birth. We too only receive three gifts each at Christmas. It keeps things simple and focused on other things.

We continued our cinnamon roll tradition this year. Two weeks ahead, we baked fresh cinnamon rolls for families at our church. Then did tons of candy for Robert's work and then a batch of cinnamon rolls for our neighbors. But, all of our neighbors were gone, so on Christmas morning, Robert and the big kids went driving around to find people that had to work on Christmas and blessed them with fresh cinnamon rolls. Robert said it definitly made an impression on everyone that got them. The 18 year old girl working at the movie store almost started crying, Robert left quickly, lol. I think next year, we are going to do another batch just to deliver to people working on Christmas day.

We had our friends the Denney's over for dinner on Christmas night. It was so fun. Kids were running everywhere (they have 6) and it just made it feel like home. We all ate. The kids, at least from three and up, got up and recited scripture and poetry. It was wonderful! We had so much fun.

Robert is back to work this week, but will have another 4 day weekend this coming weekend. We can't wait. What can we say, we just love being together as a family.

Bonus Kid Update:
Joshua lost his first tooth. It only made it about 36 hours before it was out of there. I think he played with it constantly from the time he realized it was loose. Robert put him to bed and it was just barely hanging in there, so he told Joshua that if it came out to just come wake us up and let us know. Well, wouldn't you know it that about 1am, Joshua comes in and tells Robert that it's out. We are pretty sure that he laid in there all night playing with it. So funny. We don't do the tooth fairy, but told him that we'd give him some money when it came out. He's still happy playing with it right now, lol.
Leah is just plugging along. Trying to find her way between big girl and little, although she's leaving little girl more and more behind. She's been asking to do school alot lately, so I might get our curriculum back out and work with her some more. She loves to color and cut right now and is so sweet with her baby dolls. She still tells me that when she grows up, she is going to nurse Hannah for me. She's alos my cleaner. She'll disappear and the next thing your know, the play room is picked up and organised. It's a beautiful thing!
Hannah is walking. Or I should say that she CAN walk. She only chooses to walk to Robert or I, but she can walk as far as she wants. She's still unstable and shaky but is progressing. I think she just isn't ready to move to the next stage of life, and that's fine with us....most of the time. She's eating well now and talks alot. She's into little temper tantrums now and then when she can't get what she wants, like a toy open or food fast enough, but she's easy enough to correct, that's nice. She's sleeping thru the night and even goes down awake now, which is going to be a major plus when it comes time to wean her.

This week I need to get us organised to start the new year. Robert and I will sit down and do our budget for next year. I need to organise what we want to finish up in school, we are starting Latin and music studies soon. I also need to get our healthy living organised. hopefully I can do some cleansing this year along with Robert and deal with my lingering liver/gall bladder problems. I also am making a New Year's resolution this year, for the first time ever, but I'll wait and share that later.

-Joshua has his first loose tooth. How is that possible? Wasn't he just born?
-Hannah loves to make animal sounds. She does a purrrrfect meow. She also loves walking with her walker toy, now if she'd just walk on her own.
-I don't understand cancer. I know the prevelance of it now is probably related to our toxic lifestlyes. I had a classmate who was buried on Tuesday, he died of a brain tumor, the same kind his 5 year old daughter died from a year ago. One of my lifetime best friends' husbands found out his cancer is back after a short remission last week. Another friend was diagnosed with breast cancer on Monday. A friend at church's mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer this week too. I don't like cancer. The pain it causes families and individuals is ugly. Lord have mercy on us.
-Speaking of toxins, I finished my candy/cookie bakeathon last weekend. This year was 10 dzn almond cranberry sugar cookies, and a bunch of peppermint bark and rocky road fudge, but the star this year was the Oreo Truffles
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-OREO-Truffles/Detail.aspx
People went gaga over them apparently at Robert's work, which is where all of this nasty sugary mess gets sent! ;-)
But this weekend is the big weekend for me and where I'll end up in trouble. This weekend is when we bake the from scratch cinnamon rolls from Pioneer Woman. By the way, she' giving away three KitchenAid Mixers on her site. Check it out.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/cinammon_rolls_/

PS Someone that is programming wiser than me, please tell me how to get these links to by cute little hyper links please.

Friday Kid Update

Joshua- His face is chubbing up, so it looks like I'll be pants shopping for him again soon. Wowzers, his growth spurts have really kicked in this year. He seems to have finally made it thru his super clumsy and very irritable phase. Thank goodness! I was wondering if he was going to live thru both of those,lol. He's telling time really well now. His motivation is that I tell him what time he can get up in the mornings and from nap time. ;-) ***He loves taking care of Hannah. He can feed her, and take her out of her highchair and wash her hands up. He carries her around any time she'll let him. Now if I could just get him to change her diaper and bathe her, I'd be on vacation!

Leah- She's beginning to come into her second Mommy roll, being the oldest girl. She is quick to correct Joshua and Hannah when they are straying from the path of righteousness. Now if we could just get her to follow suit! She is very obedient as long as she thinks she might get caught, but if she thinks she can get away with something, all bets are off. Yesterday, she filled one of our vents with tiny little pieces of torn up paper, then so that she wouldn't get caught, she closed the vent. Thankfully, I found it very soon after and no harm was done. She still loves dressing up and playing BooBoo's (babies) with Hannah. She tells me often that when she grows up to be a Mommy, she will nurse Hannah for me. She hasn't quite figured out the concept that hannah is growing up too.

Hannah- Is 15 months old now and FINALLY is sleeping thru the night! because she is now night weaned!!! This makes for a much happier Mommy, at least when I get over the flu it will. She's finally settling in to this house. She will crawl around and play on her own some now. Before, she was constantly by my side and usually wanting to be held. She's finally cut her 8th tooth. I think because we were in Texas. She's cut a bunch of teeth in Texas, lol. Her vocabulary EXPLODED while we were in Houston. I think because there were so many people around talking all of the time. Our house is a pretty quiet house, even with three kids. We just aren't a loud, rampbunctious bunch. But the Seago house is anohter story. I believe there were over 30 of us there the first 4 days of our trip, and Hannah heard lots of talking. She nows says tons of things. She also has been coming and telling me when she has poopies and that's pretty nice too.

win some free stylish clothes

you girls all know how I need all the help I can get being stylish....so, I entered to win some really cute clothes over here...check it out!
http://www.petitelefant.com/2009/12/shade-outfit-giveaway.html

We are home. We arrived late Saturday night and slept most of Sunday. Today was grocery shopping for starving children in our family ;-) and putting up the Christmas tree, addressing Christmas cards (I can't believe how out of date my address book got this year), finding Christmas cookie and candy recipes for Robert's gifts to his employees (hint hint, anyone got some?), nailing down schedule for babysitter during Sifco Management Christmas party for Friday, deciding on a family Christmas gift for party at church on Sunday and food to take also.......

anyone see a theme here? Hopefully I'll be back to update about our awesome trip to Houston and Seagoville over Thanksgiving. In case that doesn't happen, we got to fly home with Jim Cantore and Mike Seidel from the Weather Channel, pretty cool for a weather junkie family like us!