For Santa or Against Santa... or neutral

There are so many people writing blogs and such about their feelings about Christmas.  Should our family or should we not use Santa?  Is it lying to our kids?  How do we keep Christ in Christmas?  These are all questions that parents ask themselves around this time of year.  This is what our family has decided to do, but your children may be a lot different than mine so follow the Holy Spirit's leading in what you are to do with your own family. 

When we'd ask Samara, our middle child, what the difference between Santa and Jesus Samara would say "Jesus has power!"  Love kids...

Last year was the worst Christmas year with whining and asking for stuff.  The girls wanted a million things and "Santa" just couldn't make them all in that short period of time (he didn't have enough money either).  Finally we decided, after Christmas to let our girls know that Sanata was fiction not fact.  We just want their focus to be on Jesus and we really just wanted them to understand that we Santa wasn't giving somebody else more expensive things and them less expensive things just because they were more naughty.

Since we have told them that Santa isn't real (we have explained to them about St. Nicholas) they have been less demanding and I believe MORE happy.  We still DO Santa.  Their hge saying now is that Santa is real... it's Mommy and Daddy.  We still have a Christmas tree and Santa decorations with elves and the like.  BUT we are FOCUSING our attention more and more every year on Jesus.  This year we are going to make a manger, minus the hay.  In the manger we are each going to write 3 things that we are going to try harder to give to Jesus throughout the year.  We're changing a few other things too.

I don't believe that you have to DO Christmas a certain way to be doing it RIGHT.  There is no correct way.  I DO believe however that whatever convictions your family has that you should live those out.  This is what our family is doing... what is it that the Holy Spirit is leading YOURS to do? 

In closing I do think that everyone should raise the level of talk and display of Jesus in their lives.  This isn't just something that I think but it's Biblical.  This season is a great reminder of what He came to do for us but He did so much more than we could think about before and after His birth.  Thanks for listening to me blab.  I've read so many blogs on this topic I guess I just wanted to throw in my two cents.

Natalie's 4!

Nattie turned four on the 29th of August.  She thinks she can do everything her sisters can.  She doesn't realize she's just a little bit smaller than they are.  She is a firecracker of a child and I love her to pieces!  We went to Willie's with a couple of our family's friends for her birthday, they have a sandbox so it's the PLACE to be.  Here are some pictures of the day.

It's been REALLY hot here so I made this cake and then the frosting melted right off it.  Okay so it was a couple different things that made the frosting melt off it.  Part was the heat and part was because I should've refrigerated the frosting before I started.  So, this is what happens to most of the stuff I do like this so I'm not really worried.  Those are supposed to be flowers on it by the way.

Some of Nattie's friends!

It turned out to be a great day.  I hate that my little girl is growing up yet at the same time I'm loving it!  She is just showing more and more of her personality, she's got a LOT of it.

Cardboard Dollhouse

I think it was for Christmas that Meemo and Old Grandpa got the girls this cardboard dollhouse. We decided to finally build it two days ago and finished it up yesterday. We had a jammie day yesterday too so the girls had a lot of fun.

The girls worked so hard on it. They had to tell Nattie multiple times not to scribble on everything. She loves to help and be a big girl but doesn't have the patience to sit and color in the lines.
The front of the finished dollhouse. The front and back yards are the box that everything came in. The whole thing is made out of cardboard. It's actually really cute, and such a good idea.

The back of the house.

A closer look at the inside of the house. The little furniture pieces are also made of paper. It even came with paper to put on the floor as carpet. They have had a lot of fun playing with it already but have to be reminded quite a bit that it is just paper so they have to be careful... hopefully nothing gets put into anybodys mouth!

Cow Day At Chick-Fil-A

Every year Chick-Fil-A has Cow Appreciation Day. If you dress like a cow you get free food. If you dress like a cow from head to toe you get a free meal and if you dress up a little bit you get a free chicken sandwich. We got 4 free meals today. Here are the cute pictures of the day.

Making their cow costumes.
I printed off the tails and the ears from Chick-Fil-A's website.

Yes, even I dressed up... free food!! We had a blast!

Our free lunch.

This is such a blast every year. If you have a Chick-Fil-A near you, mark your calendar for next year.... or go tonight!

Update on the Garden

I haven't posted about my garden in a small while and I need to get a picture on here as to what the whole thing looks like now. I have a picture on here from a while ago but it's just not the same as it is now by a long shot. Well, maybe not a LONG shot but you get the idea.

We have gotten about 8-9 zucchinis out of our garden so far. Lovin' it! If you have a zucchini recipe for me I'd love to have it! We also got 5 green beans out of the garden yesterday. A little prematurely picked but I was just so excited about them I couldn't help myself. I think something is eating the buds off my tomato plants and I'm not sure what to do about it. It's either that or the sun scorches them and then they fall off. Hopefully I can figure it out and get them to produce fruit.
One of the green beans on the vine.

The garden. This just doesn't do the garden justice. I will have to take a picture tomorrow and post it. It's grown so much!

I think this was our first zuchinni we picked. It grew up against the edge of our garden box so I had to pick it.

All of these tomatoes have ripened and have been eaten now. They are yellow pear tomatoes (although according to Nattie they are orange) and they are like cherry tomatoes. They are quite good!

We accidentally picked a really small zucchini trying to pick a bigger one. Here is Nattie modeling the vegetables.

School's Out For Summer... well sorta

I was debating on whether or not I wanted to post this on my family blog or on my homeschool blog and I decided that this was the place for it to go since it's not homeschooling and I'll have a TON of homeschooling pictures coming soon since Alyssa's already ready to tackle 3rd grade. I'm not going to be teaching them hard core during the summer but bits and pieces to see where they are and get them to where they need to be if they aren't there yet, which they probably are ready to go.

Here are some of the pictures we took at their "celebrations" at their school on the last day. Enjoy!

Samara and her best friend Isaiah.
Samara and her teacher. We are so proud of Samara!! And her teacher did a wonderful job this year!

Nattie thinks she should be able to join her sister in whatever she's doing since she is "big" enough. She says, "I know what to do and I will be a big girl!" Haha. Usually she's right but this time there was no way she was going to be allowed to go stand by Samara while Samara was doing her songs, etc at her celebration. Sorry Nattie Grace, maybe next year!

Samara holding her certificate! So excited!!

Alyssa's teacher did a slide-show presentation for the families and then let each of us take a DVD of it home. She is so thoughtful. I'm so proud of Alyssa, she did an excellent job this year. There were so many obstacles that she had to face, some of which she didn't know how to handle, but when it was said and done I think she showed 2nd grade who was boss! Hehe.

Nattie and Alyssa waiting for the presentation to start. So cool.

Alyssa giving her teacher one last hug before hitting the door.

Alyssa and one of her good friends since last year, A.J.

Alyssa, Samara, and Natalie, we are so proud of all three of you girls. You are such sweet girls and love to learn. I am so glad that Daddy and I get the opportunity to help you through life. I hope and pray that you will learn and grow all that you need to know and I have no doubt that you will do great things with your lives! Thanks for being AWESOME!!!

Oh and I put School's Out For Summer... well sorta as the title because technically school's out but it's only been 2 days and I've already gotten asked about a million times if I could teach each of the girls. Yes, they really do LOVE to learn.

Jungle Beat

Micah's going to be helping me get some videos of this up on here but for now pictures will have to do. Alyssa was in a Musical at her school for all of second grade. She did fantastic!!! I'm so proud of her. They did a dress rehearsal for the school and she told me, "Mommy, I messed up." I said, "That's okay, what happened?" She said, "I was supposed to be mad and sad and scared when I was swallowed by the boa constricter but I smiled the whole time!" haha... my daughter is precious!

All of the second graders!

Alyssa standing by the poster announcing her Musical.

There she is in her Jungle Beat get up.
She was one of the smallest in her grade so she was 1 out of 5 that got a part being swallowed by a boa constricter.

After being swallowed. I have the whole video of this and like I said before if my husband will help me I will post it. It's ADORABLE!

Singing away!

There are 7 classes at the school and 23 kids in each class. THAT'S A LOT OF KIDS!!! They really did a great job!

Alyssa is 8

Alyssa had a birthday yesterday and is now 8 years old. She is so beautiful. I can't believe she is getting so big so fast. I have enjoyed every second of her life. Even the bad times because they have made her and me stronger. We had a party at the park. She only invited girls to her party because she didn't want any boys there. There were a few boys that came and one that was okayed. She was so worried that nobody was going to come but she really had a perfect turn out, at least for her mama! Not a LOT of kids but enough to satisfy her. Here are some pictures of the fun that we had throughout the day.

My three beautiful girls before the party started. Alyssa was so cute. She kept asking, "When are my guests going to arrive?" What 8 year old talks like that? I guess my daughter does! We got there an hour before the party was supposed to start so I would be ready before everybody got there. Well, that was a little much because it took me about a half hour to set up and the girls said they were done playing by then, so we had to sit around for 30 minutes. It was okay though, they got all hyped back up when the party started.
My beautiful birthday girl!

Her butterfly cake that Mommy made.

Following the leader... the oldest in this case is the leader. Normally Samara takes over the leader position but it was Syssa's birthday. We've been talking about how EVERYONE gets a turn to be the leader but Mara likes to be the boss. Gotta watch out for that one.

Alyssa normally likes her hair down but I told her since we were going to the park and since it was going to be really hot outside that she would have to have her hair up. She told me that she wanted pig tails in buns. This is how it turned out.

Building a sand hill.

One of the activities that we did, along with playing at the park, was to make necklaces and bracelets. This is Mara modeling her necklace.

Syssa modeling her necklace and bracelet.

I didn't get a picture of Nattie since she wanted to go play so bad.

I got a parachute a while ago when I taught at the Mother's Day Out at our church. I love it. I decided it would be a perfect activity for our birthday at the park. Here are all the kids playing with it.

Alyssa had so much fun, actually the one that had the most fun was probably Nattie. She was hilarious and did such a good job.

Lift it up and go under.

Blowing out the birthday candles. I didn't know whether or not they would light since the wind was blowing, not too bad, but enough to where it kept blowing out the candles. Thank you Meems for holding up the lid to the cake so that Alyssa had candles to blow out.

I didn't post any pictures of this but before blowing out the candles on the cake I had all the kids decorate their own ice cream cone cupcakes. No ice cream involved. You take an ice cream cone and put candies in it. They don't have to go up to the top. We put 10 skittles in each. Then you frost the top of a regular sized cupcake. Then, you flip it upside down and put it on the ice cream cone. Next you frost the other side of the regular sized cupcake and put a mini cupcake upside down on top of the regular sized one. Then you frost all around all of the cupcakes on the outside and the top. Then you can put sprinkles on it. We put melon rings on top, like the cherry on top. I told them not to eat them until after we sang happy birthday and the kids listened very well. We sang happy birthday and they dug right in. I got the idea off howdini.com if anyone is interested. That's where I got the idea for the butterfly cake too.

Nattie eating her ice cream cone minus the ice cream.

Syssa chowing down with one of her friends.

Mara and a few more people at the party eating their cake.

Meemo embroidered a shirt for Syssa and she LOVES it. It has a fairy on it and it says "Raindrops are like Fairy Whispers". It's so cute. Thank you Meems!!!

She got really good birthday gifts and lot of love! Thank you everyone who made this party a success. Especially Meems and Micah. Love you Alyssa so glad you have been entrusted to our family! I love having you with us and can't wait to see how you learn and grow this next year.