T'was the night before

Well make that 3 nights before.
The shopping is done, the presents wrapped, the children asleep. If a mouse were to be stirring I would hear because my house is almost eerily quiet.
I can't believe it is almost Christmas. I remember last Christmas so clearly. We had a beautiful little 6 week old baby that had no clue of what was happening. She played on her little tummy time boppy and mat, but cried after having been made to stay there for pictures! Kaleb loved getting presents but didn't understand the concept of Christmas at all.
This year, Kaleb is pumped. He has been making a list for Santa, sometimes if only in his head. He tells me "We'll have to tell Santa to put it on the list." Ha ha! You will never believe the two presents that I think we will get the best reaction from.............
A new cool mist humidifier and a basketball bank. He has been talking about both for a few weeks now. He has told everyone at daycare that he hopes to get his basketball, and every night when he realizes that his old humidifier died he says "I hope Santa gets me a new fan". Too cute!
Emerson, well, she still won't have a clue of what is going on but at least she will be fun to watch playing with her new toys. I got her the funniest toy. It is called Baby Jamz. It has nursery rhymes set to a beat and it makes me laugh every time. Jason just shook his head at me when I showed him. However, if you have spent any time with Emerson recently you would know what a dancing machine she is. I can say for certain that I will probably have her in dance classes by 3 or 4 years old. The girl has rhythm.
I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

A little more effort people

It didn't work last week so I'm expecting you all to join in this time with a little snow dance of your own! I don't know that we are going to be getting anymore snow, but maybe if it continues to blow around we can look forward to a snow day tomorrow!!
I just got my Christmas cards back and if you are hoping to receive one before Christmas then I need some time to address them!
9 days until Christmas!

Doing a snow dance tonight

Oh please God, let us have one snow day before Christmas break!! The students are driving me up a wall and I have so much stuff to get done before Christmas. Which by the way is TWO WEEKS from today!!!!!
Looks like we are on the verge of having no Christmas card AGAIN. I can't for the life of me get these two kids to look at me at the same time. Mostly it is Kaleb who is putting up the fight. He says he is all about taking pictures, but the minute you get out the camera his eyes are everywhere except toward it. Boy would I love to have the day to dress them up and try to capture a picture or two. Emerson has developed the cutest smile lately. She crinkles up her nose and give a big toothy grin. She looks like a little monster baby.
Speaking of Emerson, we have quite the little diva dancer on our hands. Before dinner, and sometimes during we will have the kitchen radio playing. The kids and I like to have a dance party while we make dinner. Emerson bebops in her highchair shaking her shoulders back and fourth, staying with a beat believe it or not. So cute! Kaleb is a dancing fool as well, but he shares his dance moves with his daddy!!!! Ha ha!
The Christmas season is here, starting this weekend. We have Jason's work party to go to on Friday and then dinner with the Talbot's on Saturday. I am sooooo excited. My whole family will be together and I can't wait. Love you guys!

Torture

How can 1 hour at the Sear's Photo Studio be such torture?
Things were stressed before we even left the house. I had a plan for outfits. The one glitch......Jason. Apparently he no longer owns the shirt I was thinking that he could wear. With no other option we all went for the black shirt / jeans look. I think it turned out good even if we were 15 minutes late because of the last minute wardrobe change.
It has always been the rule that the first shot needs to be a good one because after that Kaleb will no longer have an interest in looking at the camera or smiling. Luckily we did have a good photographer and even a helper or two that would walk in an out and help get the kids to smile.
Then comes the extra 30 minutes of waiting for your pictures to come up on the computer, then having to decide with poses to purchase, being careful not to get sucked into buying hundreds of dollars in pictures.
I'm hoping that this link will work so that you can see the pictures we had taken. We went with the third family shot because both kids had really good smiles. I liked the first picture a lot, but there was a bad glare on Jason's shirt, and it seemed to be a picture of JASON as some of Emerson and I would get cut out in the crop. I also bought a few sheets of the two kids laying down side by side.
https://www.searsphotos.com/view_roll_images.asp?sesstype=4&sessid={BD19F40D-4D20-4008-A8DF-ACA315472BD7}&url=dep_order_portraits.asp&tag=F0385A3D1A674287B47638C2E19A5E918756E32448F24507943FE2FD88E67BCB
It won't take you there directly, so use this email and password that they gave me to view.
email: ahodgins@marysville.k12.mi.us
Password: ajh1221