Random December Pictures

This is what happens when you don't keep up with your blog. I will apologize now for the randomness of these pictures. Actually I apologize for the last few blogs and how long and old they are. After this there is only one more and then it will be current!

Mckenna eating Grandma Jones' birthday present. I was taking a shower, Mckenna was supposed to be watching the Backyardigans I obviously didn't give her a snack so she thought she would help herself. Oh and the box of chocolates were wrapped and she unwrapped them and helped herself! 

Halfway during the week of Christmas Mckenna decided that the dinner table was much too small for her large family. She would either wait until we were done eating and then come and sit at the table to eat, like she is doing here or she would take her plate out on the back porch and sit on the picnic table to eat in peace and quiet. Doesn't she know that it's never quiet in our house!

Jayson didn't get the memo that it's Christmas day not Halloween. Sorry Jayson wrong holiday but you still are cute and we still love you!

Dani and Mckenna posing on Christmas Eve in their new PJ's.

All the girls "posing" for the camera. 

Pretty sisters in their Christmas dresses!

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without baking! 

And more baking! 

This is what the boys do when they are bored! 

No they aren't dusting the ceiling. They threw those little rubber worms at the ceiling so they had to get them down. Who would have known that this was days before Christmas...aren't kids supposed to be on their best behavior so they get lots of presents?!??!

Is that an umbilical cord hanging down from the counter to your hand Jessika? Oh no sorry it's the cord from your cell phone charger! Since one of the rules in our house is that cell phones are not allowed in the bedroom and have to be on the charger in the kitchen most of the time, the girls decided that they needed to camp out in the kitchen with their life line! 

Mckenna's dance recital

Mckenna has been taking ballet at the Y for a couple of months. They had a dance recital in December to show off for the parents. Mckenna did a couple of things but when it was time to dance she decided she wanted to come and sit by my feet! 

Waiting for her magic wand! 

Standing on her 'sticker' waiting for the next instruction

She's Driving!!!!

On December 15th Jessika finally got her driver's license. She was so excited that she finally gets to drive. A month later we are finally getting used to her driving. I drug my feet in allowing her to get her license because I didn't want to have to worry about her getting into an accident. We have quite a few rules no one in the car with her for at least six months, she has to call me when she gets to her destination and when she gets ready to leave and of course no texting or talking on the phone while driving. Call me paranoid, anal or whatever but after Jayson got his license 2 weeks later he totaled his car. Guess what he had a friend in the car! Luckily no one was hurt but the thought still weighs on my mind when I know that she is in the car driving. 

Leaving to go to school on her first day of driving! She's  like mom really do you have to take a picture of me! 

Body Jam

At the gym there is a new class called Body Jam. I haven't taken it yet because they offer it at weird times.  It's a dance class/hip hop/Zumba kinda class. Anyway, Mike annd Jessika decided they would take it since there was nothing going on the week after Christmas. Here is their rendition of Body Jam.

Yes they are related to me and yes they may or may not think that it's funny that I posted this on our blog for the world to see. 

Scared of Santa???

Mckenna has it rough she really does. All of her siblings are so much older than her and they really sometimes get a kick out of tormenting her or teaching her things that they think is cute for her to do. 

This year she was really excited about Christmas and the Santa thing....that is until the Jessikcas got a hold of her. I am not sure what exactly they said to her but it wasn't good I am sure of it. When I asked them about it they denied saying anything to her but I think I know better because they were totally smiling as they said they didn't do anything. 

A couple of days before Christmas I said Santa will be here in a couple of days and Mckenna was like um no I don't want him to come. I said sure you do he's going to bring you lots of presents and he's going to come down the chimney. She said no I don't want him to come. She was terrified at the mere thought of that man coming into our house. I threatened all of the kids if they teased her about Santa we were canceling Christmas. Christmas Eve when I was putting Mckenna to bed I was laying with her and said ok we need to hurry and go to bed Santa is coming. She went under her covers and crawled to the end of her bed and said NO I don't want him to come tell him not to come! 

All was well Christmas morning when she saw presents and I guess decided that Santa wasn't so bad after all. 

Christmas

Each year for Christmas we have a family gift, usually it's the latest video game as if we really NEED them all. The kids weren't too forthcoming of what they wanted for Christmas because I've decided that they really didn't NEED anything. We got a couple of things out of them, but not a whole lot. So Mike and I decided, well Mike decided and I supported, that our family gift this year would be a pool table. We transformed our garage, that we don't use for cars into a really cool game room/pool room for the kids. 

We set out and thought it would be really simple and just go to Sears and order one. We spent the entire day looking at pool tables and then looking for a pub table and chairs to add to the whole game room theme. We finally decided on a pool table and pub table and chairs. They would be delivered on the 24th. There Christmas is done. You would think it would be that easy but NO. SO the kids get out of school on the 19th, Mike comes home from picking up Jessica, Michael and Dani and says to me we have to go and look at these other pool tables he wasn't getting a good feeling about the one from Sears. Really he didn't want to spend hours putting the thing together, I can't blame him though I wasn't anxious to help. He finally finds a pool table company and we decide to head out first thing Saturday morning. We found the perfect table, they would come and set it up on Christmas Eve and they even had the pub table and chairs Mike was looking for. 

When we came home the kids knew we had gone shopping for something....immediately Jessika said we are getting a trampoline right? I just started laughing so Michael and the Jessikcas said yea that's what we are getting. Then out of the blue Jessika says yea they probably are buying 6 little trampolines for each of us they really wouldn't buy us a big one. But they still convinced themselves they were getting a trampoline. 

I quickly sent out an email to all my friends looking for a small trampoline to have some fun on Christmas morning. Being the good sport that my husband is he went right along with it. We found one so we just waited until Christmas eve to go and get it. 

Fast forward to December 23rd. We had bought carpet to put down in the garage and even painted one wall a cool orangey looking color. Mike started to lay the carpet late Tuesday night while I was in furiously wrapping presents. Not long into the whole process Mike runs into the house bleeding from his arm....yes he cut his arm and needed stitches....
Luckily at the end of our street there is a walk in clinic that we use quiet often.


One hour later with stitches Mike was back and he and Jayson were laying carpet until 1:30 am. It looks great thanks guys! The next morning the pool table company was supposed to be here between 9:30 and 10. So I had to take Jessika and Mckenna out to finish some last minute shopping. Actually we really didn't have to get much but I had to be gone for a couple of hours. Can I tell you that I really don't like shopping, especially on Christmas Eve AND then walking around trying to waste time!!!  Four hours and three stores later Mckenna was done and was begging to go home. I ran into Publix to get a couple of things, meanwhile Jessika said she would just wait in the car with Mckenna...she was done shopping too.

I called Mike and the guys were still there setting up the pool table. I told him I had to come home, I too only had 4 hours of sleep the night before. Mike told me we could come home but I had to make Jessika close her eyes and promise not to peek...yea right. So as I was checking out I decided to get a paper bag to put over her head when we pulled up the street. 

Jessika really thought I lost it when I told her she had to put the bag over her head. She reluctantly agreed as to not to ruin the surprise of the "trampoline"!!!  I led her in the house, bag over head and all was well. I wish I would have gotten a picture of that. 

We finally got the kids in bed, I finished a little more wrapping and just as I was getting ready to go to bed at 1:30 I hear Mckenna in her room saying Dani are you awake? Are you ok up there? (They have bunk beds and Dani is on the top). I waited a few minutes thinking she would go back to sleep....nope. So I brought her in our room and I think she fell asleep sometime around 3....

We had told the kids not to wake us up until there was at least some light outside. When Mike woke up he went out to the family room and there all 5 kids were sitting quietly waiting for more light before they woke up the parents. 

Now back to the trampoline. The night before Mike took care of the whole logistics of placing the small trampoline outside......I don't think he realized that I didn't want it where the kids could actually see it before we got up. They had already saw the little trampoline so the jig was up....but they still thought the real one was in the garage. SO after they opened up all their presents we did a treasure hunt and the kids had to go to the small trampoline and then into the garage. 
                                        Waiting patiently for their BIG Christmas surprise! 
What's the problem?? They all fit!

The boys were SOOO excited, however the Jessikcas were a little mad. You see, they had told all their friends they were getting a trampoline for Christmas. Now they had to go back and tell them otherwise. Needless to say they didn't speak to us for a few minutes. They were really mad because they really wanted a trampoline. After about 10 minutes all the kids were happily playing pool and loving their newly created game room. 

They got over being mad pretty quickly!

Jessika's concert

Jessika has been in the band since 6th grade. Although she NEVER practices at home and refuses to play at church or even play while her mom plays the piano, we swear she really doesn't know how to play the flute she just pretends...just kidding. She really is good and made the Wind Ensemble this year...which meant she had to play alone to try out....so she must really play. And she made second chair so she really must play the flute! 

Here is a clip of her concert and her "playing" the flute. Ok well somehow since she had her concert way back in December the video got deleted from the video camera. Sorry, Jess. Anyway here is a picture of her playing the flute does that count? It really did sound good!

 

December recap

So I took a break from blogging in December. Not because I was overtly busy, I mean I was but not so much that I couldn't write some thoughts or something. Sadly it's because I had to use our old computer to download the videos from Dani and Jessika's Christmas concerts so I couldn't post things that happened after the concerts because it would make everything out of order....SO here it is January 4th (now it's the 16th) and I am just getting around to doing it. So bare with me as I try to write down all the memorable moments of December.

Dani had her first Christmas concert on December 2nd. I love going to Elementary school concerts because all the kids are so excited to perform. Dani was no exception because she was singing a solo. She sang part of "Home for the Holidays". She had been practicing for weeks around the house. One thing about Danielle is that when she gets up in front of alot of people she tends to be shy. We were so proud of her when she got up and sang in front of everyone. She was by far the best singer out of all the kids who had solos....I am not just saying that because she belongs to us either. She looked beautiful and sang beautiful. I think we have a singer in the family. It's hard to tell on the video but she is the first one that sings.