Little Drummer Boy - Pentatonix

I'm loving this version...off to find it on i-tunes!!

Thankful Thanksgiving!

 Thankful for so many blessings

 Thankful for French toast Fridays...

I always use Cinnamon bread (Pepperidge Farm)

and use vanilla and cinnamon in my egg and milk mixture...

my kids say they are the best
I might have to try 9 Peas, Egg nog French toast though...

 Thankful for game time on easy school day mornings

Thankful for how serious she takes this game...

 Thankful Christmas songs on the piano have started 

and Thankful we now have 4 taking piano!

 Thankful for more 4 year old Art...you might need to click on the picture for a close up...

I love how the family of giants has a mom but the big family's mom died.

I love how she said the one kid near the bottom, with the pink face, is

"sad because no one wants to play with him and his mom died."

I love how all the "kids" are just kids, except one kid in the middle, he's "Ned".

 Thankful for zipper jammies on sweet little boys,

 Oh, I love zipper jammies!!  They are sooooo cuuuute!! 

(He's pointing to his reindeer on his)

 Thankful for big, puffy, rainboot, scarf wearing little girls

(it's been COLD here in MN)

 Thankful for babes in the sink.

He's actually outgrowing it but I love it so much, I'm milking it as long as he'll sit there!

 Thankful for this

good smelling little boy

 after his sink bath

 wearing his church clothes

 with his hands in his pockets!

 Thankful these 2 are almost inseparable!

 Thankful I got my chocolate Advent calendars  and Advent candles ready to go for Sunday!

 Thankful my almost 14 year old (in a few months)

still lets me take his picture once in a while!

 Thankful for baked beans!!

No, not because they give me some good farts!!

Because he LOVES them.

After his palate surgery (back in March) 

I even pureed them and he loved them that way too!  

 You can see eating is kind of messy,

 his food comes through the small hole still in the roof of his mouth

kind of in a slobbery way.  Way better than before, when big chunks of food would come...

Thankful there are no surgeries scheduled for this year or hopefully the next few.

 Oh, gosh, what's not to be Thankful for here?

She is such a sweetie pie. 

 Thankful for her cute pink hat, she wears it EVERYWHERE!!!!

 Thankful for my Creative kiddos

 She entered a contest in our local Catholic paper...

this is what she sent in...hoping she wins!

 Oh, my gosh, melt my heart.

Thankful he has a natural love for our Blessed Mother.

He just knows she is Jesus's mama

(for non-Catholics, he's not worshiping the statue,
 we do NOT teach that--you know that right?)

 Thankful for strawberries and funny faces...oh, he's such a character...

 Thankful for my husband, the love of my life.

and 

Thankful these 2 fight over my lap every time I sit down...

Thankful for our family rosary distractions. 

 (see, Simeon, the rosary stealer)

Oh, and there's those cute zipper jammies....

Thankful for all my beautiful kiddos and believe it or not,

Thankful for the loud, crazy, busy, funny, screaming, laughing,

temper tantrum filled, non stop action, constantly cooking, cleaning, picking up,

life, filled with days full of hugs, kisses, love and BLESSINGS.

Wishing you a wonderful Happy Thanksgiving!

Advent Unplugged

Haley, at Carrots for Michaelmas, has a link-up for those

planning on unplugging in any way during Advent.

Advent is starting this coming Sunday, December 1!!

Are you ready?

Have you given it any thought yet?

or are you like me, 

you know, "one holiday at a time, plaeeeeeze"?

Well, I have so many wonderful things we do during Advent

to bring us closer to the infant Jesus, 

that I need to think about it.

I need to plan for it.

 Which means, I need to change some things.

 Those things on my mind, that need some balancing anyway,

are plugged in things.

You know:

OK, I don't do Twitter, but I used to only check emails, 

now it's lumped into a huge time suck.

(that's what I call it)

I  want to list the benefits of unplugging some things:

• Graces free for the taking, waiting for me to act upon them
• Memories with my precious littles
• Memories with my precious biggies (I mean big kids too)
• Peace of heart
• Peace of mind
• Time not regretted or wasted
• To prepare my heart to receive the infant Jesus and all His blessings
• Have time to meet up with some real life friends

I'm sure there are many more blessings I'm yet to find!

Now, what would happen if during this Advent:

• I gave up Facebook? (except to share a blog post maybe)
• I stayed away from the computer all evenings? (from supper on)
• I limited my Pinterest time to one day a week of limited and intentional time on it?
• I spent my weekends off the computer, except for a limited timed time?(maybe or not at all)

I'll tell you that nothing bad will happen.

I'll tell you that only blessings can come of it

(because I'm open and asking for them)

Those "friends" will still be there in January

There will still be thousands of ideas on Pinterest that I'll never do anyway.

I'm not going cold turkey on all of it, because
(there will be plenty of that after Thursday anyway)

I will only set up myself to fail.  

or in the very least be very lonely.

So, I'll still be blogging  

(and doing movie reviews)

and trying to keep up with my favorite blogs to read, 

because I love you all so, 

and I've found more blessings in you

 than in no you. 

(did that make sense?)
My time will be limited.
And that is a good thing.

I'm positive they will all agree.

Movies!

Yep, we watched it this weekend!

 And

Yep, it was great!

 I hadn't seen any previews at all, so the actors were a surprise to me

and a good surprise, they all did a super job!

At first I was like, Russell Crowe?  Is he going to pull it off?

I think he did.

He's a good actor, what can I say?

 Henry Cavill, plays Superman (never heard of him--that was good)

Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, (as I've said)

Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, and this last guy, is Michael Shannon

(I never heard of him--but he plays a good bad guy!)

The movie also stars Christopher Maloni (think SVU and Pretty in Pink)

and Laurence Fishburne (think CSI and The Matrix)

All Star Cast, huh?

I liked this take on Superman, 

another perspective.

Way better than the old Christopher Reeve ones...

Oh, gosh, those were stupid.

I don't think I could actually sit through a whole one of those now.

I love watching these kind of movies with Tom,

because he's a big comic book guy 

and he knows all the back stories.

He knows things before they even explain it in the movie.

Like the "S" stands for "Hope" on Superman's planet.

He knows things like

 the fact that Superman is the nicest of all the DC superheroes.

He cannot do bad, he just can't.

(unlike Batman--who has that edgy thing going)

 I guess the nicest of the Marvel superheroes is Captain America.

(in case you don't know it, there are 2 sets of heroes that do not cross, 

Marvel Heroes and DC Heroes--2 different comic books)

You follow me?

 I think this is kind of funny, 

one of the lines in the movie is

 Superman stating something to the effect

 that he is as American as it gets, being from Kansas and all

(I think this is funny, because the actor is a British Actor!!)
(and the fact that Superman is actually from another PLANET!!!)

Who cares?

(He did a great job speaking without his British accent)

I wonder how many guys out there look like Superman 

and how many of them tried out for the part?

Oh, he's a good one....

 And if you prefer a little scruffier Superman, (like me) here he is...

(you're welcome)

Maybe that's why I like Wolverine so much....

 OK, onto happy, cheerful, sappy, every movie is almost the same, kind of review

(that's what Tom says anyway)

Have you been catching any Hallmark Christmas movies?

They are on!!

All the time, til Christmas!!

I love them

I love them all.

I'm the only one in my family though.

 I thought this one was a little different, it had a little meat

(OK, only a little)

The woman's husband died last February 

and so this Christmas is hard for her...

I know, you already know, 

Yes, she falls in love

Yes, she moves on...

But that's good, right?

That's happy, right?

Yep.  It is.

And if you love your husband 

and cannot imagine a Christmas without him, 

you will cry in this one for sure.

10 Things

1.

 OK, I have been told in the past couple weeks by 2 different friends

who obviously do not like the same kind of movies I like, that basically I stink 

at movie reviews.
Hey, I put myself out there,
and I'm glad they feel comfy enough to be honest with me!

I am not going to let this deter me,

I can't please everyone.

so, if you like my kind of movies

You will like this one.

The Way Way Back is a movie about a 14 year old boy 

 finding his way and gaining some confidence

in a very hard situation.

That situation is his mom is with a guy (Steve Carell)

that is disrespectful to him, her son (to say the least) 

She is too into him to see what she's missing with her son.

The adults drink and are not true to each other. (the boyfriend is not)

This movie does have a couple parts where 

the "boys" look at women in bikini's

(I don't care for that part)

If you want the low-down on this movie, 

go HERE

and yes, those things do happen, 

but we are adults here 

and I disagree, with the 13 rating, I think it is an adult movie.

If you watch a lot of movies, you will like this one.

You also know then, that good movies are few and far between...

slim pickins' I tell you, slim pickins'!

I give it a thumbs up.

2.

YourTeacher

We switched to this program for Jedi

Saxon Algebra just got too hard for me to teach!! 

We are really liking this program.

Go HERE to see it

Just curious, what do you use when it gets too hard to teach?

 3.

Awesome!

I just recently started using that word.

I don't know why.

I have always used "Cool!" 

or "That's Great!" but never "Awesome" 

til this past month.  

I like it.

 4.

Isn't this an Awesome picture?

Look at those myriad of angels surrounding Jesus.

Gosh, the visual of this, I just love it!

 5.

I have sick kids and have had them all weekend.

Different kids at different times...yes, as any  mother knows, it's been a looooong weekend.

This one here, was up puking from 11:30 til 4:45am every 15 minutes.

She actually puked in her sleep, all over the bed, pillow, and floor.

Her 4 year old sister shares a bed with her and was lying literally 1/4 inch from the puke

sleeping.  

Yep.  Expecting her to puke tonite.

Then she slept til 7:20 puked again

She hasn't done it since then and is now running around the house and wrestling

her "sick" sister as I type.

Not everyone has been puking, some have had fevers and sore throats...

 I've been diagnosed with this.

 6.

Art

I'm going to copy Christine and talk about Art!!

(I love what she said about her daughter's Art)

More specifically, I'm going to talk about 4 year old Art.

I love 4 year old Art.

My 4 year old likes to color with blue, a lot.

 But she knows the color of the sun! 

 Yesterday, I took out my Thanksgiving pictures and this one has colors on it 

to tell you what the feather should be.

I didn't catch her in time, as you can see, she started with her blue

coloring the pilgrim and the feathers around him...

 I think she likes yellow too.

Except the corn, that is not yellow for some reason.

 We actually do not usually use worksheets or coloring sheets, 

we mostly use plain scratch paper for a little more creativity!

She sings about balloons while coloring these, she makes them all the time,

I love them!

 Here she is coloring that pilgrim and turkey!

 7.

My November folder

Kind of copying again here, this time, I'm copying Billie Jo 

Just in the showing you part!

My folders are from when I did daycare before I had children

I have monthly folders that are full of my masters and project samples, 

they are messy and packed with ideas!

 See?

 8.

Like this Turkey!

He's like 17 years old! 

He's our Thankful Turkey!

 I changed the daycare children's hands and put my own kiddos' hands on.

Can anyone guess which one is Jedi's?

 9.

I bought Nutter Butters to make these like last year, 

on All Souls Day (Nov 1)

but never got around to it, 

so I'm saving the Nutter Butters to do these for St Nicholas day!

10.
I'm going to copy Billie Jo again here, 

she always does these great "selfie" photos.

I tried. 

(no make up here and I look startled and white as a ghost) 

Oh, well...I better go clean that mirror...