Bethany made a thank you Smilebox to send to the friends who came to her birthday party on the 11th and I'm posting it here. We did something a little different this year. In the past, and for Anna and Katherine's party this year, we have asked for food shelf donations in lieu of gifts. The girls always want to invite lots of little friends to their parties and I'm all for that. I'm just not interested in THAT many new toys entering our house. We have enough stuff already. So, I told the girls that they can have a small party and invite just a few friends who can bring them gifts, or they can have a huge party and their friends will bring something for someone else, i.e. a food shelf donation. A friend from church put me onto the website CheerfulGivers.org. You can read the founder's story here: http://www.cheerfulgivers.org/about/founders-story/. (For some reason my links aren't going live so maybe you can copy this into your browser if you are interested...) They encourage school groups, businesses and families to host Birthday Bag parties where everyone attending the party brings items to put into birthday bags to be delivered to the local food shelf. Then, instead of parents searching frantically for a certain box of food to give their child on their birthday, they can choose one of the birthday bags. I was hooked on the idea instantly and Bethany got really excited about it, too. We had 19 kids at the party (including my four) and together they brought enough stuff to fill 24 bags! The White Bear Food Shelf was thrilled and so were the kids. It was a really fun and rewarding experience for everyone. Plus, we had coconut bowling and hula dancing - who can ask for more?

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Hey friends! Here I am again (almost two months since the last post...oh well). I'm trying something new today. I enjoy making Smileboxes because it's a fast and fun way to get pictures out to friends when I don't have time to arrange them on my blog. So, I thought I would try posting a Smilebox on my blog to see if it works and if everyone can access it. I think it's working but would love some feedback if anyone gets a chance. Now to explain this Smilebox... At Thanksgiving, we had the pleasure of having Mary and Zion Willitts, four-year-old twins of Joel and Karla Willitts - dear friends from our time in England who now live in Chicago - at our house. Karla is a flight attendant and had to fly on Thanksgiving Day. The hope was that Joel could accompany her on her two-day trip and they could get a mini-vacation together. (In the end, Joel, flying stand-by, missed getting on the flight by ONE seat. They didn't get the time off together but had some nice, restful time on their own which was very timely.) Anyway, some friends of theirs in Chicago were driving to MN for the holiday anyway and were willing to bring M and Z to our house! So, six kids under the age of eight ran crazy in our house for about 48 hours and had a blast! We were so sad to see them head back to Chi-Town that Saturday morning and can't wait to do it again...

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I'm baaa-aack...(or am I really?)

Well, it's been forever since I updated this silly blog of mine and I finally succumbed to the internal pressure I was putting on myself and decided to AT LEAST update the pictures on the main page! Truly, I would love to start blogging again but am just not sure if I'll have the time or energy to do it. Just bein' honest here. But I'll give it the ole' college try and see what happens. In the meantime, enjoy what you can from the few new pictures I added!

What motivated me, really, was the super fun day the kids and I spent with Joel's parents, aka Bill and Lynna, aka Grandma and Granddad. Joel left for Ukraine on Thursday for a missions trip with some folks from church and Bill and Lynna accepted my invitation to come rescue my lonely self for a few days. They came mainly to celebrate Anna and Katherine's 6th - yes, I said 6th - birthday which is on Monday. Shortly after they arrived today, they were treated to a fun little play involving, if I remember right, a narrator (B), a dancer named Emily (A), a mouse named Squeaky (K) and a skirt-wearing cat named Furry (M). It was quite the hit and Hollywood has been calling all evening, as if we need more chaos in our lives....

After the applause died down, we saddled up and went out to Country Sun Farm, one of our favorite fall things to do here in MN. They have lots of animals to feed, a corn maze to tromp through, a hay ride and, of course, pumpkins. Micah and Bethany were pumped to do the corn maze while Anna and Katherine (much to Grandma and Granddad's shivering delight) opted to ride 50 cent rides in the heated pumpkin greenhouse. Once reunited, everyone chose a pumpkin to paint (another tradition we have around here...I'll have to post a picture of B's Gonzo pumpkin from last year...) and one large one to carve.











































After that, we joined the throngs of people who think it's a good idea to eat at Red Robin on a Saturday night. In spite of quite a long wait, we had a lovely, relaxed meal together, complete with free sundaes for the birthday girls (it was Grandma's birthday today).








































































It was just one of those days that one could call delightful. Yay.

O Tammy Baum

Today we embarked on a new family tradition. Armed with heavy coats, mittens and hats, we drove out to Leverty's Traditional Trees just over the bridge in Houlton, Wisconsin. It was a crisp 25 degrees out but with sunshine and no wind, it was a doable December day in the Midwest. As kids were climbing out of the car, I was deleting a few pictures off my camera so that I'd have plenty of space for all the awesome first-ever-Lawrence-cut-your-own-Christmas-tree-experience-maybe-I'll-even-get-a-good-family-shot-for-the-Christmas-card pictures I was planning to take. Then it happened. Flash-flash-flash-nothing. The little battery image on my camera's screen went bye-bye. I couldn't believe it. Didn't it say it had at least half a battery power left? Apparently not. Thankfully, after keeping it off for about 5 minutes, I was able to squeak out a few pictures of the day.

We wandered around, hack saw in hand, trying to decide whether we'd get a Fraser Fir or a Balsam Fir (clearly we would not be choosing the exceedingly poofy, Weeble Wobble-shaped Scotch Pine) and finally the enticing aroma of the balsam fir made our decision. "Please cut only trees with tags" the sign said. Easy enough. We walked down a row of balsams scoping out the shape, fullness and height of each one. Meanwhile, the three conversant children in the family were starting to say such Christmas Vacationesque comments as "Can we just pick a tree and go? I'm freezing!" Finally, we walked back to the tree that seemed to fit all our strident criteria, looked it over once more and then Joel prepared to cut it down. It struck me as feeling a bit destructive, just cutting down a tree like that. But I got over it. So, timber, the tree falls and we hoist it onto the tarp we'd been given to drag it on back to the barn. I say, "How much is it?" Joel says, "I don't know. Where's the tag?" Awkward silence as we search for the tag. Oops. No tag. We just chopped down a tagless tree. Were there penalties for this? And Joel works with one of the daughters of the owners; how embarrassing! "What's going to happen?" Bethany asked wide-eyed as Joel and I discussed our oversight. "Oh probably nothing," we assured her, but I did feel awfully bad chopping down the wrong tree. We turned to the left and spied the original tagged tree that had first captured our attention. Oops. Wrong row. Well, we thought, as we dragged our illegal tree back to the barn, why wasn't THIS tree tagged? It's a perfectly good tree. Most of the tagless ones are shrimps they're letting grow a bit more. But this one was a nice, big tree. What gives? So, the moment of reckoning arrives. "Did you find a nice one?" a friendly tree farm worker asked. "Um. Well, yeah. But we cut down one without a tag. Sorry about that." "Oh, don't worry. No problem!" Whew. No harm, no foul. We never found out why this particular tree was on the tagless list. I'm wondering if I'll wake up in the morning and find some critter's nest in it or something. At least the cats will have fun.

After a little apple cider and some shaking, netting and strapping (of the tree), we headed back home, a successful first outing to the tree farm. On the way home, Micah said, "Jee-boo, jee-boo, HEY!" which of course means, "Jingle bells, jingle bells, HEY!" In keeping with his desire to sing Christmas tunes, I said, "Micah, can you say 'O Tannenbaum'?" (Miss Leanne, who keeps the littles when the bigger kids go to co-op on Thursdays, teaches them German and this week it was the song O Tannenbaum.) He smiles and starts saying, "O Tammy Baum, O Tammy Baum." Not sure who she is; perhaps some obscure German Christmas heroine who traversed the Black Forest saving trees from the axe. In any case, it was pretty cute and made for a lovely ending to our tree-cutting adventure.

Hoo-hahns, roller skating and tooth loosing

Just 2 days before her sixth birthday, Bethany lost her THIRD tooth! This time, it's front and center! Her top left tooth started wiggling a few weeks ago and tonight, it was hanging by a thread. She was pushing it out sideways with her tongue (totally grossing me out) and we kept saying, "Do you want us to pull it?" She kept saying, "No, it will hurt too much!" Then after about 10 minutes of wiggling it, she pulled it our herself! So, here are the pics!


































And just last Saturday, Bethany went roller skating for the first time. After only one unfortunate bonking of the head, she did a great job! We had such a fun time together roller skating and winning tickets (read: blowing money) in the Fun Zone. We were there to celebrate her friend Abbie's 7th birthday. (They even played a little Michael Jackson, which really took me back to my Skate Magic days...)









































Finally, sweet little Micah loves to put shoes on - especially my fuzzy black house shoes. One night, he kept putting them on and saying, "Hoo hahn. Hoo hahn, Mommy." I couldn't figure how he'd gotten 'hoo hahn' from 'house shoe'. Finally, it hit me: every time we get ready to go somewhere, we say, "Micah, let's get your _shoes on_." So, now, shoes are called 'hoo hahns' around here. Yeah, he's pretty stinking cute. But, here's a stumper: he calls tractors 'high yos'. Where is he getting that? Point to a tractor and say, "Micah, what's that?" and he says, "High yo." My only guess is that he has a little tractor that sings Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Maybe he's heard E-I-E-I-O so much in conjunction with that tractor that the I-O part has stuck! Who knows the mind of a toddler....

New Haircuts!

Today the girls got their annual haircut. Yes, I did say annual. I'm so bad. I just cut Bethany's bangs when she can't see anymore and let Anna and Katherine's hair do what it wants. So, I decided it was time to give them official haircuts. Even Micah got his ears lowered. The girls also got a braid, pink streaks and sparkles in their hair. (Micah passed on that offer.) So, here are the pics!

Medieval Feast

Tonight our homeschool co-op had our end of unit celebration. Because we had been studying the medieval time period, we had (what else?) a medieval feast! Micah was a knight, Katherine a princess, Anna a fairy/nymph, Bethany a peasant girl, Joel a monk and I was a peasant. We ate with our fingers, drank wassail, all the while being entertained by jesters and little girls dancing with ribbons and bells! It was crazy but fun. The point of the evening was for family and friends to come celebrate with us and see all the cool things the kids have done in our first 10 weeks of school. So we had all their projects on display: castles, salt dough maps, family crests, viking longhouses, mosaics and stained glass windows (made with tracing paper!). Bethany has had such a great time so far and we look forward to another 10 weeks of exploring the world and history. This unit will cover the Renaissance and at the end the kids will perform a Shakespearean play! Should be fun! So, here are few pictures...I hope to eventually get a slideshow together of some more....