Going Bonkers

Yepper...that what we did alright! Actually there is a new business in town called "Going Bonkers" it is an indoor amusment park/arcade for kids of all ages. RaeAnne's BFF Hollie has been at our house for a sleepover since Monday afternoon. Several times a year Rae and Hollie get together to spend time with each other. They have been fast friends since Kindergarten. It has been cold enough that the girls have been spending the majority of their time indoors. So we decided that they needed a place to burn off some extra energy. Well they did that, but they also burned through the cash too!!

They started out in the playground and they were running around so much in there that their little cheeks were bright red and their hair was sticking to their faces!! I was prepared for them with a pitcher of pop. They guzzled that down in no time and went back to the playground. I got a jump on them and bought a refill on the pitcher. By then they were getting tired of the playground and wanted to play the arcade games. Of course that was an extra charge. Most of the games were between $.25 and $.85 for one game and then they were given tickets that could be cashed in at the end for all sorts of toys or candy. I tried to convince them that I could take them to Dollar General the next day...give them $5.00 and they would be able to buy more things, but they just wouldn't believe me!

Once we thought they were tired...we left and headed to McD's for supper. First thing they wanted to do after eating was go back!! Fortunately, it was closed for the night! It is amazing that these two have continued to be BFF's even though they only get to see each other about once every 6 months!



It was a fun place for them to play for a few hours, but the $$'s sure winged their way out of my purse pretty quickly. Fun with beautiful girls!! What more could a person want!!

Ho! Ho! Ho! It's all good!

Santa heard through the grapevine that Mom was going to have to work on Christmas Day. That jolly man was super sweet to bring our gifts a few days early. The girls started shouting for glee when they found our gifts waiting for them the morning of Christmas Eve. Five girls came bouncing into our bedroom early yelling, "Santa was here!" "Can we open our presents?"

Mom and Dad drug themselves from their warm bed and into the living room. The girls were already conquering and dividing the presents! Mom tried to regain some semblance of order and gradually they understood that they were to open their own presents and leave their sisters for that sister to open. Presents were sorted into piles for each girl and the disaster began!

Notice how nice and neat the floor was in the photos. Then how it became very
trashed in a hurry.





I'd say that Jolly St. Nicholas did himself proud. Lot's of oohs and aahs were heard. Almost as soon as it started the presents were unwrapped and the fun began.



Mom received a very special email that made her day. She also received a Blackberry Torch which will take her forever to learn how to use!! And the whole family received a new 32" flat screen TV for our bedroom! The girls love to spend time in Mom and Dad's bedroom watching TV, so it is for everyone!

~~Happy Birthday RaeAnne~~

My baby turned 12 years old today!! It seems like just a few years ago they handed me the little peanut. She weighed all of 13 pounds soaking wet at 9 months old. And she scared us to death that she would not eat solid foods! She even had our facilitator worried and she kept calling the orphanage to get them to admit she was a picky eater. Never did get that out of them, but we definitely had a finicky eater on our hands. Today she has made a 360 degree turn. She eats lots of things, but is still pretty picky about what she eats!




She has been bugging us for over a year for a phone. Today she finally got it!! And was she ever excited! This was the last day of school before Christmas break and she begged to take her phone to school so she could show her friends.




Per our family tradition she picked the place she wanted to go to celebrate her birthday. Red Robin it was and we had good food and great times. The wait staff came and sang Happy Birthday to RaeAnne after they had her put her birthday "hat" on. I think she was a little embarrased!!




Happy Birthday baby girl! You will always be my baby, no matter how big you get so just get over it!!! LOL! We love you to the moon and back!! XOXO!!!

Dasher's shenigans

That tricky little elf has kept the girls working hard to figure out where he is each day. It also keeps Mom and Dad racking our brains for places to put him! Occasionally he needs a little tacky glue or tape to keep him secure. If he falls over, then Mom or Dad has to touch him to help him. That goes against the rules in the book that no human is to touch him. However, I have told the girls that sometimes the parents can "help" Dasher when he is in need. They seem to accept that. Here are a couple more places he has been this week.




This week was Kendalan's Christmas music program. First graders are so cute to watch. Some of them really get into their singing and dancing. Kendalan was
trying to scare us away with the vicious smile and the rolling eyes. The move that had her Daddy ready to go get her was putting rabbit ears above the kids in the row ahead of her. Daddy had to give her the good old stink eye to stop that.





She was still cuter than the dickens!! And she was so excited to wear her pretty dress and shoes.

Tooth Fairy and Dasher

She finally did it!! Tessa pulled her other front tooth out! Yeah! Ignore the dirty face, she had a snack before I snapped the pictures! I am not sure where she is going to put those huge front teeth that are coming in. I see many ortho payments in our future! It had been loose for over a week and she pulled it out at school. At least the Tooth Fairy won't be running into Santa.



Speaking of Santa...Dasher has been landing in different and odd spots. We never know where we might find him each morning. The girls have been so excited to look for him each day and then keep asking Mom and Dad how did he get there?





And this is the sun rising on another day in the Land of Oz!

Decorating fun!

The girls decorated the tree last night with some help from Daddy. Mom helped after everyone was tucked in bed by moving the ornaments around to fill in the holes! This was the first year Tessa decorated a tree and Boy did she have fun! (Our former tree had artifical pinecones all over it and it was a bear to try and decorate!) Mom was unboxing and handing out ornaments as fast as she could...which wasn't fast enough! RaeAnne snapped a few photos while the elves were busy.




Dasher arrived the night before and it was a race to see where he landed the next morning! Nice thing about that is the girls are more anxious to get up each morning!

It's beginning to look a lot like

Christmas! We retired our old Christmas tree last year and I purchased a new one on line. I really had forgotten what the new tree looked like so it was a surprise for all of us tonight when we put it up! It took a long time to fluff it up, so we will decorate it another night this week.



We will also have to add another hook (or two?) on the mantel to get all the stockings hung on it! Zora had to hang one of her ornaments with her stocking!

Yikes!!

My blog designer notified me this morning that all her images have been LOST!! The company that she uses, which I will not name at this time, seems to have deleted all her things! She does blogs for many folks and it has messed all her blogs up!! She is hoping that the company will be able to find her images soon and they will all be restored.

In the mean time...our blog will look just a little bit different :( Please send a prayer up for Alexis. She has put a lot of time into designing these blogs and this will definitely put a kink in her holiday season.

BTW my signature line is also an image that is lost!!!

There goes the neighborhood....

well almost!! UPS made a delivery to our house yesterday morning. As I looked out the front door I noticed smoke. Upon further investigation I saw that the vacant lot north of our house was on fire! I grabbed some shoes and stepped out. Our neighbor to the northeast was burning trash in the barrel behind their house. Apparently the fire had blown out of the barrel and caught the dry grass on fire. We didn't have much wind, but every so often the fire would get a light breeze and would flare up and really take off towards the west and our other neighbors house.




Just about the time we thought the fire had stopped I looked out again and it was making fast progress across the vacant lot. We finally decided to call the fire department. We tried to contact our neighbor who's house was in the path of the fire, but no one was home and their phones were unanswered. Mark walked over and knocked on their door thinking that maybe someone was home and didn't hear the phone, but again no one answered the door. By the time he walked back home the fire department arrived and they wasted no time driving up on the lot and spraying water on the flames. We watched as they inspected the fire barrel and stomped out a few hot spots. They came over to our house and thanked us for calling. We thanked them for coming out...who knows what would have happened if we had not seen it!! Emergency responders....great to have when you need them!!!

And life happens....

We received sad news this past week. Mark's paternal Grandma passed away. The girls called her Grandma Great. Actually, when the girls were much smaller they called her Grandma Grape because of a misunderstanding! And a great Grandmother she was! We were planning a family reunion in Tulsa next June when she would be 100 years young. Instead we had a reunion here in Kansas for her funeral. It was more a celebration of her life. She enjoyed all her kids...old and young. She also enjoyed good health until the last year which was a blessing. We attended her 90th birthday when RaeAnne was just a toddler.



All of Mark's siblings were here for the funeral. We were also able to celebrate a couple of birthdays while everyone was here. My birthday was the 19th and Mark's sister, Kris was on the 20th. Everyone arrived in town Friday evening. We decided on Mexican that evening and had a great time at La Fuentes. Then Saturday night we tried out Boss Hawg's. Sunday found almost the whole family at our house for chili, taco soup, and other snacks and a football game bonanza!






While we were at the restaurants someone pointed out that a couple of us were celebrating birthdays! At Boss Hawg's they delivered this scrumptious cake. Good thing they also brought lots of spoons to share as it was very rich! The girls loved having their Aunts and Uncle here. And since they had just seen all of them in Wisconsin this summer now they will remember who's who!






Sad times, good times and times to remember!!