A Mighty Bean, Dsi, Barbie Kind of Christmas

Count your blessings...that should be the theme of our lives everyday, but I know I don't think of that as often as I should throughout the year. It's RESOUNDS in my head especially at Christmas. It's around this time of the year that I usually start working on my yearly photo book. Three years ago I decided to stop printing so many digital photos and start doing a yearly photo book to chronicle the events of the year. I still print my favorites, but with the world of digital photography, I found myself filling up loads & loads of bulky photo albums. The books are slim and compact and fit nicely on a bookshelf. As I was saying, I work on my book this time of the year and looking back through the years photos (and reading past blog posts), it reminds me of how quickly time passes. Christmas is the time of year with being with the one's you love--thanks Christmas Vacation for that great song--but it is so true. I'm especially thankful this year: thankful that I'm healthy and so is my family, thankful that Uncle Mike is alive, thankful to still have my parents, in-laws, and all of our grandparents, thankful for my sister and Paul, their kids, Matt's brothers and my sister-in-laws, my adopted family the Maglinger's and Garcia's, Ms. Windy, great friends...love getting all those Christmas cards--mainly I'm thankful for the people God has placed in my life. I want to be more and more thankful for them each year because it truly is a treasure that we take for granted.

Christmas celebrations began on Friday at Plano. Thank goodness we didn't get snowed out. Plano does a pajama day, and the kids get to watch Polar Express. This year both Karson's and Isaac's classes asked everyone to bring in stocking stuffers. I'm guessing the traditional exchanges are just to difficult. Thinking back on my school gift exchanges, I remember this girl named Amy ALWAYS drew my name. Amy wasn't the kind of girl you'd want to draw your name. She was one of those "bad influence" kind of girls--the kind of girl that probably brought a knife to school and smoked outside the gym when no-one was looking. She had really short, butchy hair, questionable language, lived with her grandmother, rough around the edges kind of gal. Let me put it to you this way, Amy and I pulled the school fire alarm on the last day of school in 5th grade--what can I say she double-dog-dared me? Anyway, like I was saying, she ALWAYS drew my name. However, she always got me some of my nicest gifts, usually from Container World which was HUGE in my elementary school days. Not sure how that applies to this, but it's a memory I have of gift exchanges. I wonder what ever happened to Amy???

My sister scheduled a bowling party at Southern Lanes on Wednesday (Christmas week). The kids had fun getting out of the house and doing something different. I think Miles out-bowled all of the older kids. He was so cute. His ball took a solid hour to get down the lane, but he sure didn't let that stop him from having fun.

Miles and Samuel would bowl their balls and lay down on the lane. It reminded me of how a golfer looks at the line of his golf ball for that outstanding putt.

A couple of beauty boats (minus one--can you guess which one??).

Christmas at my Mom and Dad's house NEVER disappoints. We started Christmas Eve morning there. My grandparents and Uncle Mike spoil them with money and gifts. Uncle Mike gave each of the kids $50 to spend a few weeks ago. They love going to pick out their things. Miles didn't go--he really had no interest in shopping and only wanted a Nintendo DSi this year (I'll get to that later). Karson and Isaac perused the aisles at Wal-Mart and selected all their items. Karson's main thing this year was BARBIE and Isaac's for some reason was MIGHTY BEANS. I selected a couple of things for Miles.

My mom also takes the kids shopping to pick our their gifts. I honestly LOVE this method and will probably do the same when I have grandchildren of my own. There are just so many toys out there. I had NO IDEA Isaac even liked Mighty Beans. He's never talked about them or expressed an interest. That's all he wanted this year.

It's been a tradition in our family to sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" with different family members singing each part. I took video of the 12th day down to spare you from our terrible singing (or mine anyways).

After spending most of the morning and afternoon with my family, we went to Matt's Mamaw's house that night and celebrated with them.
Christmas morning was lovely. Blankets of white snow covered everything. I heard it was the first white Christmas since 1993 --17 years ago. We spent our morning opening up gifts and enjoying time together. Santa brought Karson a Barbie dream house. And he brought Isaac and Miles DSi's. Normally a 4 year old child wouldn't request such an extravagant gift, but Miles has been exposed to so much more than Karson and Isaac. He has four people above him in the family pecking order (Karson, Evan, Elizabeth and Isaac). K, E & E all have DSi's. Isaac started wanting his own this summer when E & E got theirs for their birthday, and then later on Miles started wanting one too. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to purchase TWO more DSi's simply because TWO will be available to Miles at anytime once school is back in session. However, it was the ONLY thing he wanted. How could Santa not bring one? In fact on Christmas morning as the two older children were BLOWING through their gifts, Miles was completely content with his DSi. We couldn't even get him to open up his other gifts. He wasn't interested--all he wanted was his DSi. After much persuasion, he finally opened his other presents (but wasn't as thrilled about them).

Let me just say that my boys are ALWAYS in their underwear. I can barely stand to wear short sleeves this time of the year, and they run around in the buff all day.

Occasionally I can get some pajamas on them. Here is Isaac intent on his DSi game with his spy glasses on. He wore these to church Sunday morning. I got him some spy gear this year (I wasn't about to buy more Mighty Beans).

The loot.
Later that morning, we went over to Colvin and Debbie's so the kids could open their gifts there.

We didn't spend anytime in the snow mainly because we had to be at Matt's granny's house later that afternoon. Andrew brought his 4-wheelers over, but we never made it out. Our kids aren't snow lovers by any measure--they will go play in it, but it's usually for about 5-10 minutes. It's not worth the bundling or persuading to get them go outside SO we spent our white Christmas indoors. We went to Granny and Grandads later that afternoon and crashed at home later that evening. It's was a special holiday!!!

A Not so Silent Night

A Not so Silent Night presented by Faith Community kids on Sunday, December19.

The title of this years Christmas play at church was "A Not so Silent Night" which is actually an appropriate title for what happened the night before in the Deaton household. Matt and I went out Saturday night with friends to dinner and movie. When we got home from our date, Colvin and Debbie (our fabulous babysitters) told us that Isaac had some diarrhea. Those of you that know Isaac know that he rarely eats so it's not real surprising when he has the #2's here and there. However as nighttime fell and we were winding down, an awful sound came from the boys room--the sound every parent dreads, the sound of hurling. Sweet little Isaac was puking and trying his best to get to the bathroom. I'll spare you the graphic details of what unfolded the rest of the night, but 4 loads of laundry later and two pairs of underwear later--1:30 a.m. on the ol' clock--I was finally able to go to bed.

I would love to tell everyone about the days events but had to stay home with my middle man. Some of these pictures were posted on facebook so I snagged them for my blog.

Isaac and Miles were supposed to be shepherds. But based on the picture, it appears that Miles was one of the wise men that visited baby Jesus along with his buds Trapper and Samuel.

Karson debuted as Sophia Busybody. She had to wear a fancy dress, carry a big bag and wear granny glasses. Let me just say, the only time we have "fancy" in this house is when we check out a Fancy Nancy book. I try to get the kids cute clothes usually on clearance, but fancy clothes, don't happen unless we're in a wedding. One of the snazziest dressers I know of at church is a little girl named Cassidy who is about a year older than Karson. She's always wearing fancy dresses so I had asked her a few weeks back if she had something for Karson to wear in the play. Lo and behold that girl brought me a slew of dresses for Karson to try. We fell in love with this velvet number--along with some white tights (which I had to run to Wal-Mart for at 7:15 a.m. Sunday morning--and also grabbed some Sprite for the I-man), her black flats and curly hair, she looked just like a Sophia. Karson has such a cute little memory. A while back on the radio, we heard a list of the most popular names for 2010. While she getting ready Sunday morning, she said "mom, I have the most popular girls name for this year--Sophia."

Some of the cutest wise men on the planet.

I'd love to know what they were talking about here??? I highly doubt it concerned the baby Jesus. I would post the video Matt took but felt it was probably to long. As for the stomach bug, it reared it's ugly head at our house for about four days and affected four of us. I won't say which four because I don't want to jinx anyone, but I had it and it was AWFUL! It certainly wasn't the best way to begin our Christmas Break, but we still count our blessing that it didn't ruin our actually holiday (or spirit).

Status is Review

Love that facebook is doing this. I only wish blogger had the picture upload in an EXTRA large file. Ah, whatever, it's a memory I want to preserve.

A Miles Kind of Christmas

All I have to say is thank goodness we had school today. Can I get an amen??? School has been cancelled for the past three days in Warren County due to all the snow (or lack thereof). I realize Warren County schools transport over 8,000 children and there are loads of parents and teenagers that drive to school, but it really is/was a frustrating week to miss due to all of the holiday hoop-la. This week at EEP usually consists of a Christmas program on Tuesday and a Christmas party and gift exchange on Thursday (today). Due to the weather conditions on Tuesday, we had to combine both (program and party) today. We were afraid we'd have to miss this week all together since the weather forecast for last night/this morning was ice and snow. However, our kind weatherman, who's know to OVERexaggerate was very wrong and all we got in BG last night was lots of rain. YEAH, we got to have school, and our program went smoothly! I was so proud of all my kiddos. I can't brag on them enough. They are such a young little bunch of kids, and I really thought all the craziness of today would throw them completely off. All I can say is, WOW. They did a superb job.

The way we are set up on stage, Ms. Windy's class is usually right next to mine. She put Miles close to my class so I could glance over and watch him. I was not surprised in the least to see him NOT singing. He did, however, flop out of his chair a couple of times. And, occasionally, he'd cut his eyes over at Lydia Owens who was sitting right next to him singing beautifully, doing the hand motions and not missing a beat--he'd watch what she was doing and maybe do a hand motion or two, but that was IT. He wasn't having any of it. I've resorted to threatening, yeah, yeah, you know we all do it--I told him that I would let his stuffed chicken, Chicken, sit up there in his place and do his singing since he wouldn't. To which he would sarcastically reply, "Mom, he's a stuffed animal, he can't sing." And I would say, "well neither do you and chicken told me he'd do it." Eventually, he'd relent and say he'd sing but today, na-da. Oh well, he's never been one to keep quiet so I guess I should relish in this moment and be thankful he didn't do anything to "dramatic".

Here he is with a couple of his preschool cohorts. Hands down, Samuel (the far right) won the in the singing contest. He sang like Justin Beiber and is so stinkin' cute, more so than the Beib. if I say so myself.

Santa made an appearance at preschool. Miles asked Matt if Santa brought his DSi to which Matt had to explain that he didn't. He did manage to snap a sweet shot of the two of them. Maybe Miles will eventually understand the concept of Santa? However, I don't think we have to many Santa years left with the older two getting smarter and smarter by the second.

It was such a fun day at school. My students spoiled me with such nice gifts. I feel very blessed today and lucky to work with such sweet families.

Oh What a Week it Was

Oh what a week it was last week...I seriously could not be any more worn out than I already am and Christmas isn't even here yet. This week ain't looking to promising either with a SNOW day today. It has been hectic, but I sure am proud of our children, they have been running around all week long and last week they had TESTING of all things.

**Have you ever seen that section on SNL's weekend update called Really (with Seth and Amy), well if not, google it. But here's my REALLY version:

*Really, Plano you decided to GRADE and GMADE testing this week, the busiest week of the year, why not test the kids the week after school begins--Oh, you do that too.

*Really Plano, you decided to do testing the week of the school Christmas program, couldn't have done it another week like the first of November when NOTHING is going on, REALLY.

*Really Plano, you decided to schedule WKU's dental team to do sealants at school this week--really, don't you know how many kids HATE going to the dentist and would play hookey from school to avoid this, really.

*And, really Plano, could you have come up with a better lunch menu this week at school besides BBQ, soup n' sandwich and burrito day. Really, schedule testing during a week with pizza, chicken rings and cheeseburgers not a week where every kid will bring their lunch to school, REALLY.
** Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I just think it's funny that Plano decided to do their important testing during last week of all weeks. I bet not a kid one got in bed early any night this week with all the craziness going on and certainly didn't have nutritious diets with all the holiday baking going on. Someone needs to rethink the testing scheduling next year.

Not REALLY sure where that outburst came from, probably stress induced, I just hope the kids did well on their testing, and I do believe they did or at least, Isaac did. In fact, I had emailed Isaac's teacher about the testing because I was concerned his anxiety level might be high. Surprisingly he loves a consistent day at school, change kind of throws him off. I tried to prepare him for testing but was afraid he might be a little "freaked" out. She assured me that he did fine and emailed me at the end of the week to tell me that he missed 0/96 on the reading portion and 1/54 on the math. H-E-L-L-O smarty pants. I'm very proud of him!!! And, this ends the bit on testing at Plano....I'll start with our hectic week.

I'll start with last Sunday, we went to Louisville after church for the annual Pogue Christmas. We had an extra special time this year because my cousin Monica went into labor. She doesn't live in Louisville so we weren't able to see her or her family but were very excited for them all. She gave birth to a precious baby girl named Madison.

We arrived in Louisville around 1 p.m. and were all STARVING from the trip there. We left right after church (so around lunchtime). I could've eaten a horse. My aunt Lois was in charge of the festivities this year and man, oh man, she did a fabulous job. She had the crock pots full and the food ready to go. We gobbled down our food and did some visiting. I love seeing all my family especially now that our family is expanding. Almost all of my cousins are married and many of them have children. I sure hope we keep this tradition going for years and years to come.

My cousin Jackie dressed up as Santa and brought all the kids gifts. My kids knew it was Jackie because someone called him Jackie and they said "Santa looks just like Jackie." Oh well, it was still cute and the littler cousins didn't have a clue. After a nice visit, we left Louisville around 6 p.m. with all our loot and happy kiddos.

Monday was business as usual with the exception of Karson getting dental sealants at school. I didn't say anything to her about it that morning because I didn't want to make her a nervous wreck. I received a letter a couple of weeks ago stating that WKU's dental team would be at Plano doing FREE sealants for children in the 2nd grade. Very cool (for me)--maybe not so cool for my daughter. I called the number on the sheet of paper and talked to a kind lady on the other end for quite a while. I wanted to give her a little background on Karson. She assured me that NO WKU student would be forceful or make the children do anything they didn't want to do. All they would do is clean and do the sealants. Karson came home that Monday and didn't say anything about it and was jazzed to show off her new electric WALL-E toothbrush. She said she and one other student in class were the only ones to get the dental sealants. We are making HUGE progress in the field of dentistry thankfully. Monday night, we had basketball practice. I could tell the girls hadn't had recess in a while. They were all so wiggly, giggly and jiggly. Their focus level certainly wasn't the best, but hey, they were able to burn SOME energy off.
Oh yeah, and sometime on Monday, we found time to build the gingerbread house we won at the Pogue Christmas (dirty Santa) the day before.

Tuesday was an eventful day as you can see from my prior post. Not only did I have preschool that morning, I then spent the afternoon trying to be a "beautician" which caused my day to become even more stressful running around trying to catch my sweet sister in law so she could fix my "bangin" mistake. To top it off, Plano had their Christmas program that night. Let me brief you on the programs at Plano. The children in 2nd grade and under are the only ones who do a Christmas show. The 3/4th grades do a spring program and the 5/6th grades do a veteran's program, graduation, band, etc. The kids who are in the 2nd grade get the speaking parts in the Christmas program. Well, since Karson is in a 2nd/3rd split, she had told me that they weren't going to get to be in the show, and her teacher later confirmed it at the parent/teacher conference in the fall. How sad for all those 2nd grade kids. Apparently many parents had a problem with this, so it happened that Karson and the other 8 students in the split were allowed to participate and pulled out of class here and there to practice. Funny thing is, is that almost everyone of the kids who had speaking parts were from Karson's class. Check out the video "How the Penguins Saved Christmas".

Karson and her friend Kayla. I attempted to get one of Karson and Isaac, but he was ready to skee-daddle after the program. He did a great job singing though. I did catch him a couple of times trying to poke his buddies next to him in the face with his beak =).

Can you spot Isaac? He's in the center, front row right next the girl turning around and looking.

After the program, we went to Zaxby's with Shannon and Paul. Isaac's buddy Donovan was also there. I got the cutest picture of them.

Wednesday, much like Monday, was business as usual~school, homework, dinner then church. However, the kids were excited about going to school that day because they got to do some shopping at Santa's Workshop. The 5th and 6th grade students do this as part of their economics unit. The profits are used to help needy families. Our kids took money out of their piggy banks to do some shopping. They were tickled with their purchases.

Thursday we had the opportunity to go see Evan and Elizabeth perform at their school's Christmas program. I forgot my camera so I don't have any shots from the night. I knew we were in for a long night when Miles starting asking to leave right when we sat down. You get to programs early for the best seat, ya know. So, we got there about 30 minutes early and the whining began. I bet I heard "is it time to weave yet?" at least 100 times before the show even started. I think he was just about worn out from all the running around. Fortunately, his buddy Samuel came to the program and entertained him for bit. Isaac entertained himself the entire time with a slap bracelet.

Friday after school, I took my basketball team to a clinic at WKU. I think it's neat that the Lady Toppers do this for the girls. It's free and gives them an opportunity to meet the team and get their autographs.

All my girls came to the clinic. I just love my little team!

Saturday, no sleeping in for us, we had to take team pictures at Briarwood at 9 a.m. followed by a game at Cumberland Trace at 10:30 a.m. After that, Matt and I did a little Christmas shopping and then went to my dad's Caveman program at 2 p.m. And, after that, we went to an adult holiday party at our friends the Vernon's home. I opted out of dragging my camera around all day. Lots going on, lots to blog about...not sure how many I'll do this month???

Yesterday was somewhat a day of rest, we decided to take the kids to the mall to see Santa after church. They took such a nice picture--if only Santa could come to more of our photo sessions. It was cute, Miles thought Santa was actually going to give him his present yesterday. He had a melt down when we left and he didn't have his DSi in hand.