Christmas

Since Alex was two-years old, we've always baked a birthday cake for Baby Jesus on Christmas Eve and even though he is now 10, this is a tradition he looks forward to and loves....but then how can you not like a tradition that involves birthday cake?





The final product -



Then we had this cute little man stop over to sing Christmas Carrols!



Alex was so excited and by 7:00, he was ready for bed as he didn't want to be awake when Santa flew over our house. The more he started to worry, the more difficult it became for him to fall asleep. By 10:00, he was in tears because he was certain Santa had already flew over our house, discovered he wasnt't in dream land and went on to his next desitnation. He finally crawled in bed with me and I scratched his back until he dozed off - and guess what - we awoke to find Santa did stop back to the Lindner household!



And this was under the tree



But before anyone could open a present, we had to light the birthday cake and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus



Bruce's kids unsure of this .....but they went along with it. Ashley embraces these sorts of things and was the one who really dug into it and got Alex excited about birthday cake.



Then off to the gift portion of our day







Even Chewy and Kiki found their stockings were full of doggy treats and Santa brought new pet beds - can you see the excitement?




What a blessed Christmas this was for our family.

December Already

Sigh - where do I begin? I haven't blogged forever and a day so there is so much to share.

Alex is really starting to enjoy Roncalli. The teachers ask the parents to fill out a questionnaire and one of the questions for me to answer was "does my child enjoy school". I figured - I'll go right to the source so I asked Alex, do you like school. His response was "it's okay"! That's a huge improvement from no, I hate it so "it's okay" was viewed upon as a huge success.

He is one very moody child though. He must get it from his father's side of the family :) One day he can be an angle and the next day his head is spinning 360 degrees. Roncalli hosted their elementary Christmas concert last night and we went through our annual "mom I hate sweater vest" but seriously people....he looks so darn cute!

In case you're wondering...he knew I was sitting there taking pictures but REFUSED to give me the satisfaction of looking at the camera.

A New Mommy

Kiki gave birth to a litter of 5 puppies last night. Mommy and babbies are doing well.

Some things are worth fighting for

The classic sister’s fight occurred approximately 0700 hours this morning. Haley had “borrowed” Ashley’s sweater without really asking permission.

“You always take my stuff without asking”
“You wore my shoes yesterday”
“I’m not driving you to school”
“DAD”

Dad had already left for work so it was on like Donkey Kong

I usually stay out of these arguments as I’ve normally already waged my own war – getting Alex to school. We were upstairs when we heard the commotion coming from the basement. Alex looks up from his corn flakes and says “Mom, are they fighting about birthday cake? Because if they’re fighting about birthday cake, I’m going downstairs and joining the fight”

“No Alex, they’re arguing about a sweater”

Alex puts down his cereal and raises his hand “A SWEATER?!?!? What a stupid thing to fight about. Now birthday cake….that’s something worth fighting for”

Halloween Update

You will not be seeing Alex in a costume this year.

Why?

Well first he insisted that "it was for babies" Then he said that he wanted to go trick-or-treating, but he wanted to be a bloody ghoulish monster rather than the cute costumes I've choosen in the past. I hate bloody ghoulish costumes so I gave him the choose - choose a costume that didn't have blood dripping from it or not go trick-or-treating

He choose to stay home

UGH - he is so stubborn. Perhaps I was just easily persuaded with candy as a kid, but nothing would have stood in the way of me running the neighborhood dry of it's chocolate supply.

Alex, however, was going to stand his ground

Haley Turns 15

We celebrated this beautiful girl's 15th birthday this past Saturday



Even the dogs wanted to get Haley a gift!



After eating tons of cake, per Haley's request, we went to see Paranormal Activity 2 - and I hate scary movies. I don't understand why anyone would pay to have the life scared out of them. I've been married twice - that's scary enough.

I made it through about 20 minutes before I ditched the group to go see Jackass in 3D - which was equally as stupid but I didn't have to sleep with the light on after the movie

Anyway, back to Halley....she is about as fabulous as any 15 year old can be. She's smart and funny - and positively stunning. She is her father's baby and those big brown eyes could melt anyone's heart. I love her artistic side and how she refuses to follow with the trends of her school mates and chooses to march to the beat of her own drum. Happy birthday Haley - and lots of love

Halloween

Alex doesn't want to dress up for Halloween because "it's for babies"

I'm not ready for him to be done with the trick-or-treating event! Don't I have a say in this? I mean come on....32 hours of labor should entitle me to dress him up as Pooh Bear until he's in his 20's....right?