Spelling Tuesday

Christmas night at the Lenz house was fun!  Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, and Second Cousins got to eat, drink, and be merry!  Caleb got me an awesome new camera for Christmas so I spent a lot of the evening annoying people by practicing my photography skills.  Unfortunately, I was messing around with the buttons more than I was trying to get good pictures so, 1000 pictures later and I still don't have any good ones!  Ha!  Maybe next year!    Uncle Jon brought his girlfriend, Brooke to join in the festivities.  She is so sweet!  Don't screw this one up, man.  Fun with uncle Krusty!  Here, we see Grandpa pouring iced tea into grandma's diet coke... Don't ask.  Loralie and Avyn (Brook's Daughter) got deluxe princess costumes and they were in princess heaven for the rest of the holiday.  Wait, that sounds like they died.  Well, they were super duper happy running around calling each other "Ariel" and "Cinderell...

So, at 8am on Christmas morning, Loralie ran downstairs to see that she had a brand new Barbie house!  She was so excited!  She immediately ran upstairs to get her Barbies so that she could start playing.  She is at such a fun age!  She was amazed that the cookies were eaten, that the candy canes grew on the tree from the seeds we planted, and that the stockings got filled!    In addition to Barbie's mansion, Mommy and Daddy also got Loralie some more barbie clothes, and...  A beautiful Rapunzel Bride doll, since she is all about the weddings and the fixing of hair.  Roman got a fun Ball Popper.  He loves it.  He says "Ball!  Uh Oh!" over and over again...  He also got some cars, and a bath toy from Mommy and Daddy.  After all that unwrapping, NeeNee and Matt and Ada came over for breakfast and MORE presents!  The girls had so much fun playing with all the new toys and running around together. ...

T'was the night before Christmas, and all through our nest, the children were donning their new Christmas best. The faces were scrubbed and the shoes were all shiny, even the loud one, who is fierce but tiny.  The Stockings, somehow, got filled in the night!  The candy, it grew!  We must have planted it right!  And presents are waiting for our sleepy eyed kids,  My, what a bless'ed family this is! Loralie swears she head Santa's sleigh bells, and some loud "Ho Ho Ho"ing, just like the books tell. As all of the prepping was done and just right, "Merry Christmas, Y'all, and Have a Great Night!"

Here is the final saga of Teddy the elf.  He spent the last several days at the Lenz house...  breaking into the chocolate chips,  hiding in the cookie jar,  leading a bible study,  hang-gliding,  posing as paparazzi for the holy family,  leaving a recipe and ingredients for Snow Ice Cream,  and watching over baby Romey.  On Christmas Eve he left the kids their new Christmas pajamas and the movie The Grinch who Stole Christmas.  Later on in the day Teddy left Roman and Loralie a goodbye note. See ya next year, Teddy!

We got our first snow storm of the winter last night! Snow makes me happy. Even though I am not a teacher and don't technically get the day off of work anymore, I think it's a perfectly good excuse to stay home all day. In our pajamas. We also baked cookies (mint chocolate chip "Grinch" cookies!), did laundry, read books, made a pot of chili, and watched movies! Loralie decided she wanted to go out and play in the snow, even though Roman and I would not be joining her. After 20 minutes of preparation and bundling, she played out there for 11 whole minutes. That is ten more than I predicted! She made footprints, played in her treehouse, made snow angels and ate a mitten full of the fluffy stuff. Totally earned her hot cocoa upon returning to the house!

Here are some things our crazy elf has been up to... Loralie LOVES looking for him every morning. Sometimes it buys us a whole 30 extra minutes of sleep on the weekends! She was particularly excited to see that Teddy had snuck into her room and made a bed in her tissue box! He is so sneaky!

Roman went to get his first haircut yesterday. I saved him from Daddy's buzzer and a lifetime of "high and tight"! He sat up in the chair (which was a car) all by himself and was pretty good for the first half of the cut. He fussed a little towards the end, but his signature "faux hawk" is back and better than ever!

Whew! This month passed in a blur! It's hard to believe that the next time we take your monthly picture you will be ONE YEAR OLD! Amazing! Not much has changed on the old developmental checklist this month. Still no crawling (to Daddy's dismay). Mommy is fine with it. Easier to keep an eye on you that way! You are using the sign language for "more" now, but I think that you think that it is the sign for puffs, because sometimes I will be feeding you something you don't really like and you will start making the sign! When I try I give you "more" of what you are eating you get pretty mad! You LOVE to rough house with Daddy. As soon as he comes home you get a huge smile on your face and you want him to hold you pretty much from then on. You have a funny little giggle you do when you are wrasling with Daddy, and it makes mommy giggle every time. You are super ticklish. It is the easiest way to get you to smile in pictures! Sometimes I th...

Tonight was our church's monthly Wednesday night service and since it was a family Christmas service we loaded up and took the whole fam! Roman really liked the music, Loralie liked seeing her friends Kaylee and Elliot. And she really liked the cookies! There a was a cute ornament craft for the kids to make but because they didn't start that part until almost 8pm, we just threw the supplies in a bag to complete at home! The kids wore these snowman shirts that I made. Aren't they cute?

Loralie was full of wisdom today when she told me, "kids got kid friends and grown ups got grown up friends. But old people don't have any friends. They just get sick and die." When I asked her what she did at school today she said "I made the boat that they put baby Jesus in. And there was an angel there! And a robot."

I have been trying (unsuccessfully) for four years to get a smiling picture of Loralie on Santa's lap. I will be trying again next year! We went to "Cookies with Santa" sponsored by my MOPs group tonight. It was a great event! You signed up for a time and then when you got there there were activities for the kids to keep them occupied until your name was called. Loralie ate a cookie, made "reindeer food" (which she keeps calling "donkey food") and colored a picture while we waited. Then when it was time to meet the big guy she played it shy. She wouldn't sit in his lap, and answered all his questions in mostly baby talk. When he asked her what she wanted for Christmas she looked at an ornament in the tree next to him and said "a butterfly decoration". Really??? When we practiced in the car earlier she said she wanted a doll house and a baby doll that could eat real food and bottles. Ah well. Santa just does stockings at our ho...

Loralie's preschool class preformed in a Christmas program today.  Mom, Dad, Roman and NeeNee were her enthusiastic audience.  They sang some very cute Christmas songs.  Well, the rest of the kids did.  Loralie didn't sing at all.  But she looked awfully cute! You can click HERE or HERE to watch video!

Last night Caleb and I went out with some fun friends for a fantastic date night! We had dinner at Carabas, and then went to see a concert (which we haven't done...ever.). The concert was called "the Story". It was Christian artists from the Radio (Toby Mac, Brandon Heath, Selah, etc) singing original songs to tell the story of the bible, from Genesis to revelation. The music was really good and it was really inspirational.