Christmas Eve

I am horrible about getting pictures of the kids on Holidays.  When they are all dressed in matching clothes.  Baths were taken.  Hair was combed.  Teeth were brushed. 

We are always rushed!  Always!  I am always the last one to get ready and I am typically left with 15 minutes.  I don’t get to look like a real human too often, so I take all 15 minutes!  Well… Christmas Eve I said forget it!  Mascara is enough!  I wanted pictures this year! 

It was totally worth it!  I will treasure these pictures for a long time!  And well it was the only picture of them this Christmas!  : )  I never got them together for another picture.  I never got a single picture of the girls in their real Christmas dresses.

We went to church on Christmas Eve and they called all the kids to the front of the church while one of the pastors read a Christmas book.  Mallory and Max went.  Max was hesitant (as usual) but he went.  Each kid that went up put their name in a drawing to win the book afterwards.  As they are reading the book I am thinking… I need to remember this book and add it to our Christmas book collection.  (During Advent we read a Christmas book every night before bed.)  The story is over and they pull out a name… MAX FREY!  He was pretty proud of his new book! 

Reindeer Craft

The little flu that Mallory caught was hard on her.  She had a hard time getting her energy back.  I had a hard time getting her to do school work.  She just was not in the right frame.  She was tired.  So I scrapped school and found some fun things for them to do instead.

We rolled a reindeer. 

Worked on their cutting skills.

She seriously thinks everything we do is so exciting!

Counting.  Patience.  They enjoyed it.

Hey!  Baby Girl!  This is great fun isn’t it?! 

I am totally enjoying Melanie at this age while we school.  Right now she stays where I put her and thinks everything is totally great.  Next year she is going to be t.r.o.u.b.l.e.  Into everything!  I am sure of it.

Finished!!

We hunted

The week before Christmas Mallory came down with a tiny flu-like bug.  She is the toughest kid when she is sick!!  She woke us up in the middle of the night and said, “Daddy, I just threw up.”  We both jumped out of bed and were fearful of what we were going to find. 

She is all chill… no big deal… Made it to the bathroom.  I am fine.  Ready to go back to bed.  Huh?!  Jesse and I were like what do we do?  She is so tough!  So we told her she was amazing and thank you so much for making it to the bathroom!  Tucked her back in bed with a bucket… just incase. 

Never heard from her again!!  She woke up in the morning and she was so pale!  She was still sick, but she was not going to admit it.  Jesse had me come look at her because she was so pale (she was washing her hands in the bathroom) and I took one look at her and she was starting to swirl her eyes and get a little tipsy.  I told Jesse she was going to pass out.  And then I grabbed her and laid her on the cold tile floor.  She just laid there and looked at us like we were the nuts ones. 

Anyway, she camped out on the couch all day.  Which is really hard for her.  She tried to wonder away – but within minutes she was crawling back into her little nest on the couch.  By the end of the day she said it was the most boring day ever.

I eventually got her to nap and Max and I snuck downstairs.  She would be so sad if we would of came downstairs without her so we had to wait for her to sleep so she didn’t feel left out. 

And, well, what else does Max do but hunt.  So him and I hunted.   

Missed.  So he tried again.  Notice how he closes his one eye!

Missed again!  So I had him switch the hand he uses to hold the bow.

Got him!

Melanie tags along too!  We toss some random toys at her and she is totally content. 

That third baby I tell ya!  She is so super easy going and content it is almost wrong! 

We found mountain goats! 

I then felt guilty for just letting Melanie do her thing so I let her sit in my lap and play toys.

He shot the deer off the mountain and brought it over to me and asked me if I wanted to eat it.  The kid cracks me up!

The next night Mallory woke us up but it was totally different reason.  “Daddy, I have never been so hungry in my life.”