I'm not dead.

Just in case anyone was wondering.

Like most people this time of year, I've just been busy.

And so now of course, I have a little bit of blogging to catch up on- 3 birthdays + Christmas + and a few other little odds and ends, and I'm procrastinating because the more I have to do, and the longer it's been, the less I am inclined to do so.

But I guess I'll start with some of the odds and ends.

I did manage to take a couple pictures this month, and so I'll share those.

For all those who asked- yes Madison and I got an A. 100%. 50 out of 50.

Christopher likes to pick out my clothes. His favorites are the "name shirts". He's learning his letters, so he likes shirts with letters on them. I wore this particular shirt one day when I had no other exciting plans than making caramels. (Naturally I was seen by someone who is the kind of person to wear heels and lipstick to do her grocery shopping and she did laugh at me when she came to the house to pick up their order of caramels- in a good natured, non offensive kind of way...)

Of course, that was nothing compared to the outfit I wore to drop Nick off at his jr. high. He had a super-early morning church activity one day and they were supposed to drop the kids off at school. But they were running late and Nick landed on my doorstep needing a ride to school. I fished my keys out of the jeans pocket that were lying on my bedroom floor, and rushed him to school. As I pulled in to the parking lot, it occurred to me that I needed to phyiscally walk him into the building and sign him in. Did I mention I was wearing a dirty blue t-shirt, no bra, purple and white striped capri pajama pants, black and white knee high socks, and brown Mary Jane Crocs? I personally think the only thing that would have made the outfit better would have been pink curlers, and some kind of green mud facial mask. I don't own any curlers, but I am seriously considering it in the event I totally want to embarrass any of my future teenagers. (to my offspring- consider this a warning) "Why on Earth did you let me leave the house looking like this?!?! You could have mentioned that I might want to put on the jeans as I was fishing the keys out of the pocket!!!! You realize you have to walk into your jr. high and be seen with me?!?!?" And just to add insult to injury, as he was walking off to class, I yelled across the courtyard, "Byyyyyeee, Niiiiiiiick! I LLLOOOOOOOOVVVVEEEE YOOOOUU!!!!" He swore he'd get me back for that last bit, and my response was something in the neighborhood of "No, please, anything but that! Moms just hate it when their children tell them how much they love them in public!"

Our ginormous safe was finally delivered. 2-3 weeks late. They lost the paperwork, which was fine by me because we had to clean out our closet to make space for it anyway, and then they ended up refunding us $120 for "our inconvenience". The box still resides in my living room. ALL the kids play with it. Right now I am thinking "A Kindle? Legos? Wii games? American Girl Dolls? Forget buying Christmas presents. All I needed to do was go to Lowe's or Home Depot and see if I couldn't score a couple giant refrigerator boxes."

This last month between the 4 kids we had 3 musical concerts, 2 recitals, and 1 pre-school Christmas program. Christopher loves music time. I've been told by a few teachers, he's most attentive when they are singing. He was singing Christmas songs all month. Of course when he had his little Christmas program, I don't know if he sung a note. He was too busy playing around, or lying down, or jumping off the stairs on the stage...

I think that's about it- oh and I'd like to send a little shout out to three of my newly discovered blog stalkers- Kaitlyn, Morgan, and Emily. Hi! :)