regan's style for grocery cart riding -

a little bit of snuggle love with benny -

my view of our tree from the couch this morning .... its small enough this year to all fit in the frame : )

mom dug out her old prom dresses ... bliss for the girls!

a christmas date with her daddy & the sister friends - she was sticking to his leg to not be left behind.

i think i already don't like this picture : )  we baked & cooked til the butter was nearly gone at moms yesterday. we also used her old aprons 'cause using festive christmas ones was an afterthought we forgot about!

this is supposed to be a picture of us & some of our holiday baked goodness, with said aprons : )

amie thinks our christmas cards this year are ... 'oh my goodness! cheap, tacky & awful' - i think was how she put it : ) confession, they were cheap. lol!

she's liking christmas vacation mornings -

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this is the part of the post where i feel like i should write about all that's been going on .... and yet i'm just kinda tapping the keys while the cursor just flashes - so! we'll be done.

: )

we're doing great.
merry christmas!

it was warm enough in our house tonight to steam up the windows ....

i think the just finishing heat cycle of the dishwasher, the noodles boiling on the stove & 5 wild kids had something to do with it, too : )

but still, it was cozy.

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its later now ... the house is quiet. well sorta, the boys have taken to sleeping together on the top bunk & even after the good night boys is said there is still brotherly love going on back there. it quiets down on its own : )

at dinner tonight i was going to leave the house the way it was .... just bombed lived in.

we are officially on christmas vacation. we finished today with a craft project that didn't exactly turn out & a walk down the road. 

its a good time for this picture since we're on the school topic. we home school & today we looked like it : )  aww man, jumpers baby, jumpers!!

i was sick wednesday. i barely got oatmeal made for breakfast before i threw up & went back to bed. somehow the kids survived on their own. movies, sure : ) i woke up whenever they came in & had something to tell me. like 'hey mom we got 4 christmas cards in the mail!' & 'mom, we kinda need a plan for the day.' & 'mom, when are we going to have lunch?' .....  rex read between the lines of my texts messages & came home. its been a long time since i stayed in bed all day.

i can write this with confidence knowing my boys are very much boys - sunday night football was ditched for pbs's special of les miserables. they were completely taken with it : )

back to boyhood!  we're on the hunt for christmas presents for the boys & we think what do they like/do  .... well they play with sticks. as proof to rex, not that he needed it, i caught jack out the back door window just swinging his homemade stick sword around the yard!

i am prepared for the repercussions of posting this : ) but we think she rocks the tacky holiday sweater! 

and we will end our holiday cheer with that!

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we're back dating this so it says dec 12th - since that's his birthday : )

a quick photo booth version of happy birthday to uncle chady.

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what were we saying about family pictures??  merry christmas, love the rodgers!

or at least love rex, regan & jack!

hap-py friday : )

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i love it best when the little sister friends decide to play during school instead of deciding to be apart of school.

i was the mom who insisted on shoes & a coat. she was the 2 year old who insisted on a princess dress & fairy wings.

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back to school - he is telling me here that he was really going to try to remember his spelling word.

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here the fairy wings were replaced with the cat suit : )

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we'll end with a short christmas story:
last night sailor was matter of factly explaining to molly how she could not be mary in their nativity set up because she needed to have joseph next to her & she did not have joseph. to which molly replied 'I NEED A MAN!'
the end : )

& jack is asking for dinner .... and to please hurry up 'cause he's getting real hungry!
amie sent me my very own copy of the nativity story. i'm trying to decide how many times i will watch it. its on my to do list this weekend. that & freeze the hamburger meat before it goes bad.
merry weekend
merry christmas
 

wait for it ....

wait for it ....

christmas, baby!!

christmas : )

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my laptop is seriously moving because my little baby is seriously moving.  he's a mover, this kid. i stupidly freak out like .... oh my goodness, he'll probably walk at 6 months & i won't have a baby anymore & he won't ever want to snuggle up & be held.

just typing that out makes it all the more ridiculous sounding : ) and somehow i get all this based on my computer 'jumping' on my lap here while i type! did the others move like this, you ask?  lol, i don't remember.

good blogs, good sermons, good reminders i've heard in the last little bit on not living life so crazy busy. or stressed out 'cause of all the holiday things that must be done.

everyone left tonight for church in a whirlwind. wet towels from fast showers were left everywhere. dirty clothes in heaps. lights left on. dinner sprawled on the table. cups tipped over with water still dripping off the table.

the girls were a whine away from being left here. the boys, thanks to today's history lesson on pearl harbor, were bombing things all day. ok, so they'd do that anyway really : )

it was hi welcome home/bye see you later with rex.

and i thought so much for my night off ... someone has to pull this all together so tomorrow we can do it all again.

family life takes work, doesn't it. it takes more than just tossing dirty jeans into the laundry, closing the shower door & giving the dog the leftovers.

it takes reminding ourselves to be lovely in spite of the fact that our patience is used up & the day isn't.

she was cold -

i guess the point to myself!! is its ok to wear flannel lounge pants all day long, its ok that we haven't even taken a christmas picture let alone mailed out cards yet, its ok that rex went grocery shopping instead of me, its ok if the boys are just little boys and they attack furniture, themselves & whatever they bump literally into with their swords & exploding bomb noises. its ok that i don't have christmas music playing here on my blog & i'm not posting lovely pictures of our decorated tree or the martha stewart looking crafts i've magically come up with for the children to do. its ok if jack is still totally learning to read. its ok to make them waffles when they ask. its ok if this years advent calendars came from trader joes & are just filled with little squares of chocolate instead of some in depth reason for the season. its ok to not freak out over what hasn't even happened yet. its ok.

obviously this nice little pep talk to myself will last all of the remaining time i'm alone & when they come back and they leave their shoes wherever they thoughtlessly take them off and i over think how everything will get done tomorrow & when the next creative christmas card arrives in the mail it won't be quite so ok ....

basically i have about 27 minutes left of ok

: )

 
outtakes from mom's christmas picutre

things that make me smile include but aren't limited to -
a winter quilt on my bed
clean boys with wet hair fresh from the shower
nativity scenes
christmas cards in the mail
amie coming in less that 2 weeks .... and chad&lisa
benny & i quote 'according to the scriptures i don't like tomatoes' end quote

merry christmas ~
ps. i have 5 poinsettias in my house. 5. its very festive.

rex bought me one of those whack 'em chocolate oranges & twinkle lights for our room.

merry christmas : )

we went tree shopping yesterday.

can you believe they sell trees for that price? or really that people actually buy trees at that price!

we are not those people : )

the girls would have been perfectly content to have this ^ snow globe over a tree, i think.

but we went with a real tree over the princess snow globe!

they got more candy canes out of the dressed up santa that walked the lot than they should have been allowed to have had.

we stopped by target for not these shoes .... but yes, more candy canes & this year for the 1st time ever little fake tinsel trees - one for the boys, one for the girls.

the local christmas parade was tonight - regy & molly had their parade waves down.

and that's the start of christmas month around here!

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for the record this post had already been started before i got the 'i think you need to post again' text from amie. just for the record : )

it's still foggy.

we're enjoying the last day of our thanksgiving vacation - even though in town we pass christmas tree lots.

we are listening to christmas music, last night bing crosby was singing some great classic & benny asked if it was matt kearney : ) thanks goes to his dad & his aunt for that!

this is our 1 and only 2011 thanksgiving picture - we had a beautiful time.

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we went to the cows yesterday. it was good therapy after a extra pregnant morning where i changed pants 4 times before 9:30am and i cried over not finding the can opener and being out of pam cooking spray. i really did, i threw away 1/2 the drawer looking for it : )  good therapy to just let them be who they are, to enjoy them for that.

did you know she talks now? she does. she says ' i'm two.' and cookie and cow and moo and wow and mommy and no and this darling little version of water and molly that sound like 'wahee' & MO! she laughs & giggles and will tell you molly is 3. she points out every baby she sees and claps her hands and goes ohhh! when you tell her we're going to have a baby. she will call my name over and over without stopping til i acknowledge whatever it is she is doing or looking at.

she looked up at me yesterday and said 'mom, you are taller than me.'

foggy days let us think its kinda winter-ish - instead of still warmer enough to be shirtless : ) really he said he ran into a red ant pile and taking off his shoes and shirt seemed like the best way to handle it.

she wanted to pull the wagon the whole way back .... it made for great exercise for her but not so much for me : )

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so ben's pose here is hilarious but past that i'm in love with what this picture represents .......

happy thanksgiving ~

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i've had my ear piece in my ear tonight listening to a couple of sermons from habakkuk of all books. there is actually very relevant wisdom to be found in habakkuk. which just goes to show how perfect God's Word is.  rex has gone back to podcast listening vs sports talk listening in the mornings : ) and he is now sharing all sorts with me. he had one last week on mary & martha he said i should listen to and told me he'd figured out 'who' i was most like .....

that totally made me curious : )

good stuff, made the kitchen clean up that much easier. his lunch is made and i am even baking a cake.

he brought this home from the store tonight.  ya - pumpkins & egg nog in the same post is probably not kosher .... regan had her first taste tonight. we're actually not the biggest egg nog fans which is why i'm baking using a recipe that calls for it. he really bought it for my mom & jack ... and now i guess regan : )

they are all gone tonight enjoying the proper season with pumpkin pie night at awana.

the minutes left on the timer were not enough to take a shower in  .... or at least not as many minutes as i want to stand in the shower!  so here i am.

thanksgiving is next week already. already. i googled thanksgiving crafts today but i know myself better than that ... we'll be going good to make turkey hands. and since that is not the point of thanksgiving anyway we are combating the whine syndrome around here with immediately having to answer tell me one thing, right now, you're thankful for. which, for the record is working quite nicely. another new line is rodgers don't do that ...... jack especially has picked up on that one 'tell 'em mom, rodgers don't do that' and then he'll fill in the blank with some sinful something that i'm to remind a sibling we don't do : )

even though the weather is just barely catching up to the dates on the calendar i'm getting excited for the holidays & just past that, is our little man baby coming ....

who was it that said 'he who is not thanking God for His benefits is forgetting them ....'  ???
we have so much to be thankful for.

and so we don't leave without a person picture ... we hunted up one to close with.

- - -

the sky, as we walked down the road tonight -

i was dead asleep dreaming this morning .... a weird dream. some friend was smoking cigarettes & there were sirens and then POUND POUND POUND!

i wasn't dreaming anymore when i realized someone was at the front door. maybe i'd missed first regular knocks & he felt the need to start pounding and using that obnoxious metal knocker.

nobody uses our front door.

i scrambled to find something decent to wear.

willed the noise not to wake up the kids.

and tired to be somewhat polite when i made it outside to tell the truck driver he could just unload the almond hulls by the haystacks and leave the order slip on the tractor.

ugh, good morning.

- - - 

but this was kinda cute : )  jacky helped her put molly's shoes on & built her a fort. she crawled under and just laid there.

- - -

i'm not sure at 30 weeks pregnant this was the best thing to find .... but oh.my.goodness it's good : )

- - -

and then she realized she was being watched : )

- - -

he followed the little black beetle across the driveway -

- - -

she was doing her own bit of christmas dreaming : )

- - -

i've read some neat stuff this week on life/parenting/relationships .... i'm in the middle of all 3 right now : ) it's been a good reminder to live in the now, enjoy what is right in front of me.

these guys are right in front of me ... we wrapped school up and went down the road to meet rex on his way home.

the outside, the fresh air, them .... was better for me than that gelato : )

and i dare you to sit still & listen to this song - its sure to add a bit of pep to whatever you're doing!

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