Christmas Fun, cont'd

I forgot to mention the Rhema lights on my list of Christmas cheer. I took the boys for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It was amazing! Definitely a must see at Christmas every year.

And this book. It belongs on the list, too. I checked out the audio version from the public library. Funny!! The characters made me laugh out loud, but the mystery plot was intriguing.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

No one is going to confuse me with Martha Stewart anytime soon, but I'm happy with my Christmas decorating attempts this year. Okay, so I still have two wreaths and a roll of ribbon sitting on the floor, silently waiting for some attention. And there aren't actually any presents under the tree yet. But we have enough garland, lights, and ornaments to give the place a holiday feel.

Other holiday elements that have fueled my Christmas spirit:

• Operation Shoe Box and Angel Tree shopping
• Studying the book of Luke to remember the real reason we celebrate this season
• Ornament exchange and fellowship with the girls from church (It's actually called the Women's Ministry, but that sounds like a bunch of ladies with orthopedic shoes and shawls.)
• Christmas radio on pandora.com
• The Nutcracker movie - pretty cheesy, but it held the boys' attention for at least 15 minutes
• Other Christmas kids movies - Netflix has TONS of them
•  Peppermint hot chocolate at Panera or Starbucks - not a bad way to drop five bucks
• Christmas cards in the mailbox. I debated about sending any this year and finally settled on boxed cards from Walmart with a picture of the boys placed inside. I took hundreds (okay, maybe tens) of pics of the boys in front of the mantle before I got a decent one. I had to bribe them with candy to get them to quit tickling each other. Here's the one I finally chose. It's a little blurry, but I think it's a pretty cute shot of my two favorite boys.

Fun Day...Before the Bicycle Wreck

We had such a fun day with the Drake family at their new house a couple of weeks ago (yes, this is a very belated post). Mason was in outdoorsman heaven with his outdoorsey friend, Kaelan - wading in creeks, "hunting" squirrels, "trapping" raccoons. Carter wasn't allowed on the Survivorman expeditions, but he had Kolson and Kendall to play video games and tire swing games with.

The day would've been perfect if everyone had decided to stay on the tire swing, but they decided to ride their bikes instead. Carter thought it would be a good idea to pedal as fast as possible down the steepest hill he could find...with obvious results.

Five stitches. Very traumatic experience with a very large needle. But two weeks later, it's all better. Lesson learned.

Our First Earthquake

We've had two earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past few days. Everyone in our family slept through the first one, which was at about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday. But Jas and I felt the second one last night at about 11:00 p.m. I don't think I would've known what was going on if there hadn't been a quake earlier that day. The walls swayed, there were rattling noises, and I felt a little motion sick. It was very weird!!

For the first time in my life, I have some decisions to make. I have to decide what our family earthquake emergency plan is (after I figure out what the heck you're supposed to do during an earthquake). I have to decide how much earthquake insurance to add to our homeowners policy. And should I add "first earthquake" to the boys' baby books?