Meet "Scoot"

This is one of Addie's Christmas presents from Santa. Her scooter which she named "Scoot." She rides her scooter everywhere. To the potty, to her bedroom, to the table for breakfast. I call her name and she comes blazing in on her scooter. This morning at the table, I look down and of course there is Scoot and Maggie is licking grits off of it. I said, "Addie, did you spill your grits?" and she said, "No, I just gave Scoot a bite."

...and then she decides Scoot needs another bite.

Later that afternoon, the girls and I piled in the car to go to the mud pit and get some fresh air. We had not seen the cousins since Santa came and wanted to meet Snowball #2. (I say #2 because #1 is in hamster heaven. The boys found him yesterday morning very, very still and so Beaver (that's their dad) decided he should go to PetSmart to get another one....one that wasn't so still...one that was a little more lively if you know what I mean. Anyway, the kids played in the mud for some time and then we all went to our house for a sleep over....and a bath!!

Riley, Reid, Hannah, Anna and Addie

We spent most of the night on the Wii. (Some pics of the kids bowling.)

Great form!!

Even little Addie is a tough one to beat!!

The end of a long hard day of play....sweet dreams!!

Merry Christmas from the Nicholsons!

a singer and a ballet dancer

In the last few days since I have not posted, alot has happened to post about. Saturday morning we had a dress rehearsal for the preschool choir who would sing in church on Sunday morning. Here Addie is singing....or is she doing the chicken dance?

... after practice we had a pizza party...

...and after pizza we gathered in the hallway to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and blow out the candles on His cake. The kids all wanted to know how old He was???


As you can see, Addie is tired of me taking her picture.

Nick and Anna at church the next morning.

She really looks enthused. We didn't get good pictures. Still trying to figure out the settings on my camera. We did get a good video though. The kids did a great job. It was really cute to watch!
After church Anna and I went to see the Nutcracker at Converse. My little sister,Emma, is one of the "cherubs" and we go every year to watch her. Anna tells me she wants to be in the Nutcracker one day. Does she actually realize she has to take ballet? She really does love it. Me, not so much. I go for Emma and Anna's entertainment. I am just not a fan of ballet. Anyway, here are some pictures:

We usually finish off by picking out an $8 Nutcracker on sale for $16 which usually gets broken within the day. And sure enough, it broke when we got it home. I just can't get her to understand that it is for display and that it will not actually crack nuts!! Some superglue should do the trick. All joking aside, I really look forward to this because its just Anna and me time!!

All tuckered out...

I have two busy days to post about, but I am just too tired and my brain won't work. Last night my laptop decided to act up (Rhonda, I need your dad's #) and tonight I am beat!! I thought I was supposed to feel rested, refreshed, rejuvenated after the weekend. I am so behind!! I will post pics tomorrow. Until then, have a good night's rest. I know I will.

Drenched!!

No, I'm not speaking of all the wonderful rain we had these past couple of days. Although I do have to give a big thank you to my hubby who put our screens on our windows a few weeks ago. I was able to do one of my favorite things. Lift the windows and listen to the rain. Heavenly!! When I say drenched, I am talking about my sweet Addie. Someone please help!! I am in need of some good advice. She has been potty-trained for quite some time now. Almost a year to be exact. However in the last couple of weeks, she has decided that going pee pee is much too inconvenient and she would just rather go on about her activities than to stop and use the potty. So what am I left with...alot of laundry. Thank goodness its only the pee pee part. I just don't know what to do. I will look up and notice her face beet red, eyes watering, back arched and she's doing the dance. I order her to the bathroom and she goes. And it's like ok mom and thanks for letting me know. But I don't always catch her though and this is when the floodgates open. This evening she said, "Mom where's my panties because I want to put on some beautiful ones?" Like I'm not supposed to know that she is hiding her undies so I won't know she's wet them.

Here are some pics from earlier in the summer. Amber and Beaver are building an addition and they are living in one big mud hole right now. One day we just let the kids go! It had just rained the day before and they were dying to play in the mud and here is how it turned out.

In case you can't tell, these are my nephews, Riley and Reid.

not so bad

If there is such a thing....best stomach virus we've ever had. Anna only got sick once. It's been two days since it started and Addie and I are bug-free. Yah!!! I am beginning to wonder if it was a bug or not. Any way, we enjoyed our day in. In these pictures the girls got all dressed up and came in to the kitchen and said, "Guess what we are?" To give you a little background info, the shirts they are wearing (courtesy of Emma's hand-me-downs) are Limited Too RHINESTONE tanks. Another piece of important info is the music that you can't hear. They put on their Hannah Montana cd. Can you guess? "We're ROCK STARS mom!"

Today Addie got in the car after school. If you could have seen the pride gleaming in her eyes!! I asked how school was and she quickly replied, "I have homework today mom." She is in 3k at my church, AMRBC. I said, "Oh you do?" and she said, "Yes, I have homework today." I pulled out her folder and made a huge deal of the assignment that I found in her bag. We went to Walmart to get some special glitter glue and crafts for her homework assignment. She was beside herself. Will this continue??? I know that it's hard to see, but she had to cut out the gift box and inside she had to draw a picture of a gift to give. She chose to give it to her big sis and she gave her a princess. And a very beautiful princess I might add. We had to fold over the flap and decorate it like wrapping paper. Let's just say we will be lucky if all the glitter glue dries by tomorrow. What innocence....or should I say naivety.

My poor hubby left Washington State at 7am this morning. It is now 12:30am and he is not home. Let's just say this was not a good day for flying. If you ask him, no day is good for that. He had 3 legs and all were delayed!! He will not be a happy camper when he gets home. Do I even need to say thank goodness the weekend is here!!!

Aaahhh, life is good...and then...

This afternoon after school it was cold and rainy and we came home and I got on the couch with the girls and watched "Charlie Brown Christmas" that I had tivo'd the night before. I sat under a warm cozy blanket just enjoying that moment and then it happened. The stomach virus. Anna got sick. It is now 11:00 and she has not gotten sick in a while. I spent most of the night trying to keep Addie away from her and washing my hands 1000 times. Why am I so paranoid you say? My worst fear is that this would happen while Nick is out of town. Yes, you guessed it. He's not only out of town, he's all the way across the country. No turning around for him. I just pray that I don't get it myself. I am armed. My best friend, Tammy went to the store for me. I called her in a panic when Anna got sick and told her to get me Gingerale (I know there's not ginger in it. But its what my mom gave me when I got sick), Lysol, and Clorox wipes. Luckily I had gone to the grocery store yesterday so I am prepared to be cooped up in the house for the next few days. Those 3 things were all I needed. She put them at the front door and I thanked her from afar. I've never tried to take care of kids while having the stomach virus. Let's just hope that I don't have to.......

This weekend...

Ok so this is the 3rd time that we have celebrated my dear nephews first birthday. Thus the life of a child with divorced parents!! We had one on his actual birthday, one with my mom and one with my dad.

Addie decides to go ahead and take a bite out of Liam's cake.

Anna and Addie's cousins' Reid, Riley and Kristen.

Today we gave the girls an early Christmas present. I found this book at Target. I had never seen it before. It's just the sweetest book....or should I say that watching their eyes glow as Nick read it was priceless. It is a book about Santa, where he lives, the elves and everything...you get the picture. It's sort of a "behind the scenes real life of Santa." The book is titled "Santa Claus."
It even had a letter from Santa and his "naughty list." Sooo cute!!

They were totally enthralled by the book. You could say it was a good purchase!! Reading this book should become a tradition. (We'll see how that goes when next year comes around :)

Reindeer slippers

I just don't understand it. How he can leave a warm, cozy bed at 4:30am to climb a tree and sit there and wait and freeze and wait some more. The entire time we have been married that has just puzzled me. He is so passionate about hunting. It's rubbing off on my little girl. She is wide-eyed, like a little sponge soaking it all in when he comes home with a deer or tells her stories about hunting. He brings home the kill and she's in the back of the truck studying every inch of it. Anyway, he went today with his video camera in hand trying to get some footage. He and his best friend, Michael have this dream to make Christian hunting movies and they are so excited and eager to tell men about Jesus. I am so proud of them. But still, I just don't get it. Maybe it's like him not understanding why I was in Walmart last Friday after Thanksgiving. To each his own. And so my day began as I took both girls to school and then off to my appointments. After taking care of work issues, I spent the rest of the day running errands to get ready for the weekend. The girls have a Christmas party Saturday night. Some friends of ours invite Santa and Mrs. Clause over for the night while the kids make cookies and open presents. It can't get much better than that. They have to wear their PJs and I spent all afternoon looking for the perfect slippers to matched their gingerbread gowns. Of course, they didn't really like the brown monkeys or the brown booties or the brown puppy slippers. Do you see a pattern? As soon as Anna spotted these, she was determined to take them home with her. Of course I tried to talk her out of it. After all, they didn't match. And they just happened to come in Addie's size too. How convenient. So the reindeer came home with us. The girls won....they are wearing these and they are so proud of them and so excited....and that is all that matters...

Flashback: June '08~After a great deal of resistance, I got my way. We bought the girls a trampoline.....what a blast!!

Classic

Not a lot going on today. After a short trip to the mall to help entertain Luke and Liam while they had their picture made, we got some Chick-fil-a and headed down to Belks to see the man himself....Santa. After visiting with Santa, we hurried home to catch one of my favorite holiday classics "Rudolf." I was in a hurry to get home so we would not miss a second of it. This would be the first year that Addie would really get to see it and appreciate it!! We just couldn't miss it. Ashlee said that she had it on dvd and we could borrow it if we didn't make it home in time. While that was nice and all, its just not the same. There's just something about the anticipation....Well, we didn't make it home in time, but thank goodness for tivo. Next best thing!!

Appropriate for this time of year....Addie found our Santa hat this summer and decided to pose for some pictures.