kickin' Christmas right in the keester....

katie moved the items from walmart.com that wouldn't let me check out to amazon.com....so have supermariobrothers3, the never shout never cd, a mp3 player, & smackdownvs.raw2011 ordered. also ordered wallets for xmas cards.
sims3, NCIS boardgame, & complete Soap collection dvd in the closet. have bought cat food for ms cuddles & toys for sasha.
now need to order mismatched socks &some dance stuff for katie....

Halloween

katie made her own outfit this year....Eighties Girl. she wore it for the girl scout halloween party & the school halloween parade. she was a cowgirl at beggar's night in lineville, and a football player to trick or treat with friends in mercer.

I volunteered for the school elementary fall festival....I made new games....witch hat toss...zombie attack...frankenstein bowling....brought back the apple tree... and threw in the infamous penny pop can toss. we also had a haymaze....kj & I helped load & unload hay for that.

sadly, I think miss kate has about outgrown halloween.

our only decorations again this year were in "The Woods". didn't even buy any pumpkins. how sad is that. didn't watch The Great Pumpkin or Hocus Pocus....did watch The Nightmare Before Christmas a few times.

found this quote in the Leanin' Tree catalog....

It is good to be a child sometimes...and never more than at Christmas.
Charles Dickens

Let Freedom Ring

when I was a girl, my parents threw a huge 4th of July picnic....there was homemade potato salad, hamburgers & hotdogs, homemade ice cream...the city cousins would come...and Grandpa Vermal would buy huge fireworks assortments & shoot off for us at night.
we have in the past went to Lije's for the 4th & shot off fireworks. KJ never liked the noise. we have shot off our own fireworks sporadically, but not for a few years. We have went to Mercer's 4th of July a couple of times. Katie has danced at Princeton's 4th of July a couple of times. we haven't even bought fireworks for the last few years. didn't even get to Lineville to take pictures of the big blowups & eat Randy's ice cream this year. I am just not into it, I guess.
My new camera has fireworks option, Katie took pics at this years Mercer rescheduled 4th...the original 4th got rained out.

found on Status Shuffle

the 4 stages of life: 1) you believe in Santa Claus 2) you don't believe in Santa Claus 3) you are Santa Claus 4) you look like Santa Claus


usually by July I am humming Xmas songs, digging out Xmas movies, plotting the Xmas gift list...figuring where I can steal $ from to buy gifts...what my credit card balances are....stashing gifts in the closet....

but not this year...I have queried the kids on what they'd like...Katie wants a cell phone & hot pink digital camera. Kj might like an XBox360 game.

so I lied...

one year I found natural egg dies in a magazine...beet juice, pickle juice, etc. & we tried it. so maybe I am a good mom.....or not.

Easter

not one of my all time favorite holidays...the easter bunny would always bring us baskets & hide them in the house (away from the outside dogs!) while we were at church. then we'd go to grandma & grandpa's for a big dinner. the easter bunny always left us letters thanking us for being good girls, too.
I have over the years made my kids easter baskets, bought them easter gifts, had easter egg hunts, took them to easter egg hunts...the last few years I just throw the girl scout easter egg hunt & that's all the easter katie gets. except for the holiday joy of watching her mother o.d. on cadbury's cream eggs & peeps. no new dress, no sunrise services, no big family dinner. no cutesy easter basket. no adorable stuffed lambies & bunnies. she did pick out a chocolate caramel bunny at walmart this year. Easter is a religious holiday. I just don't celebrate it. in the same vein, Xmas is also a religious holiday, but you just CAN'T not have Xmas. honestly. unless you belong to a religion that prohibits Xmas. but that means you have to BELONG to a religion....