royalmom

Christmas morning was a big thrill for Xander this year. He’ll be three in two weeks and every gift was worthy of screaming out “Oh Baby!!!!” or his version of “Holy smokes,” which comes out “Moly schlokies!!!!”
Isaac got his Transformers and Power Rangers, while Xander opened his super heroes . Each got a puzzle and a light saber. Gifts are still pretty inexpensive at this age:)
Jason ALWAYS guesses correctly his gifts from me, so along with his mini digital camera key chain, he got four cans of food. Yeah baby! He was fooled this time. And I got the Courtney Love autobiography and the Stitch And Bitch Nation book. It turns out the Courtney Love book isn’t really a biography, but more of an anthology of poems, photos, and diary entries. Since I can barely stand deciphering the doctor’s handwriting at work, I don’t think I can tolerate an entire book of handwriting. Its going back to the book store today.

…or a little over two months. We’ve had them in the modified brooder box under the deck, for a few weeks now and they are doing great! Today was finally dry, so we all went outside to play and Jason cleaned out the box. It looks like my two Buff Orpingtons are molting a little, so feathers are littered all over the box. Or maybe the Red Stars are beating them up, as they’ve made it clear the Buffs are low on the pecking order.
Here’s the box. The feeder and waterer are kept inside the box on little shelves, and a rain proof lid sits on top. As you can see, our yard is mucho ghetto, especially after the rain and wind storm. The window down there is Jason’s office, and he gets to hear them pecking at the side of the house once in a while.

Two reds and a Buff…the chicken on the right is named “Drum Stick” because if she turns out to be a he, its dinner time! hahahaha!

The best I could do getting a pic of all five. They are cruising around the backside of the mansion they will move into in the spring.

What’s happenin’ ladies?

The mailman brought it to the door during breakfast. Isaac had to hurry and finish his cereal before he could open the package.

So exciting! The envelope feels so bulky and heavy! What kinds of things from Germany could be in there?

There is our gingerbread man!!!!! He must have been hittin’ the Guinness pretty hard to be wearing lederhosen during the cold winter season (or any season haha!! ).

Yummy! The kids found the candy…gummies and chocolate money, mmmmmm. “Kids, you check out the gunmmies, while mommy investigates this chocolate.”


And here’s the whole lot. Kelly did an amazing job with this project! The photo scrap book includes all of the photos in my previous post, a local recipe and a written account of the trip. Also a pic of gingy with a good looking military dad;) Hi Sean!

And, of course, I knew eventually I was going to have to share the chocolate…

One of Isaac’s current school projects is to send off a paper gingerbread man out of state. We traced out a pattern and cut him out of brown paper. Isaac drew on a face and we sent him off to Germany to be further decorated and sent back with some cultural flare for a great learning experience.

Kelly and her three girls (and baby brother) went above and beyond with the project, and sent us these great photos of our gingerbread man dressed up in lederhosen, checking out the local sites.

Getting ready to head out…

Here comes the bus!

McDonalds…

Christmas market…

Bruder Grimm Statue…

Farmers market…

Pizza Hut…

Gummi bear store…

Our adventures into Pseudo-homeschooling through Connections Academy, have been AWESOME. Isaac loves it. I love it. We just casually login to our account each day, whenever the heck I feel like it, and we go through our handful of (well balanced) assignments. It takes us a couple hours and we don’t have to go anywhere, pack any lunches, or be harassed with any fees, fundraisers, or overcrowded classrooms. We can join in on field trips, or not.

This week he just added Spanish, as an elective. He mastered 1-10 and we are waiting on our CD to come in the mail for the next lessons. We will definitely be continuing on with this schooling!

They were such cheese balls too!

I don’t know if there’s much of a change, or if Jason is just zooming in a smidge closer each time? haha! But all of the usual comments about having twins in there have started. It goes something like this:

When are you due?
March.
Really!? You must have twins in there? Good lord!
Nope. Just one baby. But if he doesn’t come out weighing 70 pounds, I have some ‘splainin’ to do:)

Look at my cutie baby. He helped me play with the new brown backdrop in the studio, today, before a session. He and I are still growing out our hair, the two curly heads:)