A few pics from our crazy week before Christmas

Carli wrapped up in her blanket. A little "deer in the headlights," but still cute. :) She loves her blankets! Brandon performing with the chimes team at their holiday performance. He did a great job! Kate getting into the actions during the 2nd grade sing. Watch out Broadway, she's coming!
The 2nd grade had a Polar Express Day. They made train cars and wore their pjs and slippers. They put on a parade around the school. It was a fun morning. Kate wanted her train car to be hot pink and she decorated it with her own drawings and snowflakes. Definitely not the most creative of the morning, but I thought she did a great job!
On to the class parties. Brandon's class played bingo and when they got a bingo they each got to go choose a gift from the book exchange. They had tons of yummy food, too. Here he is with the Magic Tree House book he recieved (funny, it was the same book that Kate took to her book exchange). He was excited about it. :)Kate's class did a book exchange, too. Her teacher read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" with a twist. The words "right" and "left" were added to many places in the story. They all sat in a circle and had a gift. Every time he would say "right" or "left" they would pass their book that way. At the end of the story the gift they were holding was theirs to open and keep. Cute idea and the kids had a blast with it!Here's Kate and her good friend in her class at their party.Megan's class started their party by performing "Jingle Bells" in sign language for the parents. It was really good! They knew all the words and signs. So cute!They did the funniest relay race. Megan's teacher put a glob of vaseline on each of their noses and then seperated them into 2 teams. They had to race to the chair, stick their nose in a pile of pom poms until one stuck and then run back. It was the funniest thing to watch! The kids thought it was so fun and were laughing the whole time. Here is Megan and her friend with their red pom pom noses.Here's the whole class with their noses. Megan making her reindeer craft. The parties were very fun and successful! However, next year I'm not sure I'm going to try to help with all 3 of them! It was crazy! :)

A Mommy's Girl, for sure

This was my favorite thing to do when I was little, too. I loved licking the mashed potatoes off the beaters. Hee, hee. :) This is so cute! Carli loved it!

Merry Christmas everyone!

This is beautiful. It is a wonderful representation of the Christmas story. What a blessing it is to have a Savior, who is Jesus Christ.

Week of insanity...

I made it through, but man, it was quite a doozy of a week. Besides all the craziness of getting everything ready for Christmas and my inlaws to come Monday, most of this week was taken up by activities at school. Monday evening we started out at the 3rd and 4th grade music concert. Brandon is on the 3rd grade chimes team and they played 2 songs and then all of the 3rd graders sang a couple songs. I love the chimes! They are so neat and their sound is so sweet and pure. I'm very proud of Brandon for being in this group and doing so well musically. He loves it!


Tuesday morning I trudged back up to the school with all the kiddos to see the 2nd grade holiday sing. We sat and waiting in the gym for 1/2 hour to hear 5 minutes of songs, but it's so worth it to hear the kids and see how happy they are that you are there rooting them on. I am grateful that I can be at these events! After this I ran home to prepare a dessert for a visiting teaching luncheon my companion and I did for our sisters we visit teach. I dropped Megan and her friend off at school and headed over to the luncheon. It was soooo fun! It was a perfectly beautiful and warm day so the little kiddos all played outside while we ate and visited. The dessert I made is called Christmas Delight. It's really yummy and includes pistachio pudding so it's green. I took the leftovers home and my family (except my hubby who will not touch anything pistachio...) had some after dinner that night. Well, it was so cute and funny because when Brandon first saw it he said, "Is that Shrek pudding?" LOL! I laughed so hard. I will post the recipe on the sidebar. From now on in this house it will be known as Shrek pudding! Hee, hee.


Anyway, left the luncheo and had to run a couple errands before Ben came home early so we could pick up Brandon at school and go to his ADHD evaluation. Got hime just in time and got to the doctor. A friend picked up the girls and took them to girl scouts, which was at the same time as the evalutaion. We took Carli with us. By the end we were all exhausted by this day. The appointment went well and I'm so blessed to have such good friends to help out on days when life is just crazy with 4 kids needing to be in different places!


Wednesday was somewhat calm. I had to make cookies to take to Brandon's Excel party after school. That was fun, but once again, had all the kiddos with me so I was mostly chasing the girls around during the party. That night we had to make the Polar Express train car for Kate's Polar Express Day Thursday. I'll post pics of all this stuff eventually, but right now I'm just trying to right it all down! :)


Thursday morning brought us all to the school again bright and early for the Polar Express parade. The kids were all so cute in the pjs and box train cars. Man, some people are so creative! I, however, refuse to do most of the work because I believe the kids should do most of the work. It's not a contest between parents for whose train is the best. K, off the soap box... The rest of the day was spent making sure everything was ready for the kids' Holiday parties that were all the next day. Cookies, crafts, games, book exchanges, teacher gifts, etc. Then that evening we had a young woman from our ward come practice our song that we will be singing on Sunday at church. Ben and I have not sung together in some time so we are both very excited! Hopefully we can have someone sitting with the kiddos so we don't have a repeat of last time one of us was up at the pulpit...don't want to rehash all that.


As soon as we were done rehearsing Ben left to pick up a mattress set we found on craigslist. We didn't want Ben's parents to have to sleep on the sofa bed for a whole week so we found a bed to put in Brandon's room and they can have a bedroom to be in as well and not be in the middle of the family room. The evening was successful and we ended up with a nice queen mattress set for $50! Yeehaw!


Friday...Up bright and early once again to get all the kids ready to go as well as all the supplies for the parties. Dropped the two older ones at school, ran back home to finish getting ready, drop Carli off at a friend's house for the morning, and get back to the school by 9. We made it, barely. The parties were a lot of fun. I have some of the most hilarious pictures from Megan's kindergarten party. She has the funnest teacher. I like her so much. The morning was completely insane running from one party to the next (I was helping with all 3--no, next year I will not be doing that) and we finally got home and just completely relaxed. The day was so beautiful and warm, too!!! We played outside for a couple house and even got the garage cleaned up a bit (it needs lots more help, but it looks a ton better already). Pulled a late-nighter last night finishing a project for a gift. I'm so glad it's finished!


Today was busy running around, dealing with a "think it might be broken" leg (turned out to just be a contusion), getting last minute shopping done, and cleaning the house, which because of this crazy week, has been completely neglected and we have company coming Monday morning (of course).


So, sorry for the long boring post, but it has been one crazy week! I wish all of you a very happy and merry Christmas holiday. Enjoy the season. Enjoy the music. Enjoy the food. Enjoy the family and friends. Enjoy the gifts given and received. Enjoy the wonderful spirit, which is from our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Christmas Carol Quiz

This is fun! Christmas carols are my favorite music of all. I got 100%--let me know if you can, too! :)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/carolquiz,0,4932856.triviaquiz

New Glasses!

Last week I finally took Kate into the eye doctor after her complaining on and off for the past few months about not being able to see well. It was a good thing I did! The dr. told us that basically her right eye is not trying very hard anymore and her left eye has taken over. She is not seeing well at all and I don't think we realized (she didn't, either) how bad it was. It's not horrible or anything, but on the way home from picking up her glasses tonight she was reading everything she could see like she had never noticed the big signs on the stores before. :) Cute! Here's our little 4-eyes:
And here's a funny one of Carli from last week that I'm posting here because it's too cute! Hee! Hee!

Hubby Praises

Tonight we had the missionaries over for dinner and Ben made almost the entire dinner himself (the hardest parts). He made awesome manicotti and even made key lime pie for dessert! It was great! Everyone loved it and I was very grateful to him for being willing to do that. Then after dinner he put together my new bookshelf for my office so I can finally get the boxes unpacked--Yippee!!! Thanks hon! I love you!

I'm stealing this from Colleen, but it's too great not to share!

Blast from the past

While rummaging through the garage Saturday I found these old roller skates that were mine. Do they look familiar to any of you? They are Fisher Price roller skates from 20+ years ago! Did any of you have these, too? My kids think they are great. Here's Megan enjoying the find!

A Bunch of Stuff

It's been quite a month already. We started out the first Saturday with Kate and Megan at a dance lcinic. They loved it and had a great time. they even came home and taught the dance to Carli. Now that was a riot. We'll have to get video of that! It was sooo funny to see Carli trying to do what her big sisters were doing.

Of course, on Dec. 1 we started our advent calenders. We make this one every year:

I made 4 strands of kisses this year so there is one for each child and we're not fighting over them every day. They love having their own. Each strand is 24 Hershey's kisses wrapped in celophane and a ribbon between each one.

Next we attempted our first gingerbread house. It was quite the experience. Here's me holding it together while it dries.
Here's the pretty much finished product. It lasted about 5 minutes and then started to crumble. :) We didn't wait for it to dry long enough before starting to load the candy on to decorate it. The kids were glad to be able to eat it right away, though! Next year we'll do better.

This gave me the hardest laugh this morning!

What a great way to start the day. :) My brother put the "Elf Dance" together of the Johnson men, my dad and 3 brothers. Enjoy!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1211265655

Just a few fun pictures

Last Sunday, all ready in their new Holiday garb. :) I thought I'd snap a few pictures. Yeah... they were very cooperative, eh? I did get some good ones here and there, though. These are a mix of good and funny.

My handsome Brandon. I love this!

Carli: "Get out of my way, Kate."My absolute fave. Love the sisters!The next shot was Megan starting to sneeze. Hee, hee!Carli has learned this lovely face from her oldest sister.
See?

FHE Christmas Party

Monday we finally brought out the Christmas tree and made a party out of it. It was really fun! We had a nice dinner with my green plates and German tower Ben brought from Germany several years back on a business trip (also where he went on his mission). The kids loved watching it spin.

Here's Carli in her new jammies ready for the occasion (binky matches and all!).She was so excited to see Daddy when he got home from work (as always). There was a very excited feeling with a party happening soon! Here's Ben dancing with Carli in the kitchen.All ready for dinner. Let's eat!

Then we tackled the tree. Here's Brandon trying to get the top on.

Brandon and Daddy putting the branches on the tree. Brandon loves helping with this kind of thing. There was a lot of caroling and dancing during our little party. So fun!The mantle ready for Christmas!Megan putting on ornaments.Snack time! Taking a break from decorating for some yummy brownis, chips and dip, and queso with tortilla chips. Yummo!Daddy hanging his Michigan football Santa.Kate trimming the tree.This was Carli the next morning. Notice there were no pics of her helping with the tree (as I'm sure there would have been a lot of "helping" from her had she been there). Five minutes into dinner she had a sort of meltdown and was just ready for bed! About 5 hours later I heard her throwing up through the baby monitor. Let's just say it was a very long night...she fell asleep on the couch the next morning. Sweet girl.I thought it was a very fun and successful evening! Everyone had a great time and I think it got our Christmas season started in a great family way. Tonight we attempted our first gingerbread house. Let's just say I'll save all those details for the next post. ;)