Last week, while Robert was on one of his many trips, I decided to get festive around here. We were debating whether or not to put up a Christmas tree this year because the fake one we put up every year is huge. We decided that it took up a little too much of our living room and since we want people to buy our house we didn't want to make any room look smaller than it is. But the kiddies were starting to worry that Santa wouldn't know where to put the presents, so on a spur of the moment, I threw the kids into the car and bought us a $15 fake tree. It looked pretty sad sitting in the corner of the play room and I didn't want to dig through all of our Christmas tree stuff so I decided we needed to make our own Christmas balls this year. And so we did.

It was a sticky, gluey mess and the kids loved it.

Glitter was everywhere. I'm still sweeping it up.

Ethan suggested we take a timed photo...so here it is. We were drying the balls on my phone charger wire. That's right...using my noggin.



See, now doesn't that make our little tree look cheery?



And here they are on Sunday. They clean up nice. :)

The day after Thanksgiving we got to attend our very first oyster roast given by Aaron and Sara. Now, these things are a big deal. Aaron built a special table just for the event. Bushels of oysters were bought. Aaron's brother, Brent, came in and brought a huge 55 gallon metal drum to use for a fire so we could stay nice and toasty while waiting for the oysters to cook. I'm telling you, it is a big deal. And never, under any circumstance, make the mistake of calling it a 'clam bake' because you may get cut out of the will. Fortunately, I wasn't in the will when I said it. Ooops.

Sara and Aaron had invited about 20 friends and family for the event. (I'm pretty sure we fall under both groups. :) The night was freezing but clear and as the oysters cooked we found ourselves moving in small circles as we heated the front of our bodies while our backs froze and then we'd flip to thaw out our backs. Sara had a huge spread of food to occupy us in between shucking oysters. Aaron and his brother promised us at least a mild taste of redneck-ness by setting up two out-houses.

One for the boys.

And one for the girls.
Now...obviously, the girls bathroom was never used. But I did hear that the boy's one was used a couple of times. Thankfully, I never had to witness it.

And now to business. Shucking oysters.


Brent would steam them and then dump them on the table. Then you put on a glove, take the piping hot oyster and knife and slice open the oyster shell. After that all you had to do was cut out the oyster with the knife and eat if off the blade.
After you ate the oyster you just toss the shell in the hole in the table and start again. I think there were about 6 bushels of oysters all together and I can't even begin to remember how many I personally ate. I did decide that there were two types of oysters. The chewy well-cooked kind and the slurpy wet kind. I'm only a fan of the chewy kind. And although I had plenty of great experience shucking oysters at the Pearl Factory (hee hee) I found that shucking oysters that weren't soaked in alcohol for weeks at a time are quite a bit tougher to pry open. Don't worry, though, I'm a quick learner. Not much comes between me and food.

Here are the Weltz brother in charge of the mêlé. After most of the oysters were consumed the men went on to play a Finnish game called Mölkky which was really fun. Little wood stumps were number 1 through 12 and you'd throw a separate small log at the numbered ones. If you hit more that one stump at a time then each stump is worth one point. If you only hit one stump down then you get the number on the stump for your points. After your turn each log is set up again in the place it was hit to. I know you wanted all of these details. Don't pretend like you got bored in my extra long description of the game. I know you loved it.
Every few minutes they'd have to come back and warm up. While we were waiting by the fire, Brent & Sara told us all sorts of scary ghost stories. By the end of the night nobody wanted to go home. I can't wait for the next clam bake....oh, I mean, oyster roast.

I'm sick. Goopy. Foggy. I have about three blogs I need to put up but I can't seem to concentrate long enough to do it. However, yesterday all three kids did/said something so funny that I need to write them down before I forget. Reader beware: 1 story is bathroom humor, 1 is snot humor and the last is pure silliness. It started, as it so often does, with Alaina.

When Alaina got off the bus she had a sad, funny little story to tell me. She has had a stuffy nose this week and has had many giant sneezes that have produced a surprisingly huge amount of snot. Especially if you consider the tiny, itsy nose that she has on her face. So off the bus she comes and in all seriousness she put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Mama, I have to tell you som'thin. When I was on the bus I had a really big bless you (sneeze) and so much snot went all over." Austin, "It was so much all on her face." Alaina, "Yeah. It was stringy and hangy on my face. And there were kids laughing at me." Me, "Well they were probably just surprised to see that. I'm sure it just seemed silly and they were laughing at that." Alaina, "No. They were laughing at me, so I just went like this." (Dramatic pause with her lips pursed together and eyes wide looking out to the side for a few long seconds.) She continued, "And then when the bus stopped I walked up to the bus driver and said, 'Uh. Excuse me.' and she said, (alaina now uses a falsetto with her best southern drawl.) "Oh my goodness. Bay-beee! What happened to you!' And I told her I bless you'ed and she gave me a napkin." End of story. A minute later she was telling me she won table points at school. Such a silly girl.

After we got home I started getting everyone ready for gymnastics. I was running up and down the hallway trying to grab gym clothes, get snacks ready, take out homework and pack up the kids. As I was heading towards the boy's room I heard Ethan from the bathroom shout, and I mean SHOUT, "That was SO AWESOME!!!!" As I skid around the corner I see Ethan sitting on the pot and when he looks at me he says, "I had a huge poo and I tried to push it out and I couldn't. So I pushed REALLY hard and it came out. Boff. Like that. It was so AWESOME!" When they say that it doesn't take much to make a kid happy...they mean it.

Once I got the twins ready, said hello to Rob who had just walked in the door from his third trip this month, kissed Ethan goodbye, I ran the twins into the car. About 2 minutes in to the drive Austin found Ethan's bike helmet. 1 minute after that he had it buckled on tight. About 2 minutes after that he decided to take it off. 1 minute after that he realized he couldn't get it off. 10 seconds after that he was in a full blown panic attack, pulling and tearing at the helmet to take it off. I wasn't able to pull over but I was able to distract him enough to keep him calm until we reached the gymnasium. Because we were late and there weren't any parking spaces left, I stopped by the front door and told the kiddies to jump out. Laina was out like a flash and I turned around and was ready to un-click Austin's helmet when I saw the most particular sight. Austin's legs were walking towards me like normal but his head seemed to be stuck in the back seat. It took a second for me to look past the squirming and twisting arms and legs to figure out that Austin had clipped the helmet to his seat belt when he clipped it onto his head. I quickly parked and rescued the boy. Austin shook his head back and forth and said, "I really don't like that helmet." *sigh*

They might not be the brightest bulbs in the pack but at least they can rely on their looks. And now I'm off to knock myself out with a NyQuil or two. As it is, I don't think I could concentrate long enough to proof-read any of this, so forgive the mistakes....