Mr. Mischief

A couple days ago Mike tried to put a CD into our DVD/CD player. It holds 5 discs. It wouldn't open and he thought it looked like there was a disc jammed into it. He took it apart today and found TEN DVD's in it! I think a little somebody (Porter!!) took it upon himself to jam a few extra 5 discs into the player. Mike thinks it happened while I was in charge and of course I think it happened while he was in charge of Porter. I'm sure we'll never know, but we will for sure be keeping a closer eye on him around the disc player!!!!!

Center Of Attention

Stella is spending a few days in Mt. Ayr with Nana and Papa. Porter has us all to himself...which he seems to be loving! This morning Mike drove our neighbors to the airport and stopped on the way home and brought Porter home a donut.

What a ham!

Don't worry he was moved to his booster seat after this photo....I don't need to be cleaning up chocolate donut off of our furniture all day!! :)

Here are a couple shots of him helping Mike mud the sunroom. He LOVES to go out there and help his daddy. Mike is tearing the wall down from the sunroom to the playroom on Monday!!! I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Disney On Ice

Last night the girls: me, Stella, mom, Sara, Hannah and Haydn all went to Disney On Ice. The theme was Celebrating 100 years of Disney, so there were scenes from many different Disney movies. Stella actually squealed in delight when Cinderella skated out on the ice...her all time favorite Disney princess! The show was really good and our seats were great.


Stella enjoying the show.

Haydn wasn't too sure about the show at the beginning....love this photo of her snuggling up to Sara!

I'm Bored--Christmas Survey

So Mike and Porter are at their favorite hangout, Home Depot. Stella is watching her all time favorite show, DragonTales and I'm bored so here goes...

25 Questions of Christmas
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping Paper, I think kids need to tear into their gifts!!
2. Real tree or artificial? Artificial, although I do like the idea of real, artifical is just EASIER! :)

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the weekend after Thanksgiving

4. When do you take the tree down? Normally a few days after Christmas

5. Do you like eggnog? No

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Hmmm...this is a hard one. I really loved my red suitcase I got with crayons on the outside of it! Also one year I got a doll that peed and you could feed it, too.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, a nicer one and we also have the Fisher Price Little People nativity set that mom gave the kids last year.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Mike--he's picky!

9. Easiest person to buy for? Stella and Porter

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Hmmm, another hard one! I do remember my sisters and I received some very fugly homemade dolls from our great Aunt Agnes (bless her!), they looked like puzzle pieces and were actually kind of scary!

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail, I love getting cards

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I like the all, but my favorite is the original Grinch

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? My big day is Black Friday!! Although sometimes I'll pick things up earlier is I see something.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Uhhh, yes...Elephant gift exchanges are good for something!

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? all the sweets!!!

16. White lights or colored on the tree? white

17. Favorite Christmas song? Dolly and Kenny anyone?!?!?! :)

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Our goal is to always be home on Christmas morning now that the kids are getting a older, but we do travel before and after.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Yes

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? gifts from Santa are open Christmas morning

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? the commericalism of everything

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? All the old ornaments from when I was growing up.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? homemade rolls---I'm easy to please :)

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? to be honest I haven't really thought about it...I'll get back to everyone who reads my blog so you know what to send me. LOL!!!!!

Story Time

Here's a little video of Stella "reading" (she memorizes them) one of her library books to Porter. Part way through he starts to point out a dog in the book so you can kind of her her saying things like "yes, there is a doggy", etc. :) And the book is about washing a car, just so you can kind of understand what she is saying. :)

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

The weather was wonderful today in Iowa, so we thought we'd take advantage and put up our outside Christmas decorations....beats doing it in 10 degree weather with blowing snow! The kids really had fun playing outside and "helping" with everything!



Stella being Stella :)

Here they are playing Ring Around The Rosie, Stella loves to do this song/dance she also loves to play Duck, Duck, Goose!

Silly Boy

Good Find

We've been wanting to get a mirror for our entryway for a while now. Yesterday we stopped at the new Goodwill that opened not to far away. The parking lot was PACKED. So we thought we'd see what was there. We found a mirror for the entryway for $3.99! Mike painted it last night and hung it up tonight. I think it looks great and the price was unbeatable!


Cute photo of Porter :)

Stella hugging a wooden doll I bought the summer I lived in Japan.

Stella loves to give Porter hugs, although sometimes they look more like she's putting him in a headlock. :)

Another Funny From Stella

One of Stella's favorite sayings is "I'm chillin' like a hot dog", she tells us this all the time...no clue where this came from. Mike is home for lunch right now and Stella asked him what he was doing and he said "Just chillin'" and she said "Chillin' like a villian, or chillin' like a hot dog"?

Fun Times

Last night our friends Blake and Lisa came over for pizza. They live in Omaha and were in town for a few nights. They have a boy, Grant, who is 3 and a little girl, Julia who is 3 months old. Stella was 110% obsessed with Julia and I can understand why, she is a total cutie pie!! Grant had lots of fun trying out Stella and Porter's toys. It was great to see the Vardaman Clan! :)


It was an exciting morning at our household. We cleaned Barney's fish bowl. Stella and especially Porter LOVE this task. They love to put the clean rocks back into his bowl. It doesn't get anymore exciting than this! LOL!

Cousins

Hannah and Haydn came over this morning to play while Sara went to a Mary Kay party. We always have fun when the H's are here! We played outside for a bit.



I rolled out paper and traced their bodies to decorate, here they are hard at work.

And a sight I never thought I'd see! Haydn and Porter playing NICELY together!! They used to mix together as well as oil and water, today they really got along great!

Child Labor

Gotta start putting the kids to work at a young age, right? Stella begged to help rake leaves today....while it was snowing none-the-less! We got the entire yard raked, with Mike's help of course! :) The leaves just all dropped in the last couple of days so we missed out on the nice raking weather last weekend.


I let Porter play with play-doh for the first time this week. Normally it is an activity I save to do while he is napping, but since he has decided that sleep is no longer cool, he gets to do a lot more things!


Stella and I were playing her Pretty Pretty Princess game earlier this week and she insisted that Bear and Frog needed to play, too. You can see they are all decked out in the pretty jewels, too.

Mini Me

Porter is having a monster nap today--whoo hoo!!!!!!!!!! Stella and I have been playing outside a ton. She almost fell asleep on the glider that is on their swingset. It was so cute that I ran inside real fast to get the camera. Of course that perked her right up. Here are a few pics from this afternoon of my mini me.