Romay rips into her birthday gifts

Happy birthday baby - 6 years old. The birthday party is on Saturday 31st at the house (what was I thinking!!!).

Everyone out - wet balls

Maren before the incident - butter wouldn't melt in your mouth.

Great party at My Gym, all happy, everyone having fun until the cry went up of "some of the balls are wet". The cleaning equipment was produced fast and everyone tried to make sure no child had been sick etc. You know that horrific realization that one of YOUR children is unaccounted for. Gulp!! Where was Maren? I was hoping she wasn't still in the ball pit swimming in some horrible unknown ick. I looked around and then the realization hit me - the toilet. Oh, Maren you peed in the ball pit and all down the slide!!! It was my child.

She was in the restroom calmly taking off her socks and panties and throwing them in the trash. If I, and everyone else hadn't noticed, she might have blazoned it out and re-joined the party.

Quote: "I just got excited Mummy". Yes, Maren, you did.

Snow Day

Yeah, snow day. Bummer, school make up day. This was Tuesday 13th and the roads were clear by the afternoon and all the snow was gone by Wednesday night. Just as well be stocked up on bread and milk (only because I had a coupon) as that was a long time to be snowed in.

Sawyer and Maren lasted 2 minutes and as you can see Sawyer was not happy for at least one of those two minutes. Delicate Southern Belles that they are. Romay proved to be very hardy in the extreme cold and loved being outside. Freya as always loved to snow and Drum, who we think was seeing it for the first time - well he went puppy crazy.

Christmas Eve

New PJs for Christmas Eve gift. What more could a kid want? Aparently Sawyer didn't want PJs because she just wasn't happy. Look at that poutie face!!

Check out our tree - we had it up at home for a couple of weeks and then packed it up and in the car and off to the beach - a portable potted pine.

Just waiting for Santa

Drum and Romay - hanging and waiting for Santa. Come on give us the goods.

Anyone for tennis

If you ignore Daddy's boats aka his bright orange crocks, his red tee shirt and his two rackets - well, he really does have great form for tennis and really looks the part.

Romay was quite enthusiastic and wanted to practices daily. Tired me out.

Lunch at the Market Street cafe - outside and sunny

Our usual slap up feast at the Market Street Cafe at Coligny Plaza on Hilton Head Island. This was a couple of days before Christmas.

Before Christmas at the Beach - Hilton Head Island

It was cold before Christmas - really cold but it didn't stop the girls heading to the beach for a paddle in the ocean. The dogs, as always, were having a blast chasing tennis balls and generally being mad mutts. The picture of Maren is her after time on the beach - just too tired to stay awake. Crashed and burned.

Triple coupon trips

This was a couple of Bloom triple coupon trips and probably represents $2 oop (out of pocket). The other one was a Kmart double coupon event which gave me more money (catalinas $$ worth) than I paid out. I love being paid to take things out of shops.

This was all before Christmas and I can't remember exact totals but everything (total) was under $6. That includes all the salad, bacon, chicken shortcuts and milk (not pictured). Who says you can't get healthy free stuff by using coupons?

Romay learns to sew

Granny B would be so proud. Romay loved using her Hello Kitty sewing machine. She made some great Christmas bags out of some spare fabric we had. She was so proud that she slept with her creation the first night!

Scout - our Elf on the Shelf

This is from before Christmas and obviously it is the morning after a night that Scout was misbehaving. It looks like he was raiding the candy bars from the fridge. Silly Scout.

Every night he went back to Santa to report if the girls had been good or bad and every morning we had to find him hidden somewhere. He got up to all sorts of stuff - hanging from blinds, sitting in cupboards, hanging off pictures. And, each and every morning Romay got freaked out by him and screamed when she first saw him. The others were cool about it and tended to have conversations with the Elf.

He must have put in a good word for us because the girls all got what the requested from Santa.

Now, if we can just keep the good behavior up and avoid a visit from Vinnie the Repo Elf - all will be good.