Christmas Day 2008

Christmas morning, the girls actually slept in till 8:00. We had a minor catastrophe right at bedtime. Leslie got out of her bed, tripped on a pillow on the floor, and hit her face on the board on the side of Lacie's bed. She had a nice nosebleed and a swollen lip, which you should look for in the photos! Needless to say, we were all pretty keyed up, so they didn't get to sleep on time. However, once they woke up, we made a beeline for the presents!
As promised, Santa brought the drums with cymbals and drumsticks and the pink microphone! Notice the tornado that hit my living room this morning!

For lunch, we headed over to my parents house, where we opened presents and ate!

Lacie and her new bike.

The girls posing in their new HSM outfits!

Leslie with her new Cabbage Patch doll. The dolls are still as cute as I remember, but have hideously awful names - Lacie's is Pauline Sherri and Leslie's is Bethel Kristi! Of course, Cabbage Patch dolls come with a pre-printed birth certificate, so the names have to stick.

"Climbing" a tree outside

Sleeping in their new Disney Princess sleeping bags

Of course, Christmas was a success. Tomorrow, we are headed to see "GranNanny," my grandmother, and the girls' only living great-grandmother. I'll post an update when we return sometime next week!

Christmas Eve 2008

This year, we spent Christmas Eve with Del's family. His parents came over that afternoon, and we went with them to a family friend's house. They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, so this blog will be mostly pictures.Their dress-up Barbie heads

Leslie "reading" the instructions

Their "High School Musical" stage

Me and my girls :-)

All dressed in Christmas gowns about to wait for Santa!

Roller Skating Party

Last Sunday, Lacie and Leslie went to their friend Maggie's birthday party at a local roller skating rink. It was the first time in probably 2 years that they had been on roller skates, which proved to be quite an experience! I must say, that usually Lacie is the more timid of my my two children, and Leslie is much more adventurous, but Lacie took off once she had the roller skates on and did great! Leslie required a little more help and hand holding. The day was not without our fair share of falls, but I am glad to say that the less than graceful Johnsons escaped without any major injury or broken bones!

Lacie and Maggie
Daddy skating with his girls
Lacie turned falling into a posing opportunity.
"Spin me around like a dancer!"Leslie and Maggie
Lacie skating and posing.... again

Byrd's Community Christmas

In case you didn't know, I teach at C. E. Byrd High School, and every year we host Community Christmas. It's on a Friday morning, and kindergartners from all over the parish come to our school where they go around to different booths, make crafts, and see Santa Claus. It's a great outreach for Byrd, and the hundreds of kids who attend love it.
Even though they're not in kindergarten yet, Lacie and Leslie have gotten to attend for the past two years. Here are some photos:


They even got to meet Dorothy! Byrd's Drama department is performing "The Wizard of Oz" in January, so Dorothy was there to advertise. Here they are being interviewed with Dorothy for K-BYRD, our broadcast journalism show.
Of course, the favorite was Santa Claus. One of the children in attendance was overheard saying, "They have the real Santa Claus, not like the fake ones at the mall. You can tell by his beard!"

A Few Funnies....

After spending all of this time single, Lacie has finally caught up with her sister and has a boyfriend. His name is Patrick, and he is in her class at school. Apparently, sometimes she lets him kiss her, and she's gotten on "sad face" at school a couple of times now for trying to sneak out of her center to go be in Patrick's center so she could play with him. We've had the discussion about how she is a good girl and doesn't need to let anybody kiss her on the lips, and she said, "But Mommy, he is so good!" Ummmm... okay.....

And Leslie has announced to us her latest 'strategy for keeping Hayden interested. Yesterday, she had her hair in a ponytail, and she said, "Mommy, sometimes at school, I do this (and she takes out her ponytail and shakes her hair back and forth), but Hayden won't even look at me when I do it!"

Can I just lock them up now? If they're like this at four, fourteen will be a nightmare!

Natchitoches Christmas Festival

This past weekend, the girls had a very busy day. Del and the girls left at 8:00 Saturday morning to go to Natchitoches with our friends, the Hortons, for the "festible". The Hortons are from Natchitoches, and they go every year; they asked us to join them this year, but I couldn't go down until after my ACT class on Saturday afternoon.

They went to two parades, walked along the river, and went to parties with both sides of the Hortons' families. Home base was at the grandparents' house, which just so happened to be RIGHT on the river. When it was time for the fireworks that night, we literally walked outside and across the street. The grandparents' home is on the National Register of Historic Places, so needless to say, I was a little nervous about the girls being around so many antiques, but they were great!

When they were little, Lacie and Leslie were terrified of fireworks, but they were fantastic this year. It was just as much fun watching the awe on their faces as it was watching the fireworks. When it was over, Santa happened to stop off at the Hortons' house. Lacie and Leslie each took turns sitting on his lap and asking for their usual.... a drum set with drum sticks and cymbals and a microphone. However, Leslie whispered something else in Santa's ear, but she told me it was a secret. I wouldn't find out what else she was getting until Christmas morning! Hmmm....we'll have to work on that.

Below are some pictures of the kids:

My Sweet Leslie....

Last night, we were watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and out of nowhere, Leslie came up to me and said, "Mommy, I'm glad the Grinch stole Christmas." When I asked her why, she said, "Because I don't need Christmas, all I need is my family." Then she came up and gave me a kiss and a hug. It doesn't get much better than that!

KCS Holiday Train

My dad works for KCS, and every year before the Holiday Train goes on it's American tour, they have a Family Night for employees and their families to come visit. Since the girls had just seen Polar Express, they were extremely excited to go back and see it this year!

First, we started at the caboose-end of the train to see Santa Claus, where the girls repeated their request for drums with cymbals and drumsticks, and a microphone. Then, we walked through the various cars of the train seeing trains and Christmas decorations on display.

We ended up under the tent outside for hot chocolate and cookies. This was such a neat experience for the girls, and the yucky drizzle outside made it not crowded. We really enjoyed this, and the girls had a wonderful time!

Craft Time = Fun Time... or Does It???

We had a pretty busy day yesterday! Thanksgiving started with brunch with Del's family. I made a sausage and egg breakfast casserole and a hash brown casserole, and they came over that morning for breakfast. We went to my parents' house that afternoon for an early dinner, where I was responsible for the dressing. So after eating all day, the girls and I came home to assemble a gingerbread house. I had visions of this neat mother-daughter craft experience...... needless to say, we will NOT attempt to make a gingerbread house again in foreseeable future. You can see from the pictures how much of a group effort it was. It really consisted of me working on it by myself with Lacie and Leslie coming in every 5 minutes or so to put on a piece of candy or stick their fingers in the icing. The baggie that was supposed to pipe the icing on broke about halfway through, so we had to improvise, and the girls kept eating pieces of the candy. You can see from the finished product that we aren't very crafty people in the Johnson household.

More Birthday Fun and Christmas Lists!

As mentioned in the earlier post, 'tis the season of the birthday parties. We had another one this past weekend. My friend Amanda's little girl Makenzie had her 7th birthday party at her house with a MASSIVE bouncy. Pictures are below:
Also, the girls are very excited about how close Christmas is getting! They both have made VERY specific requests to Santa... and it doesn't look like anything will change their minds. Leslie has, since July, requested..... drums. Real drums. With cymbals. And drumsticks. In July, Del's extended family had a 4th of July party (where Leslie fell and got stitches in her chin). At the party were Del's twin cousins Beau and Hunter, who are 16 and very musically talented. They put on a show for us, and one played the guitar and sang, and one of them beat on his chair like a drum.... which began Leslie's love of drums. When she first said Santa was bringing her drums, I thought she would change her mind. Nope! So it looks like Santa will be delivering on the drum set, as much as my ears are already begging him not too. Lacie wants a microphone on a stand. They said we are starting a band. Their daddy will play the guitar, and they've told me I will be the "fluter". Not sure what a fluter does when she can't play the flute, but we will see.

They also asked their daddy if they could have a pet unicorn. He told them that unicorns are pretend, and they said, "They DO exist. They live somewhere on this Earth. You just don't know!" They promised to feed him, and clean his horn, and keep him from pointing his horn at the lamp if they could have a pink and blue one. I think Santa might have a hard time coming through on that one.

Birthday Bowling

So, it's that time of year again..... birthday party time. Every year, from about October to April, we have at least 1 or 2 birthday parties a month. The girls have gone to school with the same group of kids since the 1 year old class at Renzis, and as close as they all are, everyone gets invited to the parties. With a class of 15 kids, that's a LOT of birthday parties.

We missed the 1st 2 parties of the year - the same weekend in October. Tanner's was at Sci-Port and Anniston's was at Chuck E Cheese, but we dutifully sent our gift. Last weekend, was Kaitlyn R.'s birthday party at Holiday Lanes in Bossier. We went to a bowling party last year, and it was pure CHAOS, but being a whole year older made a huge difference.
This is a pic of the girls with Emily (one of their best friends) and Kaitlyn, the birthday girl. Kaitlyn is the one in the jeans. Lacie is in the headband.

This is Leslie with her bowling her ball. Lacie is below:

After they bowled, there was a dance part of the party. The girl who was the Party Assistant came out when the music came on and taught the little kids how to do the Cupid Shuffle and the ChaCha Slide... the dances are way cuter when 4 and 5 year olds do them than when the Byrd kids do them at Homecoming!

We have Emily's party today at Jill's Gymnastics, Makenzie's party next weekend at her house with a bouncy, and a ton more coming up in the distant future. With all the fun parties, I've now got to find a fun place for the girls' party in February.... and apparently, I need to book soon. Birthday parties at the fun places book up months in advance!

Pumpkin Carving

Now that the girls are older and more cooperative, we want to carve a pumpkin with them each year at Halloween. Last year, we did one for the girls to share. It was the basic triangle-eyed pumpkin. This year, we were a little more adventurous!
When we went to the store to pick out the pumpkins, we also got a pumpkin carving kit. It came with a handy carving knife, a scraper, and stencils for cool designs. This year, each girl picked out her own pumpkin, and Lacie chose a cat design while Leslie chose a ghost. But, before we traced on the stencil for Del to cut out, we had to cut open the pumpkins and scoop out the seeds - by far their favorite part!


All in all, it took less than an hour. The finished products turned out to be pretty cute! Of course, the carving kit came with glitter markers, so you will see smeared glitter all over the pumpkins...
The pumpkins glowed very nicely when we were done!