Party and Pagent...kindergarten style

S had her kindergarten Christmas party and pagent yesterday. I helped her teacher with the party and got some great pictures. This class is so wonderful. Our teacher has been teaching K for 15 years. She is new to the school this year, as is the whole kindergarten program. It had only been a 1st-8th gr school before they added 5 kindergarten classes this year. We were so blessed to get our teacher. She is amazing and has total loving control of this class of 10. It is a pleasure to get to visit and be in the class as room mom.



Mrs. E starts the kids out each morning writing and drawing in their journal. Here is S having hers checked. This morning they wrote about the nativity and drew a picture...S drew a great looking stable with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. I am so thankful for our school and the fact that the children get to focus on the true meaning of Christmas.

Party snack time. I made the kids lots of sugar so they would be all wired for their pagent! Jello jigglers, birthday cupcakes for Jesus, chocolate covered pretzels, goldfish, and juice boxes.

Getting ready for the pagent. Our class were shephards and one of the amazing moms made these awesome costumes for them!Mrs. E's awesome kindergarten Shephards!

Here are the shephards in their role...they sang The First Noel...Sarah is right in the middle. You can see how seriously she took her role and if you know her voice, you can hear her singing, she was the loudest one. So precious. Parents really do go nuts over this kind of thing, I am no exception! :)

Girlfriends and lockers and crafts...oh my.

GIRLFRIENDS!

Today was my Bible study day and we had a Christmas breakfast and cookie exchange. The girls also surprised me with a couple birthday "happy's (happies?)" for me.


Here are my sisters, my teammates, my sanity keepers...
One of the girls dads has taken a real liking to us as a group and is always so sweet to us. He spent a lot of time and thought to make these beautiful pictures in frames for each of us in the picture below. It is of the 5 of us with the verse "Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2"


I tell you this...these girls epitomize this verse. They carry me and my burdens as I imagine Jesus Christ, Himself, would have carried them for me when He walked on this earth. I love these wonderful ladies!

One of the girls got this hysterical mug for each of us. The picture is crappy, but it so very appropriately and accurately reads: "I'll have a caffe' mocha vodka valium latte to go, please!"

This was one of my birthday happy's. The girls made this frame that says "A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." Ahhhh, it brings tears to my eyes even now. These girls have sung back to me my song countless times when I have forgotten the words. Have I mentioned how much I love them?? I am blessed.

Another fun birthday happy. A wine glass painted with watches and such, indicating that it is surely 5 o'clock somewhere!

------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOCKERS!!!

Any family with children is going to drool over this next discovery of ours....Lockers!!! We had a basic conceptual idea of wanting lockers in the garage for our four girls because of the constant disaster that four children with multiple shoes, coats, bags, CRAP, drag in to the garage and dump there. CJ was sick of seeing it and suggested a locker concept. I liked it, but thought they'd be pretty expensive. We casually looked around for awhile and one day at Lowe's "LAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" There they were, in a price we were willing to pay! Aren't they beautiful???!!!!! Four lockers...

Don't you want to just run out right now and get some of your very own for your own garage crappy disaster?! I got the chalkboards in wood frames at Michaels and painted them the colors of the girls shoe bins which we got at Lowes. We added sportier stainless steel handles and heavy duty hooks in each locker and viola! They are awesome!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CRAFTS!

Yes, I've been crafy again...here are a couple of my new creations:

For my new baby nephew

For a family friend for Christmas

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's all for now. I have to rest up for the class christmas party in Sarah's kindergarten class tomorrow morning. I am thinking of giving a small tour of my christmas decorations like my sis did on her blog...we'll see. It kind of makes me want to clean my house and do some more decorating and you are not even REALLY going to be here!

Good night!

My 29+7th birthday...it was a good day!

It was a low-key, pleasant day for my birthday! I woke early, as always, and enjoyed some computer time, quiet, and coffee. I spent the morning in my pajama's doing some Christmas baking because it was Wednesday, and I don't have to drive noon carpool on Wednesday. At 11:45am I was amazed at how fast the morning had gone and how my carpool friend would be bringing Sarah and Grace home from school soon (our private school gets out at 12:00 K-2nd). At 12:15 I was expecting them to walk through the door any moment. At 12:20 the phone rings and I see its the school office. The following conversation transpires:

School office: Hi, Mrs. Bragg, I have the girls here.
Me: Oh! They didn't get picked up by Janie? That's so unusual, she never forgets!
S.O.: Well, they said that it's your day to pick up.
Me: No, I don't pick up on Wednesday's, Janie does, but I can come get them.
S.O.: Uh, it's TUESDAY!
Me: Oh, OH! It's TUESDAY! I've been thinking it's Wednesday ALL MORNING LONG!

Thankfully CJ was home and able to run get them. Is this what happens to you on the downward spiral to 40?? Typically I will forget something, but once I'm triggered with reality my brain snaps into focus. I was totally clueless on the carpool issue today...what might this belie for the year to come??

So I finish my baking and take Sarah on an outing, which she had earned by getting 8 "no morning fits" stickers in a row. We shopped and erranded (is that a word?) for several hours. When I got home, it was time for my annual dinner. Here's a picture: For several years now, CJ has purchased and steamed for me a few pounds of king crab legs. I LOVE them. He melts me some butter and lemon, steams them up and I have at it while everyone else sits, stares, and drools at me because its mine, all mine, I don't have to share unless I want to. :) I round it out with a glass of Pinot Noir. Delicious!

Evie went to her friend, Hannah's house after school today. She was dropped off as I was starting my crab dinner and the girls surprised me with homemade chocolate cupcakes that they had made just for me! Thanks little ladies!

This here is the official "blowing out the candles" photo...there is a photo of me like this every year since I was old enough to blow out candles and as an adult I keep up this tradition of photgraphing the moment! :) It isn't pretty, but its tradition! :)

My mom has always been the first to call me on my birthday. It usually starts out like this "I wasn't feeling so well about 36 years ago...". I was up at 5am this morning and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited for my phone call from my mommy and it never came! I finally broke down and tried to call HER in the afternoon and couldn't get ahold of her at home or on her cell. So, naturally, I started worrying that something happened to her, because what else would keep her from calling me first thing on my birthday??!!

Much, much later in the day my brother calls...my only family member at this point to call! He is usually the only one who DOESN'T call so he was quite pleased with himself. He informed me that mom was busy caring for his children that day. Huh...

Much later in the day...evening to be exact, I finally get my call. And it turns out, I am lucky I blogged that I was a birthday girl this morning, because that is what tipped her off that she had forgotten something today, when she checked my blog this evening! Oh well, it was still sweet to get birthday wishes and love from my mommy. :) And I got lots of birthday well-wishes from my facebook friends, and heard from my dad, my sister, my sil Julia, and my inlaws, too.

To top it off, it is the Biggest Loser Finale tonight, I am currently on commercial break from it to finish this post.

It was a great day.

Happy Birthday to me. May 36 be a good year.

Birthday Girl!

Screamin' Leaves!

Click the play button!

Santa Claus is coming to town...plus a dinner party

We had a great Sunday!

It was our annual Christmas brunch and Santa visit at my inlaws clubhouse. They have the best Santa, it has been the same one for all 10 years we have been going. We have pics with him starting with Evie when she was 10 months old. He's the best, so loving and engaging with each child and takes his time, and the photographer is great, too...taking a couple digital shots for the photo package, and then also a polaroid for each child to take with them.

We also gorge ourselves on an incredible food spread...cheeses, salads, fruit, shrimp, crab claws, belgain waffle and omelet bar, salmon, breads, kid cuisine bar, ham, steak, chicken, fish, desserts, ice cream, all kinds of side dishes...you can easily have a 12 course meal. We always enjoy eating to our hearts content and then rolling ourselves out of there.

I can't believe I didn't get any pics of the kids with grandma and grandpa! They are a little camera shy, I kept saying I wanted to, but it never happened. :(

The girls were so into seeing Santa this year! When we first arrived, Grandpa was standing with his back to us in a room next to where Santa was. We told Gracie to sneak up on grandpa and as she headed for him she saw Santa and runs right into the room where other children were on his lap and a picture was being taken and goes right up to Santa. We shoo'd her out and told her we'd see him after we ate.

"G" with Santa Claus

Grace told Santa that she wanted the American Girl doll "Roofie" (Ruthie) and when we were leaving she says "Hey! Where's my American Girl doll??" We laughed and teased Santa about why he doesn't have her AG doll in his back pocket! He laughed (Ho-ho-ho) and told G he'd see her in a couple weeks. :)

"E" with Santa...

Evie told Santa she wanted a Nintendo DS for Christmas...she seems a little too certain that that is what she is getting. :)

Sweet "M" with Santa...

My sweet Madeline...she patiently waited her turn for face time with Santa. She told him she wanted a Littlest Pet Shop.

"S" with Santa

Silly Sarah strikes again! As soon as she got up on his lap she looks right in his face and gives him a big "HO-HO-HO!" I sure hope she had brushed her teeth that morning! She told him she was an American Girl shop and as we were leaving she informed me that it was good to ask Santa for what they wanted because then he would bring it to them and then we wouldn't have to spend any money on their presents! hmmm, sounds good to me.

MY FOUR GEMS

Wacky posing with Daddy

Mommy and her girls

Later in the day, when I was still stuffed from brunch we had a dinner party to go to. This was with my Bible study girls and their husbands. I am the most blessed girl in the world to be in the presence of these four women each week. This is our third year together in a small group, but most of these girls have been in my life for 5-10 years and I love them so much! Even though I didn't think I could eat another bite until next week, I totally enjoyed the delicious food we all put together. It was a great evening.

CJ and ShelMy girls...

4th grade girls Life of Faith kickoff!

This is the 3rd year at our school that an all 4th grade girls Life of Faith group (based on http://www.alof.com/club_overview.html ) has been started by moms at our school. It is a group that's primary focus is to foster friendships and love for one another and the Lord.

4th grade is the year that friendships become tighter and cliques begin to form and people get left out and feelings get hurt. The goal of this 2 year group is for this class to bond together and get to know and love one another for the individuals that God created each of them to be and to always show kindness and respect to one another.

Friday was our kick-off with an after school Christmas party. Starting in January, we will meet once a month at rotating houses where there will be food, fellowship, games, craft, and lesson. Guess who's craft mom for this group? Go ahead, guess...yep, yours truly. :) I got to do the ornament craft for this party and will get to come up with all the crafts for this group. I'm excited!

We have a very small private christian school...about 500 students total in K-8th grade. All of the 4th grade girls total about 37 (spread between 4 fourth grade classes). At the Christmas party 31 of the girls were able to come. It was great fun. The girls changed into festive clothes after school and we dove right into the craft. They enjoyed making the ornaments and did a good job with them (see Crafty Mom post for an example of the ornaments they made).

Part of the goal of the group is to get the girls out of their comfort zones and get to know girls outside of their core friendships. To that end, the girls were assigned tables of 5 to sit at. It was interesting to see that this was initially really hard for some of the girls, to not be with their closest friends and having to branch out to get to know better the girls at their table.

Each girl brought a wrapped christmas mug to exchange and then have hot cocoa in. I don't think I saw one duplicate mug in all those 31 girls! They were all such cute and fun mugs!

There were sweet treats and an overview about this group starting and some conversation starter questions. All in all, it was great fun and I am excited to get to know each of these 37 girls better. We are blessed to be part of this school and the wonderful families in it!

Here are some pics of the fun! My E is in the red sweater with the snowflake and elf hat.