Productivity

The girls decorating the gingerbread house (in keeping with tradition)...you can see who's doing all the work! Towns is eating the icing and Cate is eating the candy off the gingerbread house as fast as B is putting it on!

We accomplished everything we set out to do this weekend...and we're still recovering! The girls made their annual gingerbread house, and the pictures crack me up every single year! Cate couldn't get in on the action this time last year, but you better believe she was lending a hand this year! I love how each girl has their mind set on one thing, and each one is different from the rest. Towns only has icing on the brain (nothing's changed since last year)...

Bethany is the only one who really gets down to business...she wants it to look as perfect as the picture on the box!

And Cate, well, she just enjoys undoing everything everyone has worked so hard on!
Here she's taking over the spatula and (unnecessarily) trying to add more icing to the gingerbread house...

After all B's hard work, this is the finished product!

It was so cute...until Cate got her little fingers in it while no one was looking!


Since the girls were already on a sugar high, I figured why stop there? After lots of left over icing and candy, we moved on to cake at Braxton and Madelyn's 4th birthday party! The party was in the gym at our church which meant all the fun bikes and toys plus a bouncy slide! Yours truly was thankful for a venue in which to let the wild ones run around for a couple of hours...

Towns shed her shoes and bow in desperate attempt to be the first one in on the action!

Cate even got a turn on the slide, thanks to her Bet!

Towns was loving the tricycles...because she didn't have to do any work!

That pushing the big sister around business is for the birds...Cate finally wised up and realized she could ride a tricycle too!


Saturday night we headed downtown to enjoy all the Christmas lights from the tour of homes and the Living Nativity at our church (actually, we walked up right as it was over - just our luck)! No pictures from this...only memories of my husband letting all the kids hang out of the sunroof in my car. I know...SO illegal! But they had a blast and we were only going 10 mph!

Sunday we took the 'dreaded Christmas card picture' as Bethany says. I'm not sure why I go into it every year hoping like crazy it's going to go smoothly. Because I know it's not. It's always an utter disaster, and I know how it'll all end...everyone ill and in tears!

Attempt #1...

Great of Bet and Cate...not great of Towns.

Attempt #2

Good of Bet, ok of Towns, not great of Cate.

Attempt #3...

Could be cute if Cate wasn't yelling at me in this one.

Attempt #4...

We've officially run out of patience and have entered meltdown mode.

Let's walk over to the bridge (J's idea) and see how that goes...

Hmm, still not so good either.

If all else fails, at least we got a good one of B by herself...


All the crying and complaining was worth it, though. If I'd waited just one more day to do the picture taking, Cate would have looked like this in our Christmas card...


See that poor baby's forehead? Please don't even ask...I'll start crying again! She was upset for a whole 30 seconds after it happened. I, on the other hand, have cried for 2 days!

I'll leave you with one more...after the girls' pictures I tried to get one of all of us...hysterical! If nothing else, it's good for a laugh!