Libby and the Sewing Machine

Libby has been asking for a sewing machine for a couple of years now. She turned 7 in October, which I thought was still kind of young and she tends to have a low frustration tolerance. :p
She got a sewing machine from Santa this year. Since yesterday, she has made two bags and a pillowcase and she is working on an ipod case for daddy.
The first two, I sat on the couch while she worked and told her what to do next and helped with pinning only. The second two, she has done completely by herself. :D
She looks like she was born at the sewing machine.

Caroline got a Christmas Card

Caroline got a Christmas card from Ursula today. Ursula and her husband are the ones that run the Alpine Dancers. She is in charge of the children's group.
This is what the card says:

Dearest Caroline,
I would like to tell you how special you are to all of us!
When you read the Santa Claus story to us at the Chrismas Party, it seemed a Little Angel had appeared! You did such a wonderful job!
I am so proud of you!
Thank you so much!
I enjoy watching you dance and having so much fun. Stay sweet!
All my love,
Miss Ursula

So, what do you do when you have seven kids ranging in age from 6-19?

You arm them all.
I had Ken make 10 of these (7 for the kids and 3 for wannabe kids) for Christmas Eve when we will have 18 people at my house.
I wonder how many bags of mini-marshmallows I will need.
Notice the advanced laser sighting devices on some of them. ;) I found LED rings at US Toys for 89 cents each.

Shepherd's Feast Menu

This will be our menu for Chrismtas Eve. We will be having a Shepherd's Feast again this year, but with a few more people! We will have the six of us, my parents, my sister Jackie and her husband Eric, HIS parents and I believe his grandmother and my other sister, Barb, her husband and three kids.
That's quite a crowd for a gathering of Reed's. ;) (Have we EVER had that many in one place at the same time?!)

Artichoke
Olives
Pita Bread
Hummus
Oranges
Pomegranate
Figs
Dates
Almonds
Feta Cheese
Wine

(we will also throw in Summer Sausage, Cheddar Cheese and crackers for those that can't survive without meat or "regular" food).

Jackie, do you want to take care of the wine? My challenge last year was finding wine from that region. :p Maybe you will have better luck.
Mom, why don't you bring the "regular" food.

Grumpy Santa Claus

Caroline read a Christmas book to the party goers at the Alpine Dancers Christmas Party. This is especially significant because she is the one that is timid in crowds and with strangers. She LIKED reading in a microphone!

A public apology to Holly (and my father)

I am so sorry Holly. Joseph thought he was emailing his cousin (which is really weird because he has never HAD his cousin's email address ).
He was sharing the fact that my dad (his grandfather) had three enemas today at the hospital.
This is what the email said:

Bill Gets A Tube In His Bottom

Sorry dad.

New Blog

I created a new blog for the Big Head pictures, so if you want to see anymore of them, you will have to check that one out. ;)
Big Heads

This is amazing to me

Libby asked for help on how to make a cursive "r" and "s" because she hasn't learned those yet. And she asked how to spell "small".
What amazing progress in 3 months!


(It says: The dog is small. The cat is big. The cat ran. The dog ran.)

Alex has new wheels!

Alex's dad called on Thursday night to tell him that he was going to be in town on Friday and he would take him to CarMax and buy a new car! This is a pretty big relief for all of us. The Lincoln has been leaking oil all over the street and it's automatic inflater thingies had stopped doing there thing, which led to a lot of bottoming out, which in turn led to more oil on the street. :p

So, he came home with a 2008 Toyota Yaris with 6,000 miles on it! Congratulations Alex!

Dallas Cowboys at Scottish Rite Hospital

Photobucket Album

Dallas Cowboys

The previous post is a an entire album. If you click on the picture, you will be able to see all 20 pictures from the Cowboys visit to Scottish Rite today. There were 9 football players and 4 cheerleaders there today!

Plano Christmas Parade

Today was the Plano Christmas Parade and it was a total family event for us. :D We don't have many chances anymore for all six of us to be in the same place at the same time....just take Thanksgiving. :p
We did a Polar Express theme for our "float". The kids wore their pajamas (which caused a lot of comments and exclamations from the parade watchers), drank Hot Chocolate and had giant jingle bells for the "first gift of Christmas". We played the Polar Express song on our old boombox (which Alex tells me no one calls it that anymore.)
Here are the kids getting ready to go. It was our three and our friends Alex, Alia and Ben.


Another view (and this one you can see our driver ;))....


The Heard Museum let us borrow their flatbed pick-up truck and one of their employees for our big day. He even wore the engineer cap.

The Trash Tree

Well, maybe the Recycled Tree would be a nicer way to say it.
This is our tree for the Plano Christmas Parade tomorrow. All of the ornaments were made out of recycled paper (Williams-Sonoma catalog, Christmas cards, paper towel rolls, etc.)

The Wall-E "Tree"

We bought Wall-E last week and I submitted the information online to get the little "tree" and it came today.
It looks like someone snipped off a 6 inch branch off of a Christmas tree (and put it in a little tiny burlap sack).
It got here in less than a week! And a holiday in there!
The kids thought it should be in a boot. ;)

Early Christmas?

Today at Scottish Rite, while Joseph and Caroline were hard at work on their math, one of the Child Life people approached us to let us know that there was an event up in Child Life. They had a bunch of members of Texas Auctioneers up there, a ton of toys and piles of monopoly money. They gave the kids money and let them bid on toys like a real auction.
My kids were a bit intimidated at first because of the auction chant, but they still managed to get away with some great stuff. ;)
Joseph got a digital watch and he got an IDog for Libby. Caroline got two little journals, a hair doo-dad kit and some kind of electronic game.
I have a feeling that this won't be the last time this month that we end up with a pile of stuff when we come home from Libby's school.
Because of how Scottish Rite is set up, whenever there is any kind of event, they are always begging us to attend (it is set up as clinics, so on a daily basis they never really know what kids are available for the fun stuff). So Joseph and Caroline get to reap the benefits of Libby being in class.