Yay

Fiora: Savanna, will you make me some cinnamon toast?
Savanna: Sure
Fiora: Yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay
Savanna: Fiora stop saying yay or I won't make it
Fiora: Can I say it one more time?
Savanna: (sigh) OK.
Fiora: Yay
~After a pause~
Fiora: Cinnamon Toast Cinnamon Toast Cinnamon Toast Cinnamon Toast . . .
Savanna: (sigh)

Merry Merry Merry Merry Christmas

I stole this Youtube light display from my friend's blog, I saw it last year and loved it. So amazing what people can do with their lights!

And here is a link to listen to beautiful Christmas music for hours on your computer from the mormon tabernacle choir.
Merry Christmas

Saturday is a special day

Sometimes blogs get sugarcoated. :) Lest you are under the notion that every day is rosey over here at the Schauers home let me tell you about Saturday, which really was pretty typical of any day here.
6:30 AM enter Weston, climbing in Heather and Jared's bed. After 15 minutes of squirming he requests pancakes. Heather tells him its too early and go downstairs and watch something.
7:00 Girls alarm clock goes off. Savanna's feet hit the floor and she turns it off, Heather hears a banter "Why did you set the alarm?" "I didn't do it!" "Yes you did!" and a few slaps. Enter Fiora telling Heather Savanna hit her. She climbs in the bed. Enter Savanna, Heather asks her why the alarm went off. "Fiora set it!" "No I didn't!" Heather tells them to go downstairs.
7:30 Enter Weston crying, "Savanna touched my foot!" Heather rolls out of bed. Heather makes pancakes.
8:00 Eating pancakes, cleaning the kitchen, getting dressed
8:30 Jared gets up and asks when I am exercising because he has a lot to do. Good thing he didn't ask me what time it was because I would have to reply, "Time for everything but me."
9:00 Heather exits house of chaos to go exercise, kids try to get ready for program rehearsal at 10:00 Sunday best by themselves.
9:45 Heather returns and practices a musical nubmer with Jesse and Kelsy and gets the kids out the door takes a shower and runs to the rehearsal, Jared leaves for work (yes on a Saturday)
10:30 Heather finds out they aren't doing the song she is playing today, she goes home
11:00 Some silence, should Heather go back to bed? read? clean? She sits on the couch in a daze and does none of the above
11:30 Kids come home and want lunch. Heather takes the kids to Little Ceasars and gets a $5 pizza
11:45 Weston insists on holding the pizza and drops it in the garage on his way out of the car
12:00 Heather serves dirt covered pizza to kids whilst Weston cries "It was an accident!"
12:30 Heather climbs under the covers and wimpers, defeated. Kids run amok
1:00 Jared comes home. He assesses the situation and takes the kids to Macey's for food fun and Santa claus.
2:00 Heather emerges, makes two pies for the Ward activity that evening
3:00 Jared returns with food and kids, Jared put away groceries, Heather sulks that he brought home more work for her, and the kids watch Mr. Megorium
3:30 Heather has a melt down, Jared turns therapist and tries to talk me through it,("Are you mad because I slept in?) Weston breaks an ornament (why do they play with those?), Heather is sorry and thanks Jared for the nice food
4:00 Jared naps, Heather practices "Chocolate in my Stocking" with Savanna for the Ward activity
5:00 Everyone getting ready to go, fight with Sav about her hair, appease Fiora who didn't get a "shirt like Savanna's"
6:00 Ward Christmas dinner, mom and dad Barrett come with to see Savanna perform
7:00 Savanna does a flawless performance, although stone statue still, for over 200 people!
7:30 Santa Claus comes to the party, kids sit on his lap. Fiora asks for my little ponies, Savanna asks for a Scooter, and Weston asks for a candy cane. Weston got his wish.
8:00 come home put kids to bed and Jared and Heather sit by the Christmas tree and relax. Whew!

PBJ

Weston's body cells are comprised 80% of peanut butter and jelly and bread. He opts for this food selection at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I offer him everything under the sun but he only wants his pb&j. The other 20% of his diet are cereal, meat off the grill, and apple juice.



We were somewhat disappointed it did not snow this past week. We usually like to take the family sledding the day after Thanksgiving. Instead the children had to stay in the house and entertain themselves. All my ideas are tossed by the wayside, the kids like to do only what I haven't suggested. Too bad all the fun things to do are so expensive, except sledding.

Jared Jared

Here is mighty Jared fixing the weather stripping on our front door. He also replaced the squeeky, falling out hinges. Now we won't know if robbers come in the house because it is a silent door! Jared braved Old Navy on Black Friday and bought us all jeans and shirts. The gal at the cashier asked if his wife dragged him out of bed at 6:30 AM to come shopping. He said, "Uh no, I'm here by myself." "You're here by yourself?" she echoed. The lady behind him heard the cashier and repeated, "You're here by yourself?" and turned to the lady behind her, "He's here by himself!" That earned more "wow"s down the line. He was pretty embarrassed. I'm sure the ladies were very impressed. I was very grateful for the jeans and sweater he brought home for me. Jared has been experimenting in the kitchen a little also. He made us some "wise guys" style sandwiches for dinner Saturday night. Delicious! What with the new Home Basics Building having a kitchen and all, the guys have been making lunch. On Jared's shift he made taco soup that was a big hit. He just improves with age...

This picture was taken by Savanna. I love how she didn't mention the closet door was gaping open behind us. We love you Jared!
The kids helped me get the tree set up on Saturday. Turned out pretty good. I've just read book 1 and 2 of Fablehaven and the kids have been asking me to tell them the story. They love my retelling-from-memory-as-best-I-can so much that after 10 or 15 minutes I am ready to do something else and they all beg me to "keep telling Fablehaven!" "Five more minutes!"

Fiora Weston Savanna

Fiora
Dad came home one day with a dollar for each of the kids. Just because I love you, he said. Fiora promtly put her dollar in her bank and asked me to take her to the store today to spend it. She bought a toilet with powder candy for water and plunger suckers to dip in the toilet. Candy makers these days! She has ALREADY advanced to level 2 in gymnastics. Way to go Fi! Fortunately there was an opening in that class for her at the same time. She's got talent.


Savanna
Another talented one in our family is Savanna. She has diligently been attending choir at school at 7:15 in the morning and learned 5 Christmas songs. She modestly accepted my invitation to sing one of them, "Chocolate in my Stocking" for the ward Christmas party. She has a lot of enthusiasm and a good pitch and will do great. Savanna had a read-a-thon in school today and was very excited to go to school in her jammies with a pillow. They are sending her home with chapter books to read! Takes a while to get through them but she's doing it. We had some Indians in the house on Friday, Savanna's and Weston's classes made Indian costumes out of paper bags and they were so cute!


Weston
Weston insisted that he was "the Indian Chief" on Friday, but has now forgotten about Indian Chief. Today he is Steve/warrior with toy sword and sheild. He makes up costumes out of toys, clothes, costumes, paper; he had Savanna make him a Superwhy mask and taped a towel to his back for the cape. If I try to play his counterpart he politely tells me "That's cheating." I think what he means is, that's not working for you, mom.


On Saturday while Jared was at work, with scouts, and getting a hair cut the kids asked me to make a little face art. It was so fun, and they were so good with me in the house all day. I love my kids! Savanna Fiora and Weston you are wonderful and I love being your mother!!!

oh twilight

My sister-in-law Wendy bought me a ticket opening day to Twilight and I couldn't resist seeing how they made this movie. It was pretty good except that it was so low-budget. After seeing movies like X-men, Hellboy, and even The Grinch I couldn't help but wonder where the make-up artist was for this movie. The vampires looked like they put some dusting powder on thier faces and were good to go. And the hair stlyist, eh. They left out many of my favorite charming scenes, but you can't put in everything. I'm glad I got to see it. Thanks for including me Wendy! I loved having a girls outing and seeing a fun movie.