Picture of the Day

Wedding Cake-Becky's latest

It has been delivered safe and sound after many hours of work.
Now Becky is ready to enjoy her position as Maid of Honor in her best friends wedding tomorrow. Pictures to follow......

Scenes from a Christmas morning-2008

All before 7 am

The Annual Collins' Family Secret Santa Gift Exchange

On Thanksgiving the kids picked the name of the sibling whom they would be a secret santa for. Each of the ten kids, some on their own and some with a lot of help from Mom and Dad, buy a present for their special person. Our family tradition is to exchange these gifts on Christmas Eve.
It was a day filled with anticipation as people brought out presents and placed them under the tree.
We passed out playing cards to prevent undo stress, ( a.k.a. a lot of screaming) as to the order of gift opening.

Lukie received a very speedy train from Gracie.

Matt had a turn--with plenty of help.

Amy gave Mark some great Star-wars guys.

Laura and Pat love each other so much, they picked each others names.

Kimmy loves her Colorforms from Matt.

Surprise, Amy found jewelry in an opened box of chocolate covered cherries from Danny.

Another year, and another successful showing of sibling love.

We wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS from the "little house"

Everyone was home for a yummy roast beef dinner tonight, and then it was off to church.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

12 Days of Christmas by Straight No Chaser=AMAZING

We have just discovered our new favorite singing group on Fox News this morning!!
To hear more from these great guys, visit their website at sncmusic.com.

I posed a question a few weeks ago....

asking if anyone could guess who needed glasses?

Well, here they are.....these very handsome eyes belong to.....
none other than Mark!! He looks so studious now!!

Seriously folks!!!!

We are really getting snowed in here!!

Fun in the "little house"

If it is snowing hard outside and there are 12 people in 900 square feet, (and these views show the whole living room), you can play cards ALL TOGETHER....
or play on a computer-ALL TOGETHER. If you are exceptionally small, you can play together under the foot rest of the couch as one of your big brothers play on the computer.

If you are the mother of this large bunch of children, you take the ones that don't fit in the living room into the kitchen and make these yummy, yummy treats!!

Guess what the weather is doing right now?

This is not a snowstorm-this is a heavy squall caused by what we like to call around here - LAKE EFFECT.We have been receiving this non-snowstorm for the past six hours. I am tired of winter, and it is one day old. Maybe I will have Daddy cook out on that grill today.

Tot-School

Another tot-school week has come and gone and it seems like the weeks are passing faster and faster. I think with all the Christmas preparations, tot-school has not been abandoned, but instead has been carried out at non-traditional times--like 8:00 at night or while we are eating breakfast. No matter what the time though, learning is definitely going on around here.
A favorite activity is peeling stickers off a sticker sheet and sticking them onto paper. It takes as much work for the kids to get the stickers off the sheet as to manipulate them into their "proper" position on a piece of paper.

This day I started out with a pattern for Kim and Luke to copy. Kimberly (2 1/2) is very happy to do this and is very successful. Luke (3 1/2) doesn't like to do this activity. He enjoys peeling the stickers and putting them on the paper, but he doesn't like to follow a pre-made pattern. He actually took the patterned stickers off the paper and rearranged them to his own liking.

Kim and Luke had a lot of fun helping make these Christmas treats. We used small pretzels, Hershey kisses and M&M's. I have also seen these made with the little square waffle type pretzels.

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees

Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet.

Kim and Luke first put pretzels on the parchment paper and then put a Hershey kiss on each pretzel.

I put them in the oven at 150 degrees for about 6 minutes.

After the kisses began to soften, I took them out of the oven and then slid the parchment paper onto the kitchen table. (the cookie sheet was hot-150 degrees-but the kisses are not hot enough to burn little fingers-that is why I get rid of the metal cookie sheet-the parchment is cool.

We then took M&M's and pushed them onto the top of the kisses.

Very easy

very child friendly

very yummy!!
Our highlighted book this week was The Mitten, by Jan Brett. The Homeschool Share website has a wonderful unit to use with this book.

I found these printables at Kidsclub. I simply printed and laminated all the pieces. Luke helped "sew" up the mitten. The kids then used the animals and mitten to act out the story as I read it aloud. We did this many-MANY-times. It was real fun. They were both able to tell the story and act it out on their own after a few readings.

Luke also discovered that he enjoys wearing the mitten.

I found this fun foam mitten and stocking sticker kit at Michael's craft store a while back. We got it out this week.
It was hard to get the paper off the back of the foam, but I helped them do this, and then they decorated on their own.

We put magnet backs on these and now they proudly hang on the refrigerator.

For number practice this week we used our Lauri puzzle Number Fun. I like this puzzle because you can use each number individually. Both kids have been working on the numbers 1-5. Luke recognizes and can name these five numbers, and Kimberly is good at the numbers 1-3 and is beginning to know 4 and 5.

Luke also really enjoys the pounding aspect of Lauri puzzles. It definitely adds to the fun to be able to pound the pieces into place.

Make sure you go and visit other great tot-school ideas at 1+1+1=1. It would also be great that if you have a "tot" at home (or a few tots) please consider joining in the fun, and sharing your ideas with fellow t0t-schoolers.

SURPRISE!!

We are having another snowstorm....we have had 8 inches by 9am.....

that means we have about 19 inches of snow on the ground right now.....

An Advent Song for You

I remembered this song from when my oldest kids were little. They performed it with their cousins, at a church service. They were directed by my sister Sue.

I forgot about it, and then this Advent, for some reason it came to mind, but all I could remember clearly was the refrain. Thanks to my neice, (one of the original performers) she found me the music and now my younger kids have been enjoying learning this song during this special season of Advent.

The Whole World is Waiting for Love

We only received a foot of snow yesterday.....

but I couldn't resist this video that was posted on the Faith & Family Live site.

Please ponder for a moment.....

that the 12 members of my family are hunkered down in a 900 square foot house for who knows how long, while a snowstorm traps us all inside.

Please, send me your thoughts-what should we do-so that at the end of the storm-- we still have 12 members in the family......

Orange Clove Pomander Ball

Gracie and I did the honors of making our annual orange pomander ball. I just don't think it smells like Christmas unless I can smell cloves and oranges.
The first thing we did was put ribbon around the orange. I attached the ribbon with pins. We have tied the ribbon on in the past, but in our "active" household we seem to need something more substantial to hold it.Then my super helper, Grace, started making holes in the orange and putting the cloves in. She used a paperclip to poke the first hole into the orange, this makes it very easy to put the clove into this premade hole. Even though a first hole makes it easier, Grace did end up putting a bandaid on her thumb to help push the cloves into the orange.

"I don't think you want to take a bite, Grace, but it sure does smell good!"

I then put more ribbon around the first to provide a way to hang the pomander up. If I had planned correctly, the first ribbon would have extended beyond the orange to provide for hanging-but I didn't plan correctly.

It now proudly hangs on the living room fan (next to the Irish Mistletoe) giving off its heavenly Christmas scent.