Funny

I give you my own personal Create-A-Silly-Face Baby Doll:

CJ lets me do the craziest things with her face, then she looks around the room to see who's looking and laughing. She loves it!

Can you guess the artist on this one? This was after a history lesson several weeks ago. She drew Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier, who founded The Society of Jesus, or the Jesuit Order.

I cannot not laugh every single time I see this picture (or when she makes the face in real life). Snapped this one with my phone at the dinner table.

Another guess who here...which daughter took it upon herself to label Baby's cup? She did this because CJ toddles around with her sippy, drops it on the floor, hides in the closet, or what have you, then we can't find it come mealtime. Then two days later we do find it, but no one can remember if it's today's cup or not...

 I'm up to my ears, as they say! $69.25 in debt to the little people in my home! This is after many, many weeks (months, even) of their doing extra work around here to earn money. Since I cannot be trusted to remember what all they do, nor to have quarters and one dollar bills on hand with which to pay them immediately, we keep IOU's - a running tally of dates and amounts earned. They were eager to get each other Christmas presents and to purchase something from the Samaritan's Purse Christmas Catalog, so they've worked a lot to finance their gift-buying. As each girl decides on little gifts for others, we just cross the amount spent off her IOU. Ah, simplicity. They've been doing jobs like running a load of laundry from start to finish: washer, dryer, fold/hang up, put away! Nice! It means the girls are learning homemaking skills and that hard work is part of life and blessing the family, all at once.

We are in our last week of school for this semester. It is hard to believe that we are halfway through this school year. The girls will be out of school for a month. We are all ready for the long break, and starting to look forward to our big road trip Back Home!

We are enjoying our Advent devotionals as a family with this simple, uncomplicated study (a very light study, appropriate for a pretty wide age range - we are all doing it daily, then discussing it around our lit Advent candles later on). 

What's making your Christmas season special this year?

Oh, and any guesses on who drew Loyola? And who labeled the sippy cup? (I do love the kids' individuality - so fun, so funny...)