Frye Fam Happenings

Day 19 was Christmas with just the 5 of us...

Our second annual Graham Cracker Shack Decorating Festivities! ------------- Titus enjoyed eating his plain crackers and then the icing straight off of his knife. Yes, I know. I am a wonderful mother. Decorating Eli enjoying his graham crackers, sans icing, of course! I think they turned out even worse than last year's! HA! The kids had fun, and at least it always tastes yummy!!!

We sing this at church, and I LOVE it. Here's the video. Click to watch on YouTube if you want to see the lyrics on the right.

Every year, we get the boys Christmas ornaments to go along with a certain event that happened or something they were really "into" that year. In order to keep the stories behind the ornaments safe, I am documenting them here! Justus - 2008, McQueen and Tow Mater - You LOVED the movie "Cars" this year, and you had so many of the characters on your clothes (not to mention the actual cars you received from us and many others!) 2009, Star Wars ball - You always pretend to be some superhero, and whenever you are a "Star Wars" character, you just say, "I'm Star Wars!!!" (Justus, you can't actually BE Star Wars, bud! Oh well... :) ) Titus - 2008, Elmo - You l.o.v.e.d. Elmo and would get so excited whenever we saw him in a store. You would sing "Elmo's World" and sit on the couch sucking your thumb and playing with your hair for an entire Elmo's World video...the only movie you would last through! 2009, Red Firework - You often...

I really do enjoy doing crafts with the boys, but I have to say...doing arts/crafts every.single.day lately has been a bit much for me. However, THEY are not tired of it at all!! Here are pics from today's activities...and finally, our pasta creation!! We all helped each other. (Can you guess which part was Titus' contribution?? :) ) Working on a gift for a friend... (We'll have to see how it turns out :) ) Notice Titus' glitter tattoo? He and Justus got those last night at the Library Christmas party. They both chose lizards and, of course, blue glitter. (We have washed their hands since then, but the tattoos last a few days...or until you scrub with alcohol..... just wanted to clarify!) And yes, of COURSE, T man is wearing his Superman costume. Why in the world would he wear actual clothes during the day when he can be SUPERMAN every.single.day!!!???? (Titus' chair cover was drying and awaiting "ornaments.") Guess it would have been smart of me to WASH ...

Went to the store last night for 3 huge bottles of rubbing alcohol...Still working on dyeing that pasta!! Next up was our bean project...well, revised...to no longer accompanying the dyed pasta as a Christmas banner! Gotta go with the flow here, people!! Hey...we all had fun doing it. That's all that matters, right :) We started these today (ahem, today's activity) but will have to finish tomorrow: My little arts and crafts fiend remained at the counter for quite some time after our project time was over. Can I just tell you...we went to a friend's house this morning to make a handprint Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and a cool pine cone Christmas tree, we did these projects together today (not to mention the numerous projects we have been doing the past week and a half), and he still just couldn't get enough. He painted with all kinds of supplies and then cooked up some bean soup with his leftover beans. Check him out . Do you like how I plug my own blog on...my own bl...

I'm blogging about this giveaway ONLY for selfish reasons, so please forgive me!! MckMama is giving away an HP Touchsmart computer!! (Well, I mean, HP is giving it away, but whatever...) I think it would be so awesome for Derek to have this computer in his office, so I'm going to blog about it here, facebook about it for a second entry, and post a comment on MckMama's blog for a total of 3 entries and therefore 3 chances to win!!!! Wish me luck :)

We're catching up on days we have missed, so we did quite a few activities this morning! The snowflake-making, which was actually TODAY'S activity, is always so cool to me. I mean, fold up a piece of white paper, make a few cuts, and open it up to see a cool creation. Justus loves watching me do it, and he loves using scissors...but he wasn't too interested in it this morning. Another activity didn't turn out exactly as I had planned...such is life with kids! We did have yesterday's Red and Green lunch today, but I actually posted about that here on our other blog. (Don't ask...I just like to keep some things there and some things here.) We started our pasta dyeing this morning, but OF COURSE I didn't know we were out of something (rubbing alcohol.) I ran next door and across the street and came back with about an inch of the stuff...certainly not as much as we needed. Looks like we will have to postpone yet ANOTHER activity. We were able to make 2 bags of ...

The moon is high and the sunset fades The lullabies have all been sung Were tuckin in another day And stars appear now one by one But the stillness moves and the silence yields And not a single beat is lost You can hear the chorus in the fields Taking up where we left off And Your praise goes on, rising to Your throne Where You guard us while we dream Past the stars they fly, Your praises fill the sky Til You wake us with the dawn And Your praise goes on Now bring your warmth, O morning sun Chase the stars and the moon away And wake us with your brightest song And add our voice to your refrain Now rise up everything that lives! Flap your wings and leap for joy! Oh forest lift your arms and sway! Clap your hands you ocean waves! And Your praise goes on, rising to Your throne Where You bless our toil and play Through the clouds they rise, Your praises fill the skies Til the setting of the sun And Your praise goes on And when my final breath You lend Ill thank You for the life You gave Bu...

A common occurrence around here...but a sight I love to see :)

Well, in 2 hours, it will be Day 7 of our Christmas fun. *sigh* Alas, I am behind...Surprise, surprise. We have been doing most of the things on our calendar: Day 3 included a present to open, so of course the boys loved that :) Titus loved playing with baby Jesus, but Joseph occasionally made him mad when he kept falling over. I had forgotten about a book I bought at the Antique Mall, Journey to Bethlehem , so we read that instead of using that website I mentioned the other day. I didn't even take a picture of the Nativity set I bought. It's pretty cute and very child-friendly (while not exactly realistic, seeing as how "baby" Jesus has a FULL head of dark brown hair.) The whole reason I even bought a new nativity set is because the baby Jesus from our previous Nativity scene had gone MIA. I have to confess that ALREADY, I have no idea where the current baby Jesus is, let alone his manger or his earthly father. We did the Snowman Felt Pictures for Day 4, a hit with ...