Insta- Friday November

I want to get back to doing insta Fridays where I sum up the week in pictures. It was such a nice way for me to catalog our Daily lives and capture all the little moments that make life what it is.

Since last week was Black Friday and I shopped all day, this insta Friday is a double header.

Being Thanksgiving it was a slightly busy week. We spent homeschool time focusing on history.

We've been doing an Anerican Indian unit the last couple of weeks tied in with the American Girl book Kaya. This week we learned about the pilgrims and some of the real facts around Thanksgiving. Then we just had fun making hats and crafts ;)









We spent watching the Macys parade and then the dog show while eating pumpkin pancakes. Before we went to Tonys aunts for dinner we had fun making crafts .


Finger print tree











We came home from thanksgiving dinner and kicked off our Christmas movie watching with Holly and Hal moose!


Black Friday we got out to the stores at the bright and early hour of 11 am. We actually got awesome deals still . A $300 camera for $99 at my favorite TARGET, cheap baby dolls and tons of DVD and bluray. Oldnavy scored us the kids Christmas picture outfits for less than $10 per piece !

We stopped for lunch at eat n park where Layla kept standing up in the booth saying "watch my booty watch my booty" cracking us all up...






Black Friday is also our tree decorating day. I wanted it up early this year but Tony refused and I didn't find the time to haul it piece by heavy piece from the attic myself.

We got it up friday night but were too tired to decorate :(

Saturday night we finally got around to decorating - but not before I broke an ornament opening the first tote.


The Christmas season isn't official in this house until an ornament breaks...

We decorate the tree every year with Elf on in the background. The movie is pretty much the running background soundtrack for the season for us. . Layla enjoyed the ornaments. Surprisingly she didn't break any and only tore a few off. So far it's going better than I thought with her maximum toddler terrorist mode.













Ella gets bored easily and bounced between cackling at elf and helping decorate. She has a great laugh where when she's genuinely amused shell just bust out a loud short giggle. It's so full of joy that you can't help but laugh with her. Needless to say, Will Ferrel in yellow tights is an effective catalyst for her joyful giggles.



Laci seems so old this year. It seems every family activity we do highlights this sad fact. She was very studious in her ornament placing and pretty much did it all as tony fished them out of boxes and I put hooks in them. She was more one of us than the little kids. Makes me sad.













Is anyone surprised my tree is covered in Disney ornaments?
















Decorating was hard work or this tiny elf!

Normally the Elves would have come the day the tree went up, but I was too darn tired. So they came the Night we decorated. Layla stays up so late now that I'm exhausted by the time she nods off so me/clean/random other things time has ceased to exist. This is going to make Elfing a challenge this year which is why their appearance was so lame.


They hopped on our counter at one thirty am in the downstairs bathroom and hastily scrawled a message on the mirror .





This is the only stupid bathroom mirror picture you'll see of me. I hate those. Can someone please explain the need of girls to snap pictures in every grimy Walmart and McDonald's cess pool bathroom they This isn't supposed to be of me anyway its their message.

They declare that Christmas season has begun and wrote their names. Yay. Also Scouty is apparently dyslexic as he always writes S backwards and sometimes c .. It's the details... The reindeer, Randall threw some chocolate coins on the counter . Last year they found out he likes them and he ended up getting their whole stash, so he was repaying the favor. Tony apparently found the scene lackluster and through purple glitter all over them.... Yay... So fun to clean.

I'm going to have to up my game. It's going to be a long Christmas season if Layla doesn't start to sleep like a normal human.
Sunday night I completely forgot to move the stupid things because it was an awful long day. I didn't even make it home from the morning church service and was there from 11- -almost 11 pm with a one hour lunch break and half hour Walmart run. Elves were not on my mind when I got home!

I panicked Monday Morning sitting on the couch with tony when the girls came down and yelled about what the elves did. Before I could blow my cover and make an awful on the spot excuse for them still being on the sink, they started yelling about stockings. Luckily tony saw them and stuck them in stockings as sleeping bags under the tree. Marriage is a partnership people.





Scouty is safe from human hands in the stocking but that soon changed. Much shrieking was heard and it turned out Layla was and kept touching Scouty McWinkerbean . Humans touching him makes his magic go out of him leaving him unable to fly to the North Pole . They freaked. So I had to come up with a plan.

I texted Santa (tony) and he text back that some magic elf dust would arrive from the North Pole and they had to sprinkle Scouty before midnight. Because I don't have enough to do.

The girls checked the door every fifteen minutes and finally around 10:30 I managed to throw together a Christmassy lookin package of glitter inside a Christmas ornament on sparkly red yarn and they soon found it hanging from our door.








It must have worked because the next Morning they found the Christmas crew with a Christmas light bound grinch, bluray grinch set and a note declaring he wouldn't steal Christmas while they're around.




Tuesday I crafted with my bestie while laci carted her son around on her back. He just finally got to come home being adopted from Uganda in the last month but it feels like he's always been here- he acts like it too! He's so funny, love my new nephew!











Laci had an impromptu field trip to the fire station- benefits of having an aunt dating a fire fighter. Thanks Leigh anne and zach!




Scouty drew faces on all our pictures!




She is starting to pass out on the couch. Praying she is transitioning into bit needing me so much to sleep.





Scouty got all fancy and zip lined across the dining room Wednesday night!







I made some Christmas crafts Thursday night while I was childless and decorated some.


These are ornaments I made from rose petals from flowers from Tony. Aw<3

I had gone to put El Blu ray in while I crafted and discovered I had two! So the bestie gets a benefit for my forgetfulness as he shares an affinity for elf culture I'm passing the extra copy to her.


Scouty kept it low key Thursday night and started the find the Christmas pickle tradition. We've never done it but I thought it would be fun and Ella found this awesome pickle ornament at fabulous Target.



All this and it isn't even December! I love Christmas time! It truly is the most wonderful time of the year!!

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So now what...

I cried tonight.

Never have I ever cried over an election- not even the first time Obama was elected.
I clearly saw who and what he was from the start. I took him at his word that he would "fundamentally transform America" and not in the positive way the screaming masses of the uneducated believed. I knew his plan was not one of strengthening America but instead to bring her to her knees.

Still, I didn't cry.

I even watched the inauguration with a baby Ella in my arms. I remember the moment thinking she will be five when we possibly have a decent president again. What fundamental change will this great nation undergo in the first four years of her life? What future is she inheriting.

Tonight I sat for hours after weeks of reading poll speculation. I started the evening with cautious excitement having fallen hard for an unlikely candidate. I felt such hope well up listening to Governor Romney. I felt a renewed confidence in America . I watched as he dominated debates and won over the undecided.

All this bolstered my hope for some peace and relief. Hope that while it was going to be a long road to recovery - America would be turned around in January and started down that path. Hope that we would be free from fear of an out of control President who sees no need for Constitution nor Congress and spends whatever energy that is not expelled on a golf course or basketball court in trampling the former under foot and circumventing the latter with Czars and executive order abuses. Hope that came from the possibility of dismantling the crippling curse of obamacare from the nations economy and freedom from sub par socialized medicine with medical decisions being made in Washington Dc by incompetent beurocracy.
Freedom from the fear that perhaps we have a tyrant occupying the hallowed halls of our White House who has already issued executive orders trampling our rights and freedoms. Hope that "hope and change" that came with this man would be replaced with real change and real hope and future.

I sat tonight with a growing migraine, sick stomach and dizzyness through the entire vote counting. As things went from close to unravelling- my nerves peaked in their dishevelment. Once Ohio was called the tears fell.

Not a sob. Just drops escaping the tenseness of my body.

Ella came out to the couch and sat by me and I couldn't help but remember that inaugural day when I was fearful and apprehensive yet determined that four years of bad leadership- even the worst and most dangerously progressive four years could be undone in the next election.

She sat beside me tonight and as I remembered that day tears fell a bit harder.

She will have just turned nine when our new president is sworn in (if there are still elections and term limits then) - the same age as my oldest daughter. To me , viewed in these terms ,this is a monumental range of time . What evil can be perpetrated upon our great land in that span?

And so I cried. And my mascara ran. And my 2 year old toddler- unnerved by my quiet tears- assured me she liked me.

I didn't cry the first time he was elected so why now.

Aside from the loss of hope of a Romney presidency and the crushing blow of realization that the damning changes made this term are not to be undone in the next but only Built upon and surely with frighteningly more extreme additions as this being his last election he will have "more flexibility" as he told Putin. But perhaps I cried for the people of this nation.

The first time around the media failed us, as it did again, to expose the man for what he is. The general population couldn't be held responsible for vetting a candidate on their own. We naively still held faith in the press.

The general public couldn't fully be blamed for getting caught up in the hype of the fresh new face and the excitement at the potentiality of the first black president while ignoring his transparently anti American ideals and promises.

But this time, THIS TIME we know who he is - even though some still deny. His policies have led us down a dark, dangerous path to destruction.

We look the other way as he signs away our rights keeping us from unlawful detainment.

We applaud his deference as he bows to our enemies- literally and figuratively.

We ignore the scandals: fast and furious, Ben ghazi, lies in the health care bill, borrowing from china meanwhile giving free cell phones to people too lazy to get a job even when the economy is good.

Then we vote him in again.

What has become of this nation. Have we really become a people who would rather be falsely lulled into submission by a tyrannical government tossing us morsels of "free" health care , "free" birth control, "free phones" while handing over our FREEdom?

Today it seems to be true and the ever wise Ben Franklin was correct

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

I dont know. I fear that is where we are headed but all is not lost.

Even as I wiped mascara stains from my face I felt a peace come over me.

My shortness of breath, migraine, dizziness and upset stomach that had accompanied for hours while I watched the election and relied on my own abilities to cope suddenly lifted from me as a peace that can only come from God- the creator of the universe- gently reminded me all was not lost.

"

we do not mourn like those who do not have hope "
- 1 Thessalonians 4:13

Now I know the first part mentions about not being ignorant about those who "sleep" indicating died. And that was the first thing I thought as this verse continually came to mind until I realized I was in fact mourning.

I was mourning the loss of the hope I had in a Romney presidency undoing the deeds of the last four years.

I was mourning the Loss of faith in my fellow Americans to look beyond themselves and putting the needs of a nation in crisis first, looking past party lines, past lies and hollow promises.

I was mourning the excitement and optimism that swelled in the conservative ranks the last few months.

I was mourning.

But in that realization peace replaced my mourning.

Resolve replaced defeat.

Hope in a man and fellow Americans was replaced with hope In the only one who deserves hope for he holds it in His hands.

All seemed Lost, all hope dashed
and then

There. Was. God.

Tonight is a severely disappointing set back on the road to recovery, the path to saving America.

But it's just that - a set back.

We Are. Not . Done.

America is a shining beacon to the world.

God didn't not form this republic for it to only crumble to irrelevance in such a crucial time in history.

He is not done with us yet and If that is true not even Barack Hussein Obama in all his Marxist might can completely unravel this country .

It will not be easy. The road is long and hard . It was always going to be - even with Romney.

What we lost tonight was not all hope. We didn't lose America tonight .
What we lost was the easier path. The chance to take a breather after four long years of vigilance and voices crying in the wilderness that the compliant media has created by not reporting the truth.

Now is not the time to fall back in defeat but the time to regroup with renewed strength and press on.

I believe we are in a time of transition - and not the one our newly elected now more flexible progressive leader has in mind.

We the people have been an entitled, lazy sleeping mass who has allowed enemy to infiltrate.

We've ignored God in our excess and blessing.

We've taken for granted the sacrifices of many as we've feasted on the rewards bought by their blood.

It seems now it is time for us to pay our dues.

Our complacency, apathy and ignorance have led us far off course .

We are about to wake up from our sleep to find ourselves still stuck in this long national nightmare of the Obama regime.

I believe these next four years are going to be used to fully awaken our fellow Americans to the reality of what we have created in order to undo decades of damage.

I believe in this time we will see people turning back to God, because of the adversity we will face, back to the Constitution in the wake of lost freedoms and back to the real America in the face of danger of losing it.

We could have had this easily had we been willing to do a little work, educate ourselves And rise to action.

The road we've chosen is harder but not impossible.

It will cost us more initially - but in the end we will triumph because this still IS a great nation.

The American spirit is alive and well and will not stand for tyranny.

Please do not lose hope or fall into hate and bitterness over this election. Those will only serve to destroy you.

Instead let us all find a new resolve, let us stick our courage to the sticking place and press on to turn the country around - taking back what was lost in the last four years - refusing to stand by watching more be taken while we sheepishly hand it over.

This is still America. God is still God. All hope is not lost.


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