It gets better at the end

If you want happy and bright stop reading NOW! I feel like I'm juggling 50 balls - which ones are going to drop? Will it be the Ben birthday party ball? Or the homemade gifts ball? Or the clean house ball (oh yeah that one dropped months ago - still looking for it)? Or the holiday baking ball? Errrg! To top it off the kids are being (to put it nicely) brats! That's right, I said it! And guess who is the worst? The teething baby? No. The argumentative, crazy-yelling 4 year-old? Nope. Perhaps the stubborn, whiney 7 year old? Wrong again! That's right - sweet little angel boy (ha, ha) my 9 year-old who definitely knows better is driving me bonkers! I won't list all of the offenses, but they were topped off this morning by him shoving his brother on the way down to Stacy & Paul's house and then when Ben ran back to our house to tell me, Alexander told Paul that Ben wasn't going to school so they left him. That kid is in so much trouble. I've had all day to cool off and I just keep getting madder by the second. He will be grounded indefinitely and he will be cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming and doing the windows. Yep, I'm that mad.

O.k. on to the holiday cheer portion of this post. Saturday night was our Christmas party at the church. My boys were all in the program so we had to go. I probably wouldn't have went if they weren't just because I hate trying to wrangle 4 active boys at the church. It's always so chaotic. This year was different. The highlights of the party were Jared Ammon playing the guitar with Adam singing "Silent Night". I might have even shed a tear or two. And Stacy sang too. I just love her voice. It's so clear and effortless. The kids program was so cute. Max and Ben were Wise Men and Max stood in front and sang right into the microphone (well, he started to sing and then just sorta mouthed the words). Alexander was an angel and he wasn't too thrilled about that but he did it and he did a great job. Later, Evan sat on Santa's lap and bawled his eyes out. I tried to take a picture but my dad's flash stopped working.













I made the Max with Santa picture the biggest because I am still amazed that he would sit on his lap. We have walked by Santa a few times at the mall and Max will stare at him and then refuse to go near him. I admit I did bribe Max with a sucker this time. It was so funny. At first he wouldn't even look at Santa and Santa was asking Max all sorts of questions like "What's your name?" "How old are you?" When Santa finally got to the "What do you want for Christmas?" question Max looked at him, puffed out his cheeks and said, "I really don't know." WHAT? This kid asks for something different from Santa every 5 minutes. Then he jumped off Santa's lap and asks, "Now can I have my sucker?"