Merry Christmas baby

We had a fabulous Christmas this year! Lots of family and lots of food and lots of SNOW!
It has been 70 degrees here everyday until Christmas when the temp dropped and the rain started... Then the snow started! It was a Christmas miracle in Texas! It was beautiful and so fun!

Courtney got 3 baby triplets who she named Garrett, Garrett, and Garrett. She walked around all day talking about her baby Garrett's.

All 3 kids slept in our room that night and I was paranoid the whole time of waking up! But Santa was good to all of us and we had an awesome day together with family. I love to have everyone close!

Christmas Eve

What a wonderful day tomorrow is. We have the wonderful opportunity to celebrate the birth of the savior. Tonight we had a really fun Christmas Eve party. There were 19 kids and 17 adults for a grand total of 36 people over for a super fun night. We made snowflakes, sugar cube igloos, ate, drew pictures of our gifts to Jesus, finger painted Christmas lights, ate, pin the tail on the donkey, ate, and made reindeer food full of magic! Then we did our traditional children's nativity pageant and the kids did great!

I love good company and a lot of family so it was a lot of fun to have everyone over to celebrate together! Even the newest addition to the fan, Garrett's fiancé!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Wow it's busy

What a busy month! I have been wanting and needing to Blog for a long time now.

Some of the things that we have done this month have been go to a special Christmas show at a local church, Celebrate Taylor's birthday at American girl(and eat at the darling and delishious cafe), Enjoy time with Nana and granddad, Christmas baking, Caroling, Losing too many teeth, Christmas shopping and Christmas wrapping.

We have also done the 12 days of Christmas with our kids. Unfortunately this is turned more into the 4 days of Christmas. At least there are some things that we are doing for other people, I can't complain.

I cannot believe that tomorrow is Christmas eve. The month has just flown by. There are never enough days to get everything done that I want to. I try hard to make our savior, Jesus Christ the center of our home especially during the season. It is hard to do this with all of the activities that surrounds the month. This upcoming year, I would like to try to make him the focus all year round, Even more than usual.

We had the most beautiful musical program at church today. My sister sang, I don't know why it surprises me every time how beautiful her voice is. Nothing gets me in the Christmas spirit quite like listening to beautiful music.

I also love how sisters think alike, Libby and I showed up to church today in matching outfits! Great minds!

Making appearances

Run down of life at the rawlberry patch...

 

Meet Elfie Nick. He came to our family several years ago and has been a fun little addition to the family. THIS year he has gotten into some rotten mischief though and the kids are dying! He's made messes with toilet paper, flour, gotten caught in jars, knives, and even up in the chandelier. The other day he was on the mantle and the kids were really disappointed that that was it! He has some more ideas up his sleeve I am sure...

 

I am really proud of Natalie. She has worked really hard at school and I can tell a huge difference in her from when she started school. Educationally, she is reading great! She can sound our lots of words that aren't too long, and although she still gets frustrated, she gets through it and can read! I love seeing how accomplished she feels when she does it! The other day I got an email to come to the assembly they do once a month. The acknowledge kids each month for difference awards, and each month there is a girl and boy who are athlete of the month from the whole school... well, it was Natalie this month. I know, she is in kindergarten, but I am so proud of her. Coach says she works really hard and mastered all of the PE skills that they learn. Way to go athlete of the month!!

 

Trotter Insurance group has been a company for 5 years now, but this year was the first year that another employee has been hired on. We love her so much and she is wonderful! So this was the FIRST Trotter Insurance Christmas Party! We went out to eat at a new fancy place. Unfortunately Brian and I have both not been feeling well. Brian has been having some not so fun headaches, and I have been really under the weather with a cold that never seems to go away. So we didn't enjoy our food or the night out. But the company was great and we enjoyed the creme brule!

 

Then one of the sweet Young Women, Leiandie, that I taught at church several years ago got married on Saturday. She was beautiful and I am so glad that a bunch of us leaders were able to be there for her big day! It was fun to see her make such a righteous choice, but also to see my sweet friends who I love so so much.

 

Lastly, nothing melts my heart like sibling love. They are all cuddled up on my bed watching a movie together. I cant imagine life without them, and life when they are grown up. please let me can this moment and never open in again.

I have so much to be thankful for...Happy Sunday!

Big plans

This last weekend was a very eventful weekend around here! My parents flew in for 1night and 2 days and we got to see them just for a moment it feels like. We celebrated Brayden turning 8 and getting baptised!!! The next day was little Nina was blessed. She looked beautiful even if her dress was covered in glitter, therefore covering me in glitter. She is lucky we love her!

It was a short and fun weekend. We fit in time to listen to Drews choir at Merry Main St, go to a Legends basketball game, eat a lot, and just hang out.

 

I have to share 2 funny things that my girls have said over the last few days:

 

we were walking the other day and Natalie was finished a sucker. She then looked at the stick and acted as if it was the end of the world to hold onto it till we got home. She then asked me "Mom, could I please just glitter?" It took me a second to understand what she was saying and after having her repeat it several times, some of which was because it was just so stinkin cute, I figured out that she thinks littering is called glittering. I, of course, told her that we do not glitter.

 

Courtney also tried to say something that she has learned from us. She was sitting at the table today eating an yogart when a fly landed right beside her on a chair. She started to wimper, yes she is scared of any bug especially flies, and then she screamed "SHOOT! SHOOT!" over and over. Now she repeats everything she says over and over so I honestly didn't even pay attention to it, until I finally zoned into Courtney land and heard her saying shoot! I asked her what was the matter and she told me there was a bug! It landed again right on her yogart and the crying began again, followed by SHOOT SHOOT!! I didn't have the heart to tell the sweet girl that it is actually SHOO that I am saying.

 

Number 4

Teeth. Natalie lost her 4th tooth today. Last week was number 3 and it was no big deal. This was one of her two front teeth, both of which have been loose. It started bleeding today so I made her lay down and I flossed it out. She screamed, but it was all worth it. I think it was more the anticipation of it all, rather than it really hurting her!

Court just wanted to get in on the picture taking action. I asked her to go stand beside the Christmas tree, so she went back behind it and made this face... Cheesy little Girl. My favorite thing about her this week is her "please please please please can I have...(fill in the blank)" She uses please excessively and it is so darling!!

 

It all just gets in the way...

Courtney is 2, she is super "mature" for her age and talks a mile a minute. She talks to everyone about everything, and because she is so tall and advanced with speaking, people think they need to engage in a real conversation with her. It's quite funny actually.

Well, she is ready to be potty trained and as I have learned with other children, I hate potty training. She tells me before she goes in her diaper by saying "there's something in my bum." she keeps her diaper dry a lot and then well try to sit on the toilet and she actually goes. So she is ready. I've been putting it off for months now with the move and all. Well yesterday was the day. I re-read my 3 day potty training, bought panties, bought the juice, and marked the days off... Until I woke up. I was so sick yesterday that it all got put on hold. Now I don't think I will be able to do it till the new year! Lame. I also was scheduled to go in and complete one of my classes this week with night school. So, I spent the day trying to recovery enough to go to class. It worked, and after laying in bed from 7am-5pm I felt ok to go to class. But I am soo out of the classroom mode! And can I say, I hate classroom talkers? The ones who talk along with the teacher, trying to say things before they do, or asking questions to try to make themselves look smarter than the rest of us. Ug. I hate that. Just listen. Don't talk.

But in getting sick, I re-learned that I have the best sister ever. She took my two kids so I could throw up (grow up as Courtney calls it) without worrying about the 2 insanely crazy nutsos I have roaming around my house. Seriously, don't know what I would do without her! So note to self, stop getting sick. Note to kid in my class, stop quiet talking over the teacher. Note to Courtney, stop growing up. And note to sister, you are the bomb.

Christmas Bubbles

Thanksgiving was another wonderful Holiday with Family and those we love around us. We passed around more feathers for our turkey who quickly got filled up with things people are thankful for. Choklit, sonic happy hour, family living close, the troops, great grandchildren, and so many more things were thought about. We are truly blessed and  have so much to be thankful for. I was especially thankful for the chocolate pie, and lemon meringue pie this year! mm. OK, but for real, I was really thankful for healthy happy family to be all together.

 

I skipped the black Friday shopping this year. I did it a few years ago and went to wait in line at Toys'rus for some Christmas gifts. It was nuts. The people were crazy, the store was insane and I just don't ever find the need to go back again. Unless there was something I am just DYING to have that is on a crazy sale, it isn't worth it to me. So I passed, went to a movie and had a good night sleep!

 

Needing a night out of the house, Brian surprised us all by taking us to this new public park in a local community that had its light up ceremony on Friday. It was beautiful!! They had thousands of lights on hundreds of trees and the kids LOVED running around and picking out their favorites. There was a band playing and little boothes set up selling things. There were food trucks with cupcakes and hot dogs and deep fried oreos. It was a lot of fun! I dont know why lights put me in the Christmas spirit, but they do a great job of it and make me feel all Christmasy inside! Great way to ring in the season!

Natalie was our little photographer for this picture, since we never get pictures of the 2 of  us since we are always taking them or chasing kids or something. She did pretty good eh?! 

We then told them we would go find a treat, given all of the treats there were super expensive. We tried a few diners for pie or dessert, but they were all closed for the Holidays...sooo we ended up going to a place that sells bubble tea. We got smoothies, with bubbles. The kids hated the bubbles. I thought for sure they would love it and think it was pretty cool. The first one was cool, then there were hundreds more in their drink. It got old fast. So Bubbles in smoothies for the future are a big fat NO!