Banana Hannah December

November and December were big months for Banana Hannah Designs. I was very excited about that, but it also meant lots of time making lots of tags and cards. I made what felt like a zillion tags for the store in Houston that carries my cards, Roundtable Goods; my Etsy site, and gifts for teachers and others. By the time that I got to my gifts, I wrote on a piece of scrap paper. :)

These are just a small sampling of my orders and designs for the month. It was a good month!

 The tags in the top left hand corner were custom made.

These were pre-holly being added to them.

I had a custom request for a clown. These turned out super cute!

Now it's time to get ready for Valentine's!

Christmas Happenings

December was a month that was extremely busy! I was determined to grab on and enjoy as much as possible. I didn't blog much, hardly creeped Facebook and barely tweeted. Now that life has slowed down a little while we enjoy the rest of our break, I thought that I better get some of this up before school starts again and we are back to our fast paced shenanigans. 

Our orange tree delivered a huge number of oranges. Last year we got just a few, but this year...whew! I had laundry baskets, huge bags, bowls, and other vessels full of oranges. I have just about been "oranged" out! We have had juice, muffins, cookies and cakes with oranges, lots of eating them whole as a snack. I took a bag full of them and kept them in my fridge at school for quick snacks. We gave away TONS! It has been fun and they are delicious.

I used my juicer to "juice" a gallon jug full of O.J. I have decided that it has a better flavor to hand squeeze it rather than run it through the juicer, just in case anyone wanted to know.

My kids had to come along to the community tree lighting as my elementary choir performed. That was fun. (not) I paid Grace to be my babysitter and she was not very impressed with the whole thing. She informed me afterwards that I would not ever be a grandmother because of her, she planned to not have any kids, ever.

We got our tree. The whole tree lot could hear us coming. There was some excitement in the air!

I had one of my best ideas ever! Of course, I completely made it up on the fly because I had not thawed out any meat for dinner. We will keep that part a secret. :)

While we were getting our Santa letters ready (see the catalogs and such on the table), we had a "Santa Dinner." I made hot cocoa with marshmallows, sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles, and popcorn. Of course the kids were thrilled with such a great menu!

Shane and his staff hosted Snowfest 2012 and we managed to get there a smidgen early and ride the snow hill a couple of times before everyone else showed up and the lines got really long.

Landry was very concerned about getting the stockings up and ready.

We also managed to catch a parade. The kids caught lots of candy. I'll have to post more Christmas happenings later...

I Thank God For You

While we were out and about traveling for Christmas and extended family, my lovely Hayden walked into the kitchen, grabbed both of my hands, looked deeply into my eyes and very seriously said, "Mom, I thank God for you."

My heart melted, "Oh Hayden, I love you and thank God for you too!"

As I was squishing him in a hug, he manages to squeeze out, "It's no big deal, Mom. I saw it on a sign in the bathroom."

Oh, so proud...

On the way home today we were talking about how everyone's day went. It seemed a little more eventful than normal.

Middle school has definitely been a transition at our house and not necessarily the easiest. Grace was going on and on about her day and then proceeded to tell me about how during PE the coach got in several girls' faces and was screaming at them and then the principal came in and had to talk to their entire class because apparently, while in the locker room the girls were "pantsing" each other. Because of the screaming and noise, the principal showed up. At this point, of course I laughed.

"Everyone was doing it and getting pantsed." she said.

"Everyone?" I asked. "Did you?"

"Oh no," she answered right back.

"What exactly were you doing to miss out on that?"

"Well, I was playing the limbo in the back."

And that right there folks, is why 6th graders should be banned from humanity until they regain their sanity.

Then Hayden chimes in, "We were playing a new game today. They were already playing so I just tagged along."

He and his little buddies decided to take a bite out of nature. Literally. They had a taste test to see which of the following items was the most tasty. On the menu: grass, acorns, and flowers. None of them were kid approved. Their teacher informed them that a dog could have tee-tee-ed all over all of it. I don't think they really cared.

On another note, Landry has stayed on green and had excellent behavior for 10 full school days in a row. That completely coincides with the arrival of our Elf on the Shelf, Elfie. Before Elfie showed up, her behavior folder read like a novel. Here's to hoping that this new leaf will stay turned over!

Time to Reflect

This holiday season feels like it has sneaked up on me. I feel like I have barely gotten over Halloween and now Thanksgiving is gone! This last week, and a very welcome break, was the perfect time to be able to reflect and begin to get my heart in the right place for this upcoming holiday season.

These little faces are the reason that I place my life in the order that I do. I thank God that he blessed us with four opportunities to raise loving children that will someday be mommas and daddys with kids of their own. I think that there is no greater blessing and responsibility than that.

As we rush headlong into the inevitable hustle and bustle of the next few weeks, these little guys are what's important. The relationships that are being formed and nurtured, the examples that are being set, the lessons that will be taught, are all more important than any of the other "things" that will be happening and soon forgotten.

Happy Holiday Season.

Thanksgiving Hunt

We were blessed to be able to spend Thanksgiving this year with not only Shane's grandmother in Brownwood (which is where we usually go for Thanksgiving), but also to see my family in Cisco and stay with my sister and her husband Noah. Uncle Noah is a fan favorite at our house. If he said to jump off of a cliff, I'm quite sure that all of my children would do it.

Uncle Noah planned a hunting trip to the lease and took Gibson, who couldn't have been more excited. 

They saw a bunch of deer, mainly does, and were about to take off when this big buck walked right into their sights. Gibson was so excited that he could hardly stand it. He was almost more excited about the blood and deer scent that he had all over himself as he was about getting the buck!

Thanks Uncle Noah for such a special experience!

This little heights thing...

Hayden was telling us about when he grows up he thinks that he may want to be a pilot.

"I think that it would be pretty great to be a pilot. Lots of fun... I'm just going to have to get over this little fear of heights thing."