Top Five things that you can do with food, other than eat it!

1. Hollow out your rock hard breadstick and pretend it's your finger. A light sabre is an even better idea!

2. Mashed potatoes look very much like a snowball, let's pretend it's one!

3. If I stick my fork into my mashed potatoes, how far up in the air can I lift it before it falls off?

4. Let's spread out our mashed potatoes and cover it with gravy and pretend it's applesauce!

5. Hey, a chicken drumstick can be used as a light sabre too!

God Bless the teachers and aides that work at Corpus Christi! Today I had the pleasure of subbing for a gal who works in the lunchroom from 11:10-12:40. This lady caught me in the hall at Northridge about a week ago asking me if I could cover for her, as she had another thing she needed to do and couldn't find a replacement. She was told that she HAD to find a replacement if she was going to be gone. Now I know why no one wanted to sub in for her! Believe me, 1.5 hours is enough time for me to figure out that working in the library is WAY BETTER than working in the lunchroom, even at it's worst! I told the ladies that work in the lunch room that if Emma ever acts up, they better let me know. They assured me that she is very well behaved and a good eater, and almost always eats everything on her plate. Most of the kids don't have time to eat because they are too busy coming up with other ideas for what they can do with their food. I'm sure there are many kids that come home after school starving to death. I think it should be a requirement for every parent to come in and volunteer 1.5 hours of their time in the lunch room. I think it would be an eye-opening experience for many parents. I asked my good friends in the library to start a rumor that I am library property only, and am not allowed to do lunch room duty in the future.

The kids are SO EXCITED for Christmas. Emma couldn't sleep last night because she was too excited for her Christmas party at school today. Around 8:30-9pm the doorbell rang and it was our neighbor across the street. She brought Gage and Emma each a bag of surprises and a big bowl of snack mix. That was so thoughful of them. The bowl of goodies was wrapped up in a cellophane Christmas bag and it was so pretty. I am definitely going to use that idea next year. Emma had heard the doorbell ring and she was hollering from her room, "Who was it Mom?" I told her to go to sleep. A little later she came upstairs because she was complaining that her lips were chapped and were hurting. That was a good excuse, because they were actually quite red and cracked. She noticed the new bag under the tree and asked what it was. I told her that LeeAnn, Lyla and Linda, the sisters across the street, brought it for them. She peeked inside and saw there was some make-up inside. Great! Emma has been wanting make-up and even wrote it on her Christmas letter to Santa that she wrote at school last week. She saw the exact set she wanted at Walmart the other day, and I think it contained about 100 different items. I'll kill Santa if that shows up under the tree! This morning Emma couldn't wait to get up and check out her gift from "the sisters". The "make-up" that was in the bag was actually a set of lip glosses. What a perfect thing for chapped lips! She was very busy this morning checking out everything that was inside the bag. As always, I was trying to hurry this morning to get them out of the house so they wouldn't be late for school. We got quite a bit of snow last night and it was quite a workout walking to school this morning since only a few people had shoveled their sidewalks before school. When we finally made it down to Corpus Christi Emma asked, "Mom, does my make-up look okay?" I obviously did not look at her face on our way out of the house. She had lip gloss smeared all over her face, above her eye and across her nose. Apparently she thought lip gloss can double as eye shadow as well. We were too late to walk back home and wash her face, so I used that "Mom spit" that works quite well at getting most things off the kids' faces. It didn't work so well on lip gloss above the eyes and nose. I just did the best I could and sent her on her merry way. There is never a dull moment as far as the Stephens' are concerned!