Christmas Eve SNOW

It started snowing on Christmas Eve. I had been telling Hailey that it was Christmas Eve and she kept telling me it wasn't. However, when the snow started she goes "Wow, it really IS christmas Eve!"  The kids were very excited since this was the first real snow this year. By the time it was done we had about six inches. They have out sledding and playing in it multiple times since. They were all trying to snowboard. Most of them could do it quite well down the little hill in our backyard..... Caleb loves to sled. He gets mad if his sled goes too slow or we start him partway down the hill instead of at the top. He even figured out a way to carry the sled himself so he could go again and again and again.

Names

Hailey is still learning how to do her name well.... One day I wrote it down for her to copy and she did an awesome mirror rendition of what I wrote :) I hear that's pretty common for this age. It's so interesting to see their brains develop as they age.

Ice skating

Since the kids enjoyed ice skating so much last year we wanted to try it again. This time we went to a full size rink. They all loved it. Caleb wasn't into for very long but he was pretty happy for the first little while. It's hard to skate and keep a little one upright too..... :) There were these tall cones that the littler ones could hold on to and skate around. That helped Hailey a lot. She LOVED the independence. I will see if I can get a video of her skating up on here. Maggie would use a cone off and on but she was actually pretty confident on her skates. Although she had a good sized blister and a sore bum afterwards. Jackson had fun too but I think he might have started to get bored. A hockey stick would have kept him going for a long time :)
Hailey wet her pants this time. So far we are 2 for 2 with ice skating and potty accidents.....  We got her all cleaned up and into dry stuff and she was back at it.
Matt was happy to be on skates again.

Ornaments 2012

Sometimes we wait until after Christmas sales to get the kids ornaments for that year..... but this year we found some good sales early.

Jackson - robot - this boy has loved robots for a long time and plans to own a robotics company when he is older. He got a subscription to Robot magazine from my Dad for his birthday. He loves it.

Maggie - this fairy reminded me of the tooth fairy and that is such a good one for Maggie. Her teeth have been such a big deal this year - and she asked me not too long ago if the tooth fairy was real...... She has swallowed TWO teeth as they came out when she was eating, she recently lost another down the drain of the bathroom sink when she pushed on it to see how loose it was and it popped out...... In face I think the only ones she has been able to keep to pass on to the tooth fairy are the two that I pulled out :)

Hailey - this girl loves dance and princesses and being fancy. She always goes and changes into some sort of costume for dancing if we have good music on.....

Caleb - He loves superheroes. He like to watch Spiderman and Superhero Squad..... One of his favorite games is playing superheo with us. He will pretend to be Hulk, Ironman, Spiderman, Wolverine.... He knows his superheroes like Maggie knew all the Disney princesses :)

Piano?!?

Matt and I have talked about wanting a piano for a long time. Last year I bought a keyboard and Matt had me take it back...... he didn't like the sound....... I thought a keyboard was an excellent idea since it is SO much easier to move. So we went and looked at keyboards that would have the sound quality Matt wanted.... ummm, a little out of our current budget :) So that idea will have to wait. We just happened to check Craigslist again a little while ago and noticed an old player piano for $50. Matt was sold. I was not. However, for $50 I let him go with it. We picked it up the day after Thanksgiving. Luckily the people we got it from still had a lot of family there so they loaded it into the truck for us. The next day Matt brought it up next to the deck and laid out a ramp to roll it off the truck. He and I managed to get it into the house ourselves by rolling it across plywood. Good thing we built a deck...... :) It is really out of tune but Matt doesn't really care since it reminds him of the piano they had growing up. So now we have an old, out of tune, $50 piano that Matt loves...... :) Uh oh.

Thanksgiving 2012

We went to our Bishops house with another family. The one with 6 kids that we spend quite a bit of time with :) It was pretty busy with 10 kids but lots of fun and excellent food. I got off easy and only had to bring a green bean casserole :) It's nice to just be a part of the cooking and clean-up instead of being responsible for all of it. It's always hard to be away from family but at least it helps to be able to spend holidays with friends. Travel is so unpredictable this time of year anyway......

a little SNOW

 

We had some snow flurries the other day - really nothing to get excited about - but the kids disagreed. They dug out snow gear and headed out. Somehow Jackson managed to stay out of the photo op......
It reminded me what a pain it is to get all the kids ready to go out only to have them turn around and come back in....... all those, boots, pants coats, gloves........

Hair days

More pics of Hailey and Caleb since they are home with me for more hours in the day :) Hailey really like this hairdo right now. She will ask me to do the 'lightning bolt'. Caleb really likes mohawks. For a long while he called them 'ho-hawks' but his speech has improved a lot recently. I cut his hair recently so no more mohawks for now..... hopefully, he doesn't grow out of them before I can do them again!
I still need to put together a hair do book for the girls to make hair do of the day decision making a little easier in the mornings......

Sunbathing

One day Hailey decided that they should sunbathe on the deck - it was rather cloudy and not very warm - but that didn't slow her down in the least :) Caleb loves to copy his older siblings. I wish they could understand what an influence their good or bad exmple is to him...... They were pretty cute getting their stuff all laid out and ready to go on the deck!

Crazy hair

 

 

The girls with crazy hair for school one day. They were pretty excited to have colored hair. Jackson missed out because he stayed home sick that day. He was kind of annoyed :)

Halloween

This is how they all went Trick or Treating. Caleb was willing to wear a costume this time..... Jackson is a skeleton. It's funny that I never really know what they are going to be dressed as until it's time. Not much planning ahead happens with this crew. I wonder if that will change as they get older? I blame it on having A LOT of costumes around the house to choose from.....
Caleb was pretty funny when we went trick or treating. He got candy at the first house and he would have been perfectly happy if we stopped right then and let him eat that one piece of candy. We stayed out a little longer and he was pretty into it once he realized every house was going to put candy in his bucket! Jackson was ready to run from house to house as fast as he could. Maggie wanted to be moving pretty fast too. Matt went ahead with the bigger ones while I walked with the littler two. Hailey was torn between wanting to go fast and staying with me :)

Fire station

 

The local fire station had an open house around Halloween. This was our 2nd year to go. The kids love to climb in and out of all the vehicles and take a ride on the fire truck. Caleb wasn't too sure about a fully outfitted fireman but where his siblings go he will follow :) He was a crazy man the rest of the time. He was ALL over the place. We happened to know one of the guys there and he spent some time trying to recruit Matt since it is an all volunteer station.....

Sadly, I have very few pics to add to this post. I wish I would have taken more but all hands were busy..... we had friends over for dinner and pumpkin carving last night despite the hurricane storm warning..... They have 6 kids so there was quite a lot to do! They live in our same neighborhood so we didn't have to worry about them traveling far. Although, the wind and rain was crazy as they headed out. We never lost power - I am grateful for that. We had taco soup that our friends brought over - very good stuff :) Carved lots of pumpkins (Matt helped out with the Dremel!) We also had some dry ice so we could make a fun potion as a drink. We just dropped some in a punch bowl of kool aid. The kids thought I was magic :) It really was pretty cool. If you want to try it, grocery stores often have it, you just have to ask for it. It's only a couple of dollars per pound. Get 1 lb for your drink and 1 lb for experiments!! Get it as close to using it as possible it really doesn't last long - even in the freezer. We had 4 lbs - we probably used 1 lb for drinks and the rest went in the freezer. By lunchtime the next day there was only 1/2 - 1 lb left to play with. I will post about that soon. After pumpkin carving and pumpkin seed roasting, I made some spiderweb snacks. Pretzel sticks with melted chocolate drizzled on them like spiderwebs. Very easy and turned out very cute. We added flameless candles to all the pumpkins and turned off the lights so the kids could admire them. So fun to see them amazed! Halloween is such a fun time of the year.

Halloween 1

This is round 1 of Halloween costumes. I think it was for Jackson's cub scout pack meeting. The kids were still really into the face paint so they were all done up. Caleb didn't really want to wear costumes out of the house. He just likes to play dress up at home :) He wore the cape for the pics but only wore the mask for the rest of night. It's fun to see the kids dressed up and so excited for Halloween.

Birthday!

 

Matt's birthday was towards the end of October. The kids always love a good birthday! :) He chose a buffet for his birthday dinner so we were all to full for cake and ice cream when we got home. We decided to have it for breakfast the next morning.... at least it was carrot cake. I was proud of myself for making it instead of buying it this year. It had pineapple and of course, shredded carrots. It was very good. Matt doesn't mind getting older at all. He just seems to enjoy the time as it goes by. Caleb was excited about the candles and said "do it again, Dad" after Matt blew them out.
I am forever grateful that I have Matt as a husband. Together we shall conquer all :) meaning - we will raise happy, healthy, contributing adults. I love that I can still learn new things about him even after 11 years of marriage!!

Hailey

Before I forget I need to document Hailey's imagination lately. We have a large US map hanging up near the dining room table so we talk about different states fairly often. Hailey latched onto Texas for some reason. Now we hear stories about how she was a little girl in Texas. When we were at the studio to get her pictures taken awhile ago she pointed to a picture of the girl on the wall and said "that's me when I was in Texas". You can't persuade her any different. She had a school, a different mom and mean friends :) Sometimes she forgets the name and calls it the green state since that is the color of it on the map. At least a few times a week she makes comments about living in Texas. The other day she told Maggie she lived right by the big "S" of Texas..... Funny girl. This has been going on for a few months now.

I got some dollar store glasses and knocked the lenses out so the kids could use them for play. Maggie and Hailey wear the A LOT. More than I anticipated. They will wear them all day long. So odd but so cute! I guess I need to get another pair.....

Face painting

We got some face paints to use for Halloween so I thought I would "practice" on the kids. It would let them have it on more than once and we will probably just throw it out after Halloween. It probably has lots of scary ingredients in it that we wouldn't want to keep using anyway :) The kids loved it. I just worked fast....... Jackson is being a skeleton for halloween so his really was practice. Everyone else just wanted something painted, they didn't care what it was. Then they spent the next hour running, screaming from Jackson. All in good fun :)

Ice Cream

 

We have this little ice cream place nearby that is open from April-October. They make HUGE sundaes for a really good price. In the pic above we have probably already eaten a third of it. It's one of our favorite places to go during the summer. I'm trying to take note of the little things so we can look back on our favorite things when we move again someday :)

Tomato

 

Here is Hailey eating a fresh tomato from the garden. Both she and Caleb will do that.

Grandma visits!

My Mom made it over for a visit with my sister a few weeks ago..... Sarah was only here a short time and we missed getting a picture with her..... sorry sis! It was great to see them. The kids absolutely loved it. We got some good visiting and projects into the short trip. We took Mom to the train so she could meet up with Sarah in DC for some of Sarah's work events and sight seeing. We were all sad to see them go. HOPEFULLY, we find a way to get together more often :)

 

Hailey

I will miss this funny girl when she startes PreK ( since this post is late..... she actually starts today) She is happy to go though. It's in the afternoon during Calebs naptime so she was pretty tired of being quiet at home while he slept and there were no friends to play with. She is always in some sort of costume.

Salsa

This salsa is made from tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers from our garden. Next year we will have to grow onions and cilantro as well so we have a complete salsa garden! The kids love to help us cut everything up to make it. We call it a salsa party or a cutting party. All of them will eat some of it after they help make it. Fresh salsa is my favorite snack :)

School 2012

 

Backyard play

The weather started to cool off around the beginning of September but there were still some hot days thrown in. We decided to take advantage of one of them and fill up the little pool in the backyard. They love having the little slide into it. That lasted for an hour or so and then they started to get bored so I added some dishsoap and we had a pool full of bubbles. Suddenly it was fun again and they played for another hour or so :)

Caleb is showing off his superhero moves. He loves Ironman, Superman, Batman and Spiderman. 

Sick boy

A few weeks ago Caleb started to get sick and he was having a pretty hard time breathing. I kept an eye on him all day and the nebulizer treatments we were giving him didn't seem to really be helping but he also didn't seem to be getting worse. We had a busy evening so we opted to have Matt stay home with Caleb while I took the other kids to the activities. First we had a back to school pool party. When we came home from that I thought Caleb was somewhat worse so I had Matt take him down to the instacare while I took the other kids to meet up with some friends that were visiting from out of town. He called to tell me that they were worried about his breathing and oxygen levels and  wanted him to take Caleb to the ER immediately! Yikes. There wasn't a lot I could do at that point so we stayed at the park and waited for another update. They weren't as worried about him in the ER but still wanted him to stay and be treated. One of our friends offered to let the kids come stay the night at their house so I could do what I needed to. That was very nice. I dropped them off and decided to try to take a nap since Caleb was doing just fine with Matt and I didn't want to rock the boat. Then  I could go and switch with Matt if Cale ended up being admited. It was touch and go for a little while whether or not they would admit him overnight (they didn't) but they stayed until about 11 pm.  They gave him breathing treatments and steroids to try to control his fast breathing and heartrate. In the end it was decided that he had the flu which brought on an asthma attack. That doesn't give me a whole lot of confidence for dealing with this in the future but I am very glad things didn't get any worse. Two days later he was back to his normal self.