January happenings

Shortly after Christmas we went bow shooting.



The kids have really been enjoying it and they are not that bad.

Evan got a shot right between the eyes.  Although that is not where you want to shoot to kill it but I do not believe they would ever live through that either.





Even I have been joining the boys.  I am decent at this, but I have done it since I was a little older than Gregory.





We have not actually done much shooting the past couple weeks since it has been unbelievably cold.  And not the normal me whining about temperatures lower than 70 but truly very in the -20's FREEZING.



It was a polar vortex.  It was cold!  They shut schools down because the temps were single digits and under, for highs.  The kids have barley been too school this January.  They have had snow days, cold days, ice days a broken heater day, tomorrow is a holiday and Tuesday a teacher in service day.  And Thursday?  Guess What??  We are expecting a second polar vortex.  YAY.  Actually even with all these days off the kids are not that happy about it.  They would rather be at school.


Gregory

They certainly have kept me busy here and I am back at school for one of those super condensed super hard January classes.  A 15 week upper level biology class that has so much more chemistry in it I would have thought, all in in 15 days.  Yup a week a day and I should be studying.  But all those have once again left me to neglect this poor blog.  However, that class ends Friday and then back to the normal semester.  And hopefully back outside.

The little princess do go out and play for a few minutes.  But mostly they stay in.  They can not manage to keep their gloves and boots on, so they come in crying and cold.

Faithy dancing away



We are still watching the Nutcracker almost daily.  I bought her 3 different ones after Christmas.  One the real one with live people.  Gregory likes this one best he will sit and watch it with her most anytime.  She loves the Angelina Ballerina one.  Or at least she thinks she does.  She begs for it sings the songs loves watching them for a few minutes but then dances away.  Angelina's best friend in the shows, name is Gracie, too cute.  Lastly she got the wonderpets one.  I think that is the one the tiny team all loves the most.  They are all cute though.  And YES I did get a video of the kids all dancing the Nutcracker like I mentioned here.  I will get that uploaded to youtube sometime in the next month so I can show you.

And both of the girls have been playing with their baby dolls.



They are just such little girls and so much fun to have.  Completely different from the boys yet so much alike too.

When life gives Faith lemons

She loves it.  She takes them from everyone's water and pops them right into her mouth.



Oh yes sucking all the sour juices right out.  And only then stopping to think...



Maybe I should not have done that?



But that though goes right out of her head as soon as it comes in.  She then pops the next lemon right in.  I have a feeling that I am going to be watching this one repeat many lessons over and over.

After the Christmas tea the tiny team and me went out to eat with mema and pepa.



 I gave the boys the option of coming with us but they would rather stay at school and have fun there.  That was fine with me I am glad they like it so much.



These three are hilarious and it is like dinner and a show when you are with them. And it is always nice to go out and taking off making at least 1 meal.

Faithy loved their tree!




Awe what sweet Christmas moments.  I did not really stock up after Christmas like I sometimes too.  I was just to burnt out and the prices have not been very good.  I got a few stocking stuffers that are going make an appearance in the kids Easter baskets if I can remember where I had them come Easter.



My parents



And me and my munchkins with mema.

School Christmas Tea

December 20th the lower El had their winter tea.  It was another fun time that never fails to disappoint.  I can't believe next year there will be no lower El Christmas tea for us.  As Evan is moving up to Upper El and Brendan will be in childrens house not there yet.  So this was special as it was Evan's last one.  My parents came up to watch and help out with the tiny team.



Evan performed on the piano this year.  He has really improved and was happy to play Jolly Old St. Nickolas.  My video taping skills are not perfect.  I could not get it to focus in this clip.



He also read haiku he wrote



And the whole lower el sang some songs for us.



I can't believe how little they look when they are all standing up there on stage.  Precious

Here they are with rock those jingle bells.



The best part was when the invited the families up to sing the holiday hop with the kids.  The tiny team was in heaven.



Brendan wants to be like his big brothers so much and for him to get up there with Evan made his day.  Plus it was fun to dance and sing.



Again this video is not the best I kinda cut off Minal and Evan's head.  They were in the view frame of the camera but then when I downloaded it...oops.



And after it was all over there was cookies.  Which Faith was more interested in then pictures.





Evan and his friends.

Christmas Day 2013

Glory to God!  Our savior is born what a reason to celebrate and what celebrating we did.  Without forgetting the reason for the day we enjoy it too.  The children have a book by Colton Burpee who meet Jesus and talks about how Jesus REALLY loves the children.  He explains it is such an inconceivable love you can't match it.  I believe that but I certainly think there are times we come close.  I think one of those times is celebrating Christmas through the eyes of a child.

So much pomp and circumstance leading up to the day.  This year it was less than normal because of the snow but it did not damper our spirits.  The kids have been over the moon not the best behaved but not worse than excited kids at Christmas.  Everything has been leading up to this day, and it was finally here.

Christmas morning!!



All through the night I heard Gregory checking on Santa every couple of hours.  Then as it towards the morning I would hear Smiley and Evan.  They would each let out squeals of delight I knew it would not be long before they were trying to wake us up.  I think they all might have lasted till 6 something?

Ugh my early risers, morning kids, only on this morning, Easter too.  Still dad and I were happy to take them downstairs and start the festivities.

The kids happily tore through the presents.







They were so happy with most of their gifts.  Gregory said to me mom there is a lot of flat ones.  I gave them books and quiz games, which they did not want.  I gave them some coloring books too they did not care to much about either and chalk which was useless since we do not have a paved driveway but hey it was on sale.



However nothing can compare to NEW IPODS!!!



Oh heavens the boys were so happy.  Gregory knew he was getting one but Evan was only hopeful.



And his dreams and wishes...came true!



His own ipod.  Oh he is still over the moon.  Gregory is just so happy to for him because now they can play together.  And that they have, constantly.  I keep trying to get these kids off these things but they are hooked.  And to complement their ipods they got way to much i stuff.  ihome, new cases, more itumes cards, they are ispoiled.  But it is awesome.  They ARE thankful and they ARE awesome kids who are good kids and sweet, helpful, intelligent and kind hearted boys. Nothing feels better than to give them their wishes.  Evan keeps saying this was the best Christmas ever, and I keep telling him you deserve it sweetie.  Such an awesome child.

I gave Jay some motorcycle gloves he wanted for Christmas.



Once he got them he no longer wanted them.  He took them out of the package laid them down and that is where they stay.  Oh well.  I hope he returns them and will get himself something he likes.

As for me I was in heaven with the kids.



They are my presents each and every day.  I love being a mom  There really is no greater gift.  But Jay did get me a few items for my camera because I have been known to take a picture or two.

Christmas Eve

Christmas eve at our house starts super early I think it was 7 ?  The kids are very well aware of what day it is and super duper excited because they know the next two days are going to be full of presents and candy and more presents and more candy and mom and dad playing with them doing things they want to do.  Unless Christmas falls on a Sunday and then we go to church and they hate that.  But not this year Christmas fell on a Wednesday.



kinda tasteless yes but it is still funny

The night before the kids had set out their presents from their grandma, Mrs. Ginny under the tree so they could open them up first thing and that they did.



They ran downstairs and ripped through the presents.
They all LOVED them thank you very much.

Evan got his guitar!



He had been wanting one so bad he said it was at the top of his wish list.  He made noise with that thing all day.  He opened the windows in his room so the neighbors could hear him too.  I bet they appreciated that.  Actually I bet they were inside, it was so cold that day we had many times of snow squalls.  But nothing stuck as the few previous days were in the 50's and 60's.  But after all you are supposed to have snow on Christmas eve.

We sent the day playing and watching NORAD.
Brendan got a real bow and arrow!  He too had been wanting one so much.



He is far to young to play with it by himself so both me and dad have been helping him.  Helping his brothers too, they love and they all want a turn to shoot.  I think its great and it has been a lot of fun for all of us.



The girls got a Minnie Mouse kitchen.  There was a lot of Minnie Mouse this year and now.  I wonder if Minnie will replace Dora?  Could anything replace Dora?  Either way they loved it!  The timy team played with it all day, night and days later (I am slow at getting these posted) are still playing with it.  Plus they got pink kitchen dishes from mema that add to it perfectly.



It was a good day.  A hard day because like I said the excitement level was through the roof.  Not to mention they were on a bit of a sugar high.  We ate so many cookies.  At dinner time each of us made a pizza and did our toppings our self.



I ran out of mozzarella cheese because of all the baking for tomorrow.  I made caprese pizza dip, YUM! But it uses so much mozzarella I did not have enough left so we used cheddar.  It was not a very good substitute.



It did not matter in the end.  None of us ate the pizzas, not more than a few bites at least.  We were just to cookie full and excited.

There was no way I was getting these kids to bed.  I pulled out a mommy trick, I gave the boys melatonin.  Yes I did.



They wanted a sleepover I wanted them to sleep.  And it worked a little to well.  Smiley was out by 7:30 and I think Evan was out by 8.  Gregory followed shortly.  But woke up every two hours throughout the night to check and see if Santa had come.



Baby finished watching Polar Express and then I was able to put her down.  I tried to put her sister to sleep then to but that did not work.



She wanted to stay up and cook.  I let her.  After all she was whipping up some delicious ice cream milkshakes.

While she cooked I wrapped.  She is to young for the realization of Santa in our home yet and that is a good thing.



I put on the Nutcracker her multi times a day favorite, it is ridiculous, and I need to hurry up and buy that movie before it goes off on demand!  But I love having someone to watch it with maybe just not as frequently as we do.  However it is precious...when the party dancing scenes come on both girls want to dance like them and their brothers grab their hand and do so.  Be still my heart, I will try to make a video of it.



We finished just in time and with the end of the Nutcracker too, because not more than 10 minutes after we went to bed Gregory came in the room to check for Santa.  However he was to sleepy then to realize he did.  And thankfully my little helper along with her dad helped out with Santa's cookies and milk.

All the excitement building up for tomorrow!!  But a day fun in itself too.

Another visit with Santa

To say the children have been excited is an understatement.  To say they are on top of the good list is an understatement too.  But that relates back to the first statement.  They are  out of control because they are so very excited.  It has been difficult.  Sunday after church we went to the mall.  It is know that at Christmas times Santa hangs out at the mall all day, all season, like a lonely teenage, he is always there.  Since he was there we went there too.  It was so much cheaper in gas than tickets to the north pole.



We went to talk to Santa about the behaviors that have been displayed these last few weeks.  Since we saw him last in November.   Some littles were not that happy about it.



And these three should have been more worried than they acted, maybe they have good poker faces.  Hum?  A skill I might be able to use later, after all I have seen MY math grades....



On a side note the semester is over thank GOD.  I studied hard and only did fair.  Still fine but not my best.  There were fun highlights though.





The hard sciences, well they have that name for a reason.  And I do believe I could at least make it to double jeopardy at this point.  Is that show still on??



Back to our mall Santa visit.

They actually did not do that bad. Faith would still not get near him with out a complete breakdown so I had to stand with her.  It was the first time I can remember having my picture took with Santa in years????  And he did not really put the FEAR into them of being good that I was hoping for.  Nor have there stupid Elves worked well with that this year.  Even though they, yes we got a new Elf this year WELCOME Peppermint, brought back warning letters from Santa about their behavior.



The kids do love them.  It makes us all so very happy actually.  But Dad and me are kinda tired of moving them around.  Luckily our elf's do not do any of the crazy antics most elves do.  I just don't have time for that my kids are enough to clean up after let alone these extra two.  The kids do think next year we will have  a baby elf though.  After all you have a boy and a girl next comes baby.

Today they were not as bad, they just are SO very excited.  How do you contain that?  Do you really want  to?  (Yes but only for my sake)  After all they are only young kids for such a short time they should be able to enjoy the magic and excitement of Christmas.  We just will pass again this year on the Christmas Eve candle light service, trust me this is our present to the church.