Christmas with kids

Christmas time has been fun for Baby K.  Truthfully, I don't think we have any gifts for her yet, but that does not bother her.

She loves to play with all the shopping bags.  It takes so little to entertain her.  She would be thrilled with a ream of paper to shred and chew on.  Except that doesn't always go down well.  

She loves all the sparkly lights on the tree and mantle.  Daddy is showing her a light up snowman.  (She has totally learned how to smile for the camera.)

After a many year conflict, we have compromised.  I only like white beautiful lights on the Christmas tree.  My children think colored lights that blink incessantly are the only way to go.  Martha Stewart never tells you how to decorate a dignified tree with Star Wars ornaments as part of the decor.  (Although her kids don't really like her, so I don't think she is the best example.)

Daddy decided that the kids could get their own tree this year for their room.  We found this little guy at Wal-mart for cheap.  They got to put their obnoxious colored blinking lights on it.  They used some of the family ornaments, but then they made their own "Pokemon" ornaments.  It even has a Pokemon tree topper.  Just what every child needs.  

Lest you think I went Martha Stewart on the family tree, it still has plenty of Star Wars, Spiderman, and Winnie the Pooh on it.  It even has this singing hamster ornament that plays "The Hamster Dance" over and over.  If that is not dignified, then I don't know what is.  This year the tree did get a little splash of pink for the baby girl.  Fun times and lots of good memories.  

TOT class

S participates in a basketball class called TOT class at Mother's Day Out.  TOT stands for Teams of Tomorrow.  They work on ball handling and learn colors and counting.  

They had an end of semester performance at half time of the high school girls basketball game.  

  

 He was so cute.  I was a little afraid he would freeze out there, but he did a good job.  He has his tongue hanging out in this picture.  Hee Hee!

Here he is doing some ball handling drills and making his mother proud.  He is going to be my best shot at a basketball player.  Someone has to take after me.

His teacher told me that he was one of their best students.  This is definitely up his alley.  I think I might sign him up for a summer basketball camp and see how it goes.  

Way to go S!

Merry Christmas from the tropics

I had been wanting to get a Christmas picture of the kids in the Christmas clothes.  Let's just say it's a little hard to get in the festive mood when it's 75 degrees and 90% humidity.  Nonetheless, here are my Christmas cuties.

We suffered through and survived the photo shoot. 

They are just precious, but I am totally biased.

We also had to have our family portrait made at church for the directory.  As soon as we came home, everyone peeled off their winter clothes and put on shorts and a t-shirt.  

The forecast says we should get a cold front tonight.  We will see.  

End of co-op

We just finished our first semester of home school co-op.  There was a presentation time after the last day of class.  

Here's J singing "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" in Spanish with his Spanish class.  He had a good time in this class.  He has taken a whole year of Spanish on the computer so it was good practice interacting with live humans.

This is W demonstrating some of his skills we learned in PE class.  He loved this Chinese jump rose activity.  I had never heard of one before, but we might be finding this in our Christmas stocking this year.

Both boys loved the Science class.  They observed caterpillars transforming to butterflies.  They watched as eggs hatched into chicks and learned about other life cycles.  

This is one of J's final drawings from his art class.  He has decided that he likes to draw.

It was a good experience.  It was totally exhausting for the mama and the baby, but the boys loved it.  

I am signed up to teach a Lego Machines class next semester.  The boys are beyond excited to take this class.  D should really be doing this, but here goes nothing.  Motherhood will stretch you like nothing else.  

The Hobbit

I recently discovered that "The Hobbit" movie comes out in mid-December.  I thought it would be a good idea for J and I to go see the movie, but we should read the book first.  I think I have read the book before, but it has been a long time.

He was not old enough to know about the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy when it came out so this is a new topic for him.  

Let's just say that he is hooked.

I bought us 2 paperback copies knowing that he would have more time to read than I would.  

I gave him the book Monday morning and by Tuesday morning he had read chapters 1-12.  That is a lot of pages.  Of course, he stayed up until 11pm and had a bit of a headache the next morning, but he said it was worth it.  

Needless to say, the book was finished by Wednesday and he is so excited for the movie.  

I am still on chapter 2.  Only 30 more chapters to go.  

I am just glad that he loves to read.  Hope the movie doesn't disappoint.

Transplanted friends

Recently, some good friends from church moved to my hometown.  We were able to spend some time with them on our trip.  It was great catching up their family.  It was like they had never left.  

Here's my crew (minus baby girl) plus the "B" family.

Here's a silly picture of all those darlings.  They live for silly pictures.

Aww!  HB has served with me in AWANA for many years.  It's been a privilege working with her and getting to know her better.  She interacts with the children so well.  She doesn't like to keep shoes on her feet.  She is such a delightful young lady.  We miss her in Texas.  

I am just glad that they moved some where that I can come see them often.

ABQ Zoo

One of our favorite things to do at Thanksgiving is to go to Nana's Zoo as the boys call it.  The weather is just perfect.  School is still in, so there are very few people there.  It's cooler so a lot of the animals are more active.  It's a great time.  

Hubby had the camera so the pictures are much better quality than mine.

Here's S with the seals and sea lions.  He loves the zoo!  He is a big animal lover.

Here's all the kids with my dad.

Here's the sweet baby girl with her bunny hat.  The boys just love that hat.  Have I said how much fun it is to dress her?  

A few months ago, my dad upgraded his camera.  He gave us his old one, which was still much nicer than our current camera.  J has claimed the old camera.  I didn't know he loved photography so much.  He looked like a tourist every where we went in ABQ.  He filled up 2 memory cards on the trip.  I think I need to get him in some photography classes.  

The emus are always a favorite.  We have some great books about emus so they like watching them.

Here's my animal lover.  He would go to the zoo every day if he could.  Sweet boy!

Here's all my precious kiddos!  S and W just had a big fight about who got to sit on the lion's head.  Boys!  

Happy Thanksgiving

We just returned from our Thanksgiving trip.  It was a success.  We are all exhausted, but everyone survived.  Baby girl made her first trip (12 hr drive) to the Land of Enchantment.  She did pretty well.  Very little fussing.  She was definitely glad to get out of that car seat.

It was great to visit with family and friends.  We had 29 people for Thanksgiving at mom's house.  Here's all the kids minus Baby girl who was taking a nap.  Thirteen kids in all.  The house was lined with tables.  Some Texas friends have recently moved near my parents so they spent the day with us.  Everyone had a great time.

The weather was beautiful so the kids were able to play outside.  Here's a group riding Grandave's airplane.

Now, this group played the game "Risk" for 6 hours.  I am not exaggerating.  They had a great time.  I do not recall seeing my older 2 sons much that day, because they were at this table.

We got to visit with old friends and meet a significant other.  I used to baby sit these girls and now they are ready to graduate from medical and nursing school.  Wow!  

It was a crazy holiday, but God is in charge of it all.  It has made even more thankful for the blessings that He has so richly given me.  

Four wonderful blessings

This is my crew before church.  This was my second Sunday being a solo parent.  D was around, but he was working the sound booth.  He has to leave really early for the worship leader to practice.  That leaves me trying to get everyone ready (Sunday ready) and to church on time.  

We even had time for a picture for all this cuteness.  I still love watching and listening to the boys every morning when I bring baby K out of her room.  They comment on her clothes and state how cute she is.  She just lights up when they talk to her or make their really annoying cute baby noises.

Since D has been working in the sound booth, J has stepped up.  He has saved our family a pew each week.  He has helped get the other boys to the bathroom and has helped pass communion trays.  That is so nerve wracking.  I am the only adult and all 3 boys want to help pass the communion trays.  I just have visions of grape juice and crackers flying.  So far so good on that.

We were on time because baby K decided she didn't like the time change so was up at 5am.  Not so much fun for me, but at least we were moving.  I hate those time changes with little ones.  Hopefully, she will adapt soon.  She is awful cute, so it's too hard to get upset at her.  

Mini creme cakes

W looks at me the other night and said, "I made a new recipe and it's called mini creme cakes."  He listed the ingredients and stated that he wanted to cook it for us.  He's never done this before.  

He's all the time trying to create "new" things.  He makes up new Pokemon characters.  He makes up new Lego creations.  He likes to mix and match costumes to form new Super Heroes.  He even started making up new Bible stories.  We did have to talk to him a little about that.  

Here are his ingredients.  He really wanted white frosting, but I already had chocolate so he improvised.

It was like he was doing his own food show.  He was talking me through every step.

Here he is with his final product.  He loved sharing with everyone.

You basically frost a mini Nilla wafer and place a Hershey kiss on top.  It was good.

J was not home at the time, so he made us promise to save some for his big brother.  Maybe he has a future as a chef.  

Some fall cuteness

Here's my oldest and my youngest!  She has such a great smile!  I love it!

She is mid-giggle in this picture.  She loves playing with J.  They have their special time most days where he alone gets to play with her and babysit.  I love it that he likes that time.  He is quite good with her.  He even shares his prized bunny with her at play time.  He is a great big brother!

She is starting to sit up for short periods of time.  She would love it if we gave her lots of paper to rip and eat.  Her face just lights up when daddy walks in the room.  She is sleeping 10-11 hours at night.  I so love that.  She prefers to slurp baby food rather than eat it.  She is still fairly limited in what she will eat.  

Thank you God for these 2 sweet blessings!

Silly little boy

Here's W or as he is known "Crash."  He still crashes a lot.  His knees and shins are almost almost bruised with scabs on them from his various falls, bike crashes, and other boy romping activities.  He rarely gets upset about it.  He just says, "I'm ok."  Then he runs off again.

He is very cuddly and loves a good hug.  He is pretty sensitive at times.

This is a picture of him releasing his butterflies that he raised in his co-op class.  He loved doing that and watch them grow.  

He continues to make everything into a weapon of some sort.  Forks, legos, PVC pipe all make good guns, swords, rocket launchers, and more.  

We asked him the other day what he learned about in Sunday School.  W replies, "They blew up Jericho."  We had a good laugh over that one.  

Silly boy!

Six months old

Can you believe she is 6 months old?  She is growing too fast.

She weighs 16.5 lbs and is 26.5 inches long.  She just gained a pound since the last visit, but she grew 1.5 inches.  She looks like she will be tall like her mama.  She is in the 50th percentile for weight and 75th for height.

I love this picture of me and my baby girl.  She has a beautiful smile and she is almost always smiling.  

This picture is funny.  Daddy got her laughing so hard that she is squinty eyed.  Plus her brothers were back there doing silly stuff.  She was full of giggles.

She is rolling all over the place and starting to prop up on her arms.  She can sit up but is still very wobbly.  

She is tolerating some baby food but only likes sweet potatoes, carrots, and pears.  She will not and I mean will not eat peas, green beans, or squash.  

She is sleeping from 8pm to around 7am.  Hallelujah!

She loves her brothers.  Occasionally, they get in a fight over whose turn it is to hold her or play with her.  They only do because they love her dearly.  

She is starting to get very curious and wants to grab paper, pencils, etc.  

Love that baby girl!

My big helper

J is a big help to me and our family.  He is so helpful and responsible.  I am just thankful everyday for his help.  He truly enjoys being the biggest brother.

Now, he babysits baby K for 30 minutes while I do phonics with W.  Both of them love the time.  They play on the floor together and talk.  He even shares his prized Bunny with her.  It's a special time for them.

Before I had the baby, I started teaching him to make lunch.  There is a menu on the refrigerator of the daily selections that he prepares or delegates to another brother.  It has been a huge help for me.  It seems like everyone gets hungry at the same time.  He can feed the brothers and I can feed the baby.  

Baby K likes to sit the in the high chair while they eat.  She thinks she can eat anything.  We have taken to filling a bottle with some water so she can have something.  He likes to give her the bottle.  Nilla wafers on not on her menu until she gets some teeth.  

W loves to read to him.  J listens while W reads his daily reading assignment. They work really well together.  Of course, I think they work well together so they can quickly be done and go play legos.  At least they get the job done.  

So thankful for my biggest boy!  Who is growing bigger by the moment.

Sweet Baby K

Sweet Baby K is 5 1/2 months old now.  She is rolling all over the place.  She loves interaction.  She still smiles all the time.

We just had to have this monogrammed bow.  It spoke to me.  (I am a little concerned about the pull of monogrammed clothing on me.  I just can't resist.)

The girl is loving her megasaucer.  She likes to play in there.  She gets her exercise while mommy exercises.  It's a win-win situation for everyone.

She also is loving to grab things.  I believe she was trying to grab the camera strap in this picture.  She likes to check everything out.  I love her "daddy's girl" shirt.

Baby K has discovered her toes.  They are a great thing to chew on.  She also loves to suck on her arm, her fingers, and her clothes.  

That's my sweetness!

I just love this outfit.  It has little bloomers with ruffles.  I am not that girly of a person myself, but I just can't resist dressing her up in the the most ruffly, pink and purple, girly stuff.  It's just too cute.

Of course, I couldn't resist the monogramming.  I am not sure what has come over me, but it sure is fun.