'Twas the Week Before Christmas

'Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house presents were being wrapped, carols were being sung, cookies were being baked (and eaten), and everyone was getting more and more excited for the big day.  Here are just some pictures that we've taken in the last week or so:

 Will lost his second front tooth at Thanksgiving, but I realized I had not taken a picture of this historic event.  Here is the picture :).  It appears he will be getting at least one front tooth for Christmas.

 John has been relegated to the spare bedroom.  (Yes, we have a 3 bedroom house with 4 kids and still have a spare bedroom...it is character building!).  However, the happy situation is that John is a better sleeper now than he has ever been.  He's slept through the night more often than not since we have given him his own room and even takes better naps.  And, frankly, now that he is well rested, he is even more cheerful than he was before. 

 Last week Eric had three Christmas parties with his work.  We were invited to two of them and all of the kids made very good impressions.  Our family looks huge to the few couples who only have a baby right now.  Not to mention that in their sleep deprived states, they can't even fathom what magic I work to have four and not be slightly crazy.  Jokes on them.  I am slightly crazy.  A perk to having the only kids older than 8 months is that they totally cleaned up in the one game for kids and we are the proud owners of three stockings filled with candy.  And it is good candy, too!  #bonus

 John crawled for about three days before he started pulling himself up.  I love walking into the Florida Room and seeing him playing at the same table as the older kids.  Every day he gets quicker and quicker as he moves from activity to activity.  As John is no longer an infant and Dom is pretty capable, I will on occasion leave Dom in charge as I head to shower...alone.  The other day I was brushing my hair when Dom came in and the following conversation happened:

Dom: Oh Good, you are out!
Me:  How's everything going?
Dom: Not good.  John spit up big time, Molly is crying, and Will won't help me clean up the spit up! 

I walked over to discover that Dom had tried to clean up the mess by himself.  Who knows why Molly was crying, but all in all, everything was fine. 

 Speaking of cleaning up...Molly was on clean up duty for the recent chocolate chip cook baking. 

 If there is one cookie I highly recommend you bake with kids, it is the peanut butter hershey kiss cookie.  As I rolled out the balls, I instructed Will to count out 85 and Dom unwrapped them.  It did not take Molly long to join in (was sugar involved?).  Will took his task so seriously.  He even cleaned up all of the wrappers afterwards and explained how the whole process was like a factory.  A cookie baking factory to be exact.

 Another picture of John playing with his siblings.  They are all sporting footie pajamas.  It isn't even that cold here.  Dom has not worn footie pajamas in years, but he requested them this winter.  I think the climate is finally getting to him.

 We are taking things pretty easy so I don't feel a lot of stress as Christmas comes nearer and nearer.  I enjoy the quiet evenings of game playing, movie watching, and carol singing.   And cookie eating. And now a little 8 month old is requesting my attention, so I'll leave it at that.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

 Last night we put John in the pack and play in the spare bedroom and as a result...I am feeling much more rested than I have in a few weeks.  He didn't sleep through the night, but the one time he did wake up was much preferable to every 90 minutes or so that we had started having.  Therefore, I'm in the mood to blog.

 It has been a few weeks since my last post.  Though, we celebrated Thanksgiving in that time...I have no pictures to share with you.  We had a wonderful time in Oklahoma and it is all documented on other cameras.  Which I forgot to get copied over before we left...But, in brief, we ate, drank, played (cards in my case, basketball in Dom's case, Farkle in Will's case, with Pepper in Molly's case, with Zachary in John's case, and darts in Eric's case), ran a 5k, ate more and drank more.  It was everything a Thanksgiving with family should be.

 We got home and proceeded to put away previous holiday decorations in order to make way for the forthcoming holiday.  The Christmas village looks wonderful.  We have since taken down the last of Dom's brackets for the year (the LA Galaxy took the MLS Cup, fyi).  And after have several brackets displayed in our living room, we have decided that from now on, Dom will need to confine his brackets to the Florida Room.  The one exception may be the NCAA tournament.  Especially if Kansas makes it through the Sweet 16. 

 The kids are very excited for Christmas, and introducing John to various traditions is high on the list.  We have three Nativity scenes and they have all enjoyed setting up the Little People version...granted, John also likes to destroy it.  Oh!  Did I mention that John started crawling last week?  And that he started pulling himself up on furniture a few days later?  Good times.

 I love how the older three always attempt to include John in their play.  Whether he wants to be included or not.  Last night, we initially put John in the kids' room per their request.  They were all so excited...until John start crying and continued to cry for 15 minutes straight (which is really nothing).  Eric eventually went in and moved him and I overheard Will discuss how hard it is to sleep when a baby is crying.  No kidding.

 In other news, and this really deserves its own post, but my track record isn't great, so I am just going to slide it in here, Eric re-did the boys dresser for me.  They have needed more space for a while (as kids get bigger, their clothes also get bigger #protip), and I found a large armoire on craigslist which fit the bill.  I had thought for a while we could re-purpose the dresser for homeschool supplies.  Though, we needed to fix the drawers and it needed a new paint job.  And by 'we', I mean 'Eric with the help of the kids'.  It turned out so well.  And now we have left over paint, so I have my eye on a few bookshelves that could use a facelift :).

 It is very easy for me to spend an entire weekend in our house, but Eric is good about making us get out.  One of our outings was to the library parking lot for the kids to race around their RC trucks.  Molly and I headed to the park for a bit, and John loved watching the trucks zoom back and forth.  He is all boy.

 Will made a ship the Florida Room and took this picture so I didn't have to walk the 50 feet to see it.  So thoughtful!

 I think I have written before about John's smile.  It is just this slow, shy smile that he will give you when he sees you.  He gives warm hugs and gets so excited over playing with his toys.  I love how his little legs kick whenever you pick him up.  Even though he isn't the best sleeper...I think we'll keep him.

 Molly is a little ham.  The picture earlier in the post was all her.  I said I wanted to take her picture and she struck that pose immediately.  She proceeded to direct me on how to pose when she took my picture.  For the record, I am not as cute as she is.  Therefore, I did not share the picture.

And here is the dresser again.  It now houses our Nativity Scene.  I think it looks lovely!

Random pictures

 I have gotten behind.  Again.  I looked over the pictures and these are a hodgepodge from the last few weeks.  One Saturday, Eric was heading out to go to confession when he noticed a would be tag-a-long.  Pretty impressive.  Just out of Kung Fu Panda!

 We introduced John to swings.  He seemed to enjoy them.

 Molly enjoyed them also.

 I love some of the outfits Molly wears.  It may be hard to see in this particular picture, but she is wearing a summer dress,  Christmas striped socks, tennis shoes, and Dom's Royals ball cap.  #NailedIt!

 John continues to be delightful and one of the jolliest kids around.  He also continues to not sleep for longer than 3 hours at a time.  But, that will pass.  I hope his personality remains.

 We did a super cool science experiment a few weeks ago.  We used red cabbage juice as a litmus test to see if certain solutions were bases or acids.  It was so cool, we did it a second time.  Molly really enjoyed it.  She was so cute with the chemistry set that I just left the remaining baking soda and vinegar for her to play with.  I highly recommend this activity.  I also recommend you do this outside.

 A couple of weeks ago we were waiting around to hear about the arrival of the kids' newest cousin, Zachary.  As a result, many pictures were taken.  Several of which are from Molly.

 Dom took this selfie.

 Molly. I love seeing the pictures three year olds choose to take.

 As Will likes to say:  "John is just so adorable!"  Molly took the above picture which I thought was quite good.  Also, you can see how much John loves his siblings. 

 Will takes his role as John's older brother so seriously.  I suspect he is recruiting him for a super secret society. 

For various reasons, my children are waking up before 7.  The ones who can tell time, know that I get up at 7:30.  Therefore, they know that they should find something quiet to do before this.  If I'm lucky, they catch Molly before she wanders into my room.  This has happened....once.  On that particular occasion, I discovered them in the 'Lego Room'.  The Lego Room is where I've also placed the more educational toys in our collection.  Over the years, we've built up quite a collection that spans all age groups.  For safety reasons, I brought out the gears for John to play with.  He and Molly spent several happy minutes playing/eating them.  Will is in the background working on Wedgits.  It is a puzzle building game sort of like a 3D tangrams.  Dom, the wisest of them all, was still in bed.

This Morning

We were probably one of the few families in America that welcomed the switch from Daylight Saving Time to Standard.  The big reason is we attend 7:30 Mass and we were actually able to make it on time this past weekend due to the extra hour of sleep everyone received.

However, Molly has not really adjusted at all to the new time.  This isn't so much the problem as the fact she proceeds to love on John so much when she comes in to snuggle, that he wakes up.  This isn't so much the problem as he is a very happy, smiley baby (as opposed to a few children that seemed to wake up crying...at least that is how I remember it).  But!  With Eric going in to work by 6:30, I am now the sole parent from 6:30 to 5:00 or later.  This was not such a problem when we all slept in until 8 or so.  Or when Dom and Will got up and were able to get Molly breakfast, but their bodies have switched to the new time and they continue to sleep until 7:30.  Good kids!

But, all of this brings us to this morning.  Due to Molly putting herself to bed at 6 PM last night (due to her early morning risings and propensity to play hard all day), she was in our bedroom a little before 6 AM this morning.  By 6:15, she and John were playing peek-a-boo with Agnes.  This game consisted of Molly putting Agnes in John's face insisting that he liked it and me flinging it away.  He always smiled when this happened which had the effect of positively reinforcing both of our opinions on the matter...

At any rate, this went on until 6:30 when Molly indicated that she needed to use the facilities.  John also indicated that he had recently used the facilities.  I proceeded to the changing table as I hear Molly's angelic voice request my assistance in the bathroom.  After taking care of Molly, who I told to go eat her breakfast that Eric had laid out, I discovered that John's diaper was insufficient for his morning ritual.  Simultaneously, I heard a crash from the kitchen and the false tears of the perpetrator.  It is at this point...I lost my cool.  I think it was the false tears that really did me in.

My loud lecture to Molly about how to proceed when making a mess (spoiler alert: Do not cry at the top of your lungs thinking this will somehow invoke sympathy), awoke Dom and Will and they came running.  As I was on a roll, I lit into them about leaving out markers and paper the night before.  As Dom put them away, he made the observation in his sweet way that I must not have slept well last night.  I know this is a survival tactic on his part as when I have not slept well...the boys should steer clear.  Smart kid.

But, his observation had the effect of immediately diffusing my anger and self-pity.  I rinsed out John's clothes, changed Molly and hugged it out, made coffee, and sat down to a breakfast with the boys (Molly had cleaned up her mess by eating the cereal (frosted mini-wheats) from the floor.)

All of the kids are currently in the living room laughing and playing and it has only been about an hour since the morning started out on the wrong foot.  I am very lucky, and I wouldn't trade places with anyone...I just really want to know how my kids time these things to happen literally 5 minutes after their father walks out the door?

Halloween!

Along with the rest of America...except perhaps the few areas that celebrate Beggars' Night on October 30...the kids got dressed up Friday night to go around and get candy from total strangers.  Happy Halloween! 

 Actually, for a change, we started prepping Dom and Will's costumes about a month ago.  This occurred due to the fact that both boys wanted to go as lesser known characters from the movie "Lego Movie".  Metalbeard and Benny the Spaceguy to be exact. Amazon did not carry these particular costumes and being of little creativity or artistic talent, I outsourced the making of these costumes to Eric.  And he did an incredible job.  As soon as I asked if he would be up for it, he researched ways to make helmets, inventoried random things we had on hand, and then made a trip to The Dollar Tree (I love that store and so does Eric!)

 As a result, Will donned a paper mache helmet, which he and Dom helped make.  It was a pretty cool process where they layered paper on a balloon over the course of a couple of days.  Eric would have liked to sand it down to be more of a smooth finish, but Will was thrilled with the result and I told Eric to just keep expectations low...we have next year to think about!

 Prior to actually going trick or treating, the kids and I threw an impromptu Halloween party in our front yard.  I have to say, I really like the decorations we did.  I don't have any pictures, but they were simple, yet elegant.  I think I'll keep them up for a while.  Anyway, the party consisted of eating cupcakes, playing some Halloween themed tic-tac-toe and running around.  Oh!  and getting wrapped up as mummies!

Here are my four pumpkins.  Previously, we've done those intricate designs...but, this year Eric opted to keep it simple and the boys loved them just as much...probably because they got to use a knife.  My John-o-Lantern is on the far left.

 And here are the finished results.  The costumes turned out so well and they got lots of compliments.  So many that we were constantly waiting on them before going to the next house.  Granted, no one knew who they were.  I guess "Lego Movie" is not everyone's favorite movie.  Crazy!

 Dom's arm did get tired from carrying the shark and he said the boots were a little on the small side.  But, I think he looks awesome.  And Dom helped quite a bit.  One night at dinner, Eric was thinking about the parts he wanted to add.  He mentioned that he needed a parrot and Dom lights up and says:  "We have a parrot!".  It was part of a Little People train set that Eric gave to Dom for his first Christmas. (You can see it on the photo above this one). The shark was also a Christmas present from Grandma and Grandpa four years ago.

 Molly went as a beautiful butterly.  Samantha the Butterfly to be exact.  A funny story about Molly was that she didn't quite get the memo of what happens on Halloween.  When I explained to her that we'd go around getting candy, she got super excited and exclaimed: "I Love Candy!"  It was as close to that Seinfeld Halloween routine that any of our kids have ever come.

 And then there was Benny.  Will helped with just about every aspect of this costume.  And he was so excited to wear it.  He had no peripheral vision, and probably the rest of his vision was pretty blocked, but he hummed and sang all through the trick or treating adventure. 

 A little detail shot.  I wish I had taken a picture of Dom's back.  He had a smoke stack, flags, a steering wheel...maybe some other stuff.  Ann Strunk, that hat is the one you gave me last April.  It came in super handy!  Benny's jet pack was made from two 3-liter bottles purchased from the Dollar Tree!

 And....because Eric did such a great job with the boys' Halloween costumes, I also gave him the job of getting the boys ready for the Saints Day Parade at church.

We let both boys pick their saints this year (as opposed to last year when I strong armed them into saints that I readily knew how to dress).  And Eric did a fantastic job, once again.  A special shout out to Grandma for giving Molly a purple fur (but not a real purple fur, that's cruel) a few years ago. 

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 As well as the red cape she made for the kids last year.  Those capes are really coming in handy for church activities!

I should mention, the boys are St. Thomas More and St. Pope John Paul II. 

And now we are all back to our normal selves, gearing up for an exciting November!  Time to start school.