'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!