2010 Babies

If my Grandma Irene was still alive she'd have more than doubled her Great grandchildren this year. Nico is my cousin Rachel and her husband Bobby's son. He was actually born in 2009 but Rachel and Bobby just brought him home in November. They're living in Uganda right now so I had to splice him in. We are excited to meet him when they come home for visit this summer! They are also expecting in June. Jackson, the teeny little guy, is my cousin Ben and his girlfriend Erica's son. Augustine is in the middle and Philip is the giant. So fun!

Merry Christmas

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A Little Quiet Time

before all the Christmas joy.

A Good Laugh

I was going to leave my blog alone until after Christmas but I have to get this story recorded. I just hope it's as funny in writing as it was in person.
Last night the kids and I were doing a little Christmas shopping. After the last stop, between it being cold and windy and passing out a little snack to everyone I forgot to buckle Julia before I got in myself. I asked Samuel to buckle her, which he did and off we went. Everyone happily ate their snack and a couple of blocks later I glanced back to see Julia sitting with her arms straight up in the air. "What are you doing, Julia? Why are your arms up in the air?" I asked looking back at the road. "Samuel buckle me in a square!" she exclaimed. I glanced back again and realized that Samuel hadn't put her arms through the straps, he just buckled the plastic latch under her armpits. The straps were around her middle so she couldn't put her arms down like normal. I started laughing. I was laughing so hard I couldn't explain to the boys why I was laughing. We pulled over, got her fixed and continued on. But I was still laughing.
I haven't laughed that hard since Samuel got stuck in the bush last summer.

Egg Nog, Bewildering yet Delicious

Thomas first night: "Mommy, may we have some egg milk?"

Thomas second night: "Mommy, may we have some noggin milk?"

Thomas third night: "Mommy, may we have some egg nog?"

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The pictures are of Thomas filling his manger from school with hay he earned by doing nice things for baby Jesus.

A Few Things to Remember about Julia

"Are these my farmers?"

Everyday for about a month she asked if it was her birthday. When I told her it wasn't she'd ask if it was Thomas's.

She makes "messies," hears "noisies" and wears "mitties" on her hands.

After hiccuping she told us "I have hips!"

She's been packing lunches of play food in any bag she can find and making houses all over the house to eat the lunches in. We also have to hide in her little houses when lions get in our big house, which happens every day. I don't know where all these lions are coming from!

After her nap she tucks her doll in, restarts the music and leaves the heater going. If you are too loud she yells "My babies sleeping!" at you.

While shopping she loves everything or says "I am liking that." And around Thanksgiving everything was her favorite. Except her bed at Grandma Susan's. She looked at it one night as I was putting her down and said, "That not my favorite bed." "Oh," I said, "Is your favorite bed at home?" "Yes," she solemnly told me. But she went to sleep in Grandma's anyway.

Stockings

My mom has made special stockings for each of the kids. Here's the newest one, Philip's. Mine was made by my Great Aunt Annie and Jeremy's was made by... hmm, I guess I'm not sure. His mom? I think so but I'll have to find out for sure!

Spiritual Preparations

Do you know about the O antiphons? I love them! They are the antiphon after the Alleluia at Mass from Dec 17-24. Each one invokes the Lord with "O" and then a title.
O Sapientia (Wisdom)
O Adonai (Lord)
O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)
O Clavis David (Key of David)
O Oriens (Dayspring)
O Rex Gentium (King of Nations)
O Emmanuel (God-with-us)
I put the original Latin because it's an acrostic. Starting at the bottom and going up the first letters spell, Ero Cras which means "I will be with you tomorrow." How cool is that?
Lord, as we prepare for your coming at Christmas and Your coming at the end of the world, help me to ready my heart for You. O Wisdom, help me see Your will for me. O Lord, you gave us the most precious Gift, Your Son. O Root of Jesse, help me appreciate how intricately You planned Your first coming. O Key of David, You opened the gates of Heaven for us. O Dayspring, enlighten us with Your Love. O King of Nations bring all nations to You. O Emmanuel, thank You for Your presence here with us!

Preparations

We've been slowly getting things ready for Christmas. I finished up the shopping this morning but haven't started wrapping at all. We've been baking here and there (and I've been experimenting with taking pretty pictures of our delicacies). Please notice Samuel's head gear. It's a Christmas tree and I LOVE it. How can I think he's a big boy when he's wearing that?!We got the tree up and are trying to keep Philip out of it; he's doing pretty well.

Photo credit Samuel

I made this garland, inspired by a friend of a friend whose blog I clicked over to while looking for project inspiration. It's hard to take a picture of because it's so long. I should have taken one before I put it up. Anyway, it says Joy to the World and I really like it. I want to make one for Advent for next year that says Prepare! I have a few more things I'd like to get done, we'll see how it goes!

Seeing Santa

We try not to make too big a deal about Santa at our house but when he comes to Jeremy's store we do go see him. Mrs. Claus reads The Night Before Christmas and they wear antlers and sing Rudolph. Then they ring bells while singing Jingle Bells and eat some cookies. It's fun. Philip loved ringing the bells. He did it the whole song, this is just a short little snippet.

The boys told Santa they want Legos for Christmas and Julia says she wants a "Big box!" If you press she'll tell you she'd like a baby in the box. Grandpa Steve asked if Philip could be the baby in the box. Samuel said, "That's more like a gift from God than a present from Santa!" He's so right.

9 Month Comparisons

Philip went in yesterday for his nine month check up. The nurse could hardly believe this was the same boy who couldn't gain weight! Here's all four of them at 9 months. (Samuel walked right around when his picture was taken, but don't tell Philip that!) Isn't Julia a doll? Here are the stats:

Samuel: 21 lbs 10 oz, 28 inches

Thomas: 23 lbs 1 oz, 29 inches

Julia: 20 lbs 8 oz, 27 3/4 in

Philip: 21 lbs 9 oz, 28 3/4 in

Isn't it interesting? Samuel and Philip are still neck and neck, just like at 6 months, Julia is still a pound behind (that's because she's a dainty girl right?) and Thomas takes the lead a pound ahead of the other two boys. We always think Philip must be the biggest but Thomas beats him every time!

Here's Samuel at 6 months and Philip at 9 months. Thomas never wore the outfit because he was too big for it when it was cold! You can definitely tell they are brothers!

It "Finally" Snowed

And they were happy.

Tis the Season for some Projects! :)

You know me, I love a nice simple project, especially around Christmas. We ventured out to Joann's on black Friday (I know, a bad idea, but we really needed something fun and different for the cooped up kiddos to do) and these were $.50 and only required paint. We had so much fun doing them that when I was back a week or so later and they were $.40 I bought a bunch more. I think they will be our gift tags this year. Aunt Beth got to enjoy helping paint too.

I especially love these masks. They were $.50 too! Thomas and I even did a cute puppet show with them.
Can you guess who did which ornaments?

Clockwise from top left Thomas, Samuel, Julia, me

One Room Down

So it's not done forever because eventually we'll knock out the plaster and put in drywall, but for now at least there's one room nicely cleaned up and decorated. Thanks for making the bedspreads and curtains, Mom!

Christmas Program

Generally, I'm not a crier. But 100 or so kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders singing "Happy Birthday Jesus, I'm so glad it's Christmas, all the tinsel and lights and the presents are nice, but the real gift is You..." (and imagine all of them sliding up to various high notes on a long "yoooooou"), that'll make me cry.

I promise, Samuel is in this picture, way on the right almost behind the big head.

Thomas is a little easier to spot.

Now to make sure they really believe that Jesus is the real gift...

What's a Big Brother For?

Having fun with!

The First of Many

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