Christmas Time

Hello Everyone!  It is that time of the year when we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ our Savior!  It's usually very easy to get into the spirit of Christmas, but there are always distractions that keep us from the true meaning of the Advent season.  This year, despite my mother being very ill, I had to remember that Christ is even more important and even more meaningful than ever.  We must still celebrate this most awesome gift of his birth.

My mother is currently in the hospital with a very advanced stage of cancer.  It is terminal.  She is currently in Virginia and hoping to be stable enough to get to Florida to receive alternative treatment for her cancer.  It's been a long month for her trying to overcome the current hurdles in front of her.  She has remained strong, peaceful and faithful throughout.  I've visited my mom, spent Thanksgiving break with her and have visited this past weekend.  My father and sister have been by her side day and night for the past month.  Please keep my mom in your prayers.  Thank you.

While at home, I am keeping busy with my five kids.  Their joy through this advent season is so comforting.  I turned on the Christmas music and let the joy and laughter flow throughout the house.  We started with the Christmas tree.  We all went to Home Depot and bought a tree.  Unfortunately, this year we chose a really icky one, however once it was decorated it wasn't so bad.  The tree was picked totally randomly and the needles pretty much hit the floor as soon as my kids were done with the tree!

I had the guy at Home Depot trim off some branches while he was cutting off the bottom of the trunk and as soon as that first branch hit the ground, I knew it was a mistake.  I had him stop and our tree is sort of lop sided.  We faced that part against the wall.

The kids were really excited about decorating.  I usually like to be involved and in the middle of it all, but there seems to be so many other things to get done, I let them go to it all by themselves.  I watched all the kids find the ornaments that they made in school or the ones that were given to them the year of their birth or the ones with their baby pictures on them.  Ornaments are so cool and I will try to pay more attention to them in the years to come.

After a while they sort of teetered out with the gobs of ornaments to put on.  That was fine with me. 

I had ornaments that were so dated - standard ornaments that I bought when I was a single lady.  They were breakable, so I had to replace them with ornaments that do not shatter.  I bought these - I love Target.  After the kids were alseep, I spent time on the tree spreading the ornaments out more evenly around our bald tree.  White lights - they make everything better.

The next thing the kids love to do are gingerbread houses.  This year we did a house but we also did a train since we like those in our family!  I wonder if Disney thought of making gingerbread Cars characters?  We would buy them for sure.

Who actually eats these things after they are made?  I know they are edible, but once they've been out on display for a few days and have collected dust, who wants to eat that?  Yuck.  This particular kit has been in my closet for a year.  We never got to it last year.  The icing was really hard, but after massaging it for a few minutes, it was good to go.  I told them they couldn't attempt to eat this one.  However, the candy still seemed to be fine. 

I think the boys were only interested in helping to sneak in some candy in their mouths when they could.  We also made a house - they can eat that one if they want.

It has been a while since I've posted.  My little boy, Eddie, celebrated his fourth birthday in November before Thanksgiving!  He has done so much growing up this past year.  Not only physically, but in his speech as well.  I don't remember if I've mentioned that Eddie has Oral Apraxia or not.  It's a neurological condition where his brain cannot communicate to his facial muscles to produce words, but through speech therapy he can get help.  This time last year, he had very few words, but this year he is now speaking three word sentences.  He's come a long way and I'm so proud of him.  He still has a way to go, but he's on his way!

I am still way behind where I'd like to be in my Christmas shopping, but that is ok.  If I don't get back here before Christmas, I pray all of you have the most blessed, Merry Christmas ever! 

Things That Make Me Smile

This is like my ode to Fall.  It's gone by so fast and the leaves are pretty much all over the place but the trees.  It's time to look forward to Winter, folks!

We had a couple of weeks of just beautiful fall weather where the sun is bright, the temperature is just right, the air smells of leaves, the wind is blowing a shower of colorful leaves over the streets...ahhhhhh - love it.  It makes me happy.

I would just walk outside and look down the street and see those trees and it made me happy.  I love how the sun makes the trees so vibrant! 

I went out one day to rake our leaves.  I didn't have leaf blower, perhaps I should get one?  I don't have time to rake every day.  I keep laughing every time I pass a lawn service blowing leaves and then see the lawn the next day be completely covered again!!  Ha! 

Have you ever seen anyone take as many pictures of leaves as I have?  Here's another one...

...and another one...

Life is moving along at home.  Here are some pictures that make me smile, too.

On one of those rare occasions that I wear heels on a night out, I immediately take them off once I'm home because my feet are tired and I need to let my toes spread out from being squished together for so long.  I left them out in the living room to find my baby wearing them around the house the next morning.  So cute!

On a lazy Saturday morning...

Taken on Veteran's day.  Tommy wears a star honoring my grandfather and offers a Mass for him at school.  Another smile on my face...

Just a random idea of mine.  I let all the kids have a water balloon and toss it outside.  These simple treats make for a lot of smiles. 

My little one...

Well, hello there...

We also got through Teach/Parent conferences, some field trips and school projects.

Sometimes, I just have to step back and just remember how blessed I am. 

Cookies! Hot Chocolate!

It was a beautiful Fall Saturday morning and a lot was going on.  My kids were trying to raise money for the Gabriel Project (a charity that helps raise money for pregnant women in need) and we all came up with an idea of selling hot chocolate and cookies outside of our house.  I thought it would be so yummy to be walking in the chilly weather and see hot chocolate and cookies!  Oh yum.  We had done it the night before and to my surprise people are very generous!  My daughter made the poster board sign and I did the rest, the baking, the making of fresh hot chocolate, carrying the table outside and making sure she had change for all her customers. 

So we spent our time outside selling cookies and hot chocolate until it was time for to leave for Coach's football game. 

I don't know what it is about jeans, but I think they make my little boys so handsome!

Now Tommy was very excited about today because he was going to his first sleepover.  Not only was he going to be spending it with one of his best buds, it was going to be a camping trip!  He was so giddy, but I was surprisingly calm considering it was the first time my son has been away from home.  I thought I would be so against sleepovers until the kids were older, but for some reason I felt ok about this one. 

I can't resist whipping out my camera on a beautiful day. 

The kids did some biking/pushing.

Have you ever seen a tricycle ridden like that?  Silly boy!

They were picking for worms, too.  I used to do this to when I was their age.  I rather not touch them nowadays.  Don't worry, Anne was in charge of handling food and drink.

Most often, people think these two are twins when we're out and about.

We ended up winning that football game, Tommy had a great time at his camping trip but came home sick (recovered quickly) and we made out pretty well for the Gabriel Project.  A good weekend overall!

Trick or Treat!

This year, it was just the kids and me.  Joe has a huge game this weekend and Halloween fell on the night he has his long meeting.  The last three years, it's worked out well for us trick-or-treaters having Daddy around.  We missed him! 

This was my bunch this year:

Anne decided not to do a princess costume this year.  She is deviating from her 7 year trend and going for something more traditional - a witch.  There were many she  could choose from and she chose a rather stylish costume, I thought.  She was far from spooky - which I liked.

Tommy and the boys are now into Chuggington Trains.  He wanted to be Wilson.  Not many people out there know what Chuggington is, but they know Thomas the Tank Engine.

Patrick loves alligators, however a lot of people thought he was a dinosaur, a dragon or a crocodile. 

Eddie didn't mind being a hippo, a costume that Patrick wore last year.  People really like this costume.  Following these photos was a animal face-off between hippo and alligator.  Each got tired of fighting each other and decided to eat the cute pig.  Just joking.

Bernadette ended up being a pig since it is the only costume I have she fit into.  I thought the best part of this costume was the tail...I didn't quite capture it very well in any shots that I took.  This is probably the first Halloween she had a clue what was going on.  She really surprised me at how quickly she got the hang of it.  She wasn't shy about knocking on strangers' doors and taking their candy.  She got mad at me if I tried to slow her down in any way.  She had a lot of energy for one who hardly had a nap that day.

My kiddos were so excited to go trick-or-treating.  I like to go when it's dark but we went right before it turned dark, around 6:30 pm.  We covered about three blocks, not even, and they were tired.  They were asking me to go home already.  Their bags weren't even filled all the way and their bags were getting too heavy for them!  I had more energy than they did!  I was following five kids around in the dark by myself.  We headed home.

We carved our pumpkins the night before, right after the Redskin's game. 

I love pumpkin carving.  I'm realizing I enjoy doing it more and more every year.  Thank God Joe was around to help carve this year because I can get a little crazy with perfection.  There were so many cool pumpkins out there.  There is more stuff to try next year.

Anne really enjoys doing them too.  She carved her own pumpkin with no help at all.  Very focused young lady.

Patrick decided to carve an alligator on his.  He had such a cute little pumpkin.

Eddie couldn't get passed the scooping of the goop.  Tommy ended up doing an alligator as well.

We were able to get all pumpkins carved before bedtime!

These were the pumpkins on Halloween night.

My pumpkin on the left (I like friendly faces) and Eddie's on the right.

Anne's pumpkin on the left, Tommy's in the middle and Patrick's on the right.

My little piggy wiggy enjoying her candy after trick-or-treating.  I think I ate about 10 pieces of candy during the day.  Yikes!! 

Hope everyone had a great Halloween...

Butler's Orchard

I look forward to Fall so much and part of the season is going to the pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins.  I don't remember doing it as a child.  I remember my father bringing us to one of those lots off the side of the road to pick a pumpkin and that in itself was such a thrill for me!  I took my kids to Butler's Orchard a couple of years back and it was such a fun time for them, we just cannot NOT go every year.

This year, with all the chaos with schedules, I was beginning to worry that there wasn't going to be a trip out there, but everything worked out perfectly - God was good.  We didn't have to go on a weekend, when it's all so busy and crowded with lots of people, we went on a Friday and the weather was PERFECT!!  You'll notice the blue skies...

The pumpkin patch experience these days involve tons of activities other than just picking your pumpkin.  It's really an all day event!  We arrived early enough and were ready to get started!

It was so bright, Tommy asked for my sunglasses.  It was the last time I saw those glasses, by the way.  I never buy those expensive sunglasses because they always get lost or broken.  I do have to say that these are the pair that I've owned the longest, ever!  Now they are gone.  That's ok...I'm sporting these aviator glasses these days.

We decided to do our hayride to the pumpkin patch first, get our pumpkins, put them in the car and then enjoy all the activities.  But first, we grabbed our two free apples to enjoy on our ride.

Something about these apples!  So yummy.  They were crisp, juicy and fresh!  I don't think I can ever go back to those store-bought apples.  I always end up getting mushy ones and after eating one of those, I can't even entertain the thought of another apple. 

Even my kids ate and enjoyed them.

This was our ride to the pumpkin patch.

Bernadette enjoying the ride.

Anne was having fun with the hay.  We had hurricane Irene a month ago and it gave us a lot of rain.  They were saying that it effected the crops and that we wouldn't see as many pumpkins.  Hmph...don't know about that.  I didn't notice.  However, the one complaint I had about Butler's Orchard was that we didn't get to actually cut the pumpkin off the vine.  We also went on a weekday where they are usually entertaining kids coming on field trips.  This means small pumpkins already strategically placed all over the fields.  Come on the weekend and you will get bigger pumpkins on vines.  Anyway, for our purposes that day, it was just fine.

We got our pumpkins.  For some reason, Tommy likes to pick the strangest pumpkin out there.  It's not orange, it's not round, it's got marks all over it!  What is he thinking?  I keep telling him to go get another pumpkin.  We settled for a perfectly small green pumpkin this year (which has turned orange since).

We put the pumpkins into our car and headed off to the slides.  By the way, I invited one of the kids' friend from school also our neighbor to come with us - she's #22.  The slides are so much fun.  You grab a piece of burlap and slide down super fast!

When I see an open field, like the one behind them, I just want to run through it!  Look at that sky!!!  Love it.

After going down the slides a bazillion times we headed off to the hayloft where you could just go crazy.  Fun stuff!

Bernadette was so small, she could get lost in there.  It got really crowded in there with all the other kiddos.

 

We also did a corn maze, but not all the kids wanted to do it since we got lost in a really big one last year.  So it was just a few of us and we got through it in less than 10 minutes!  There were so many other cute activities that were all "farm" related and creative. 

We even got to feed some animals.

Heehaw....

We called it quits for the day but before going I had to go by the store they had where I bought my normal sized pumpkins for carving!  I loved going in their store - so many neat things. 

They had so many types of pumpkins, gourds and funky gourds.  If I could just pick this table up and put it in my front yard for a halloween decoration, I would.  I picked three big pumpkins which were acceptable by my standards and I bought some mums as well.  I love those!

I would like to say that my mums are still alive today.  Fully bloomed and lovely!  However, they are suffering in this freezing weather we are currently having.  But do I know if my mums will survive or not?  We'll just find out, won't we?

It was a good day.  See ya next year...