Birthday boy

This week flew by! It's been a week since Joel turned six, and I'm just now sitting down to write about it.
He was all business on his birthday, from making sure he used the "celebration" plate in the morning for breakfast (had to change from oatmeal to eggs and toast to accommodate) to making sure he had the proper number of cookies to take with him to school to share with his class. I wondered a couple times that day if he was enjoying his birthday or just worrying that it wasn't going to be quite right. I'm pretty sure he enjoyed it. :) We celebrated Friday evening as a family.














He loved the camouflage Star Wars cupcakes I made for that night and for his friend party the next day. He is obsessed with Star Wars and Legos right now, thanks to the Wii game he got at Christmas, and that was the theme this year. Greg borrowed the Star Wars movies from Eric, and he and the kids watched all six movies in the week prior to Joel's birthday party. Yes, I know that's too much movie watching,and yes, they were a little young for some parts, but it's a memory the older two, for sure, will carry with them. Hopefully, Aubrey won't have nightmares. :) She was a huge fan of the ewoks. I think that's all she'll remember from it anyway.

playing with Joel's new Beyblades (fancy tops that fight each other)

 Saturday was a busy day for Joel. It began with his birthday breakfast with Grandpa (not the greatest photo of Joel, I know, but it shows he was there with Grandpa).









He ate a BIG breakfast and was very happy when he came home.

A couple hours later he and Greg left to go to Wunderland (nickel arcade) with a bunch of his friends and their dads. It was Greg's idea, and it was such a good one. The boys had a blast, and the dads enjoyed it, too. The kids were kept busy for an hour and a half, and they weren't running wild in my house--the perfect 6-year-old boy party!

A few hours later, it was time for his family party. We had 29 people here that night. It was fun to have Uncle Merlin, Aunt Brenda, and Warren and his girlfriend, Jackie here with us that night. They were in town for the weekend and were able to join us. It's so great to have the space to entertain larger groups of people.


We helped the kids make their own light sabers (pipe insulation foam and duct tape--thank you, Pinterest) , and they battled all evening.































Greg and I made a "Death Star" pinata for the kids. I used about 2 paper mache layers too many. It was one tough pinata! At least everyone got a couple tries since it didn't crack on the first hit. :) Now I know for next time.






I like his smile here while we were singing to him.
Had to document our "Yoda Soda" (limeade, Sprite, and lime sherbet) and the sign Kari made. It was quite a hit. As you can see, there was none left by the time I got around to taking a picture.

It was busy birthday weekend, but it was all worth it. Joel enjoyed every bit of it, something we haven't always been able to say about past birthdays. There were a few years in a row where he shed tears on his birthday, just feeling overwhelmed by it all, I think. This year, though, he was happy, in his own reserved way, to be the center of attention, and that was fun to see.

A little about six-year-old you, Joel:
--Your favorite color is still orange, but you also really like camo, too.
--You like to give gifts. This last Christmas you thought of gifts for all your siblings and wrapped them yourself to put under the tree. When Grandpa took you out for your birthday breakfast and to the Dollar Tree afterwards, you picked out just the right gifts for your brother and sisters before you picked out your own items.
--You love going to school and are doing very well in kindergarten-- independent, responsible, and confident at school.
--You love playing on the computer (especially PBS kids) and love playing the Wii. We've had to set some limits to keep you well-balanced. :)
--You are learning to read. You've been reading the Bob books and have experienced the wonder of being able to read a book by yourself. So exciting!

We are proud of you, Joel, and proud of the good qualities we see in you. You're kind-hearted, a good friend and playmate, and you are careful in the decisions you make. We look forward to watching you grow and learn this next year. We love you, Joel-boy!

Slush Day

Power outages and slushy roads shut down the schools on Wednesday, much to the children's delight. You can't tell from the photos but it was raining the entire time the kids were outside. I couldn't keep them in when I knew they were dying to go out and also knew it would be a matter of hours before it all melted. Plus, they were driving me nuts! They were drenched shortly after they went out, but they had a great time. Their clothes and everything went straight in the washer when they came in an hour and a half later. They warmed up with dry clothes, slippers, hot cocoa, and muffins.

Grant was not happy about staying inside with Mama. He had his shoes all ready and kept trying to convince me he should be out there, too. It didn't work.

Snow

Woke up to snow today!

They kept watch while they ate their breakfast and then had to wait until it was an acceptable hour to go make noise outside.

Checking it out and probably thinking, "What IS that stuff?"

He did not appreciate being turned into a puffy little man but quickly figured out the white "stuff" was pretty fun and worth the puffiness.

"I've fallen and I can't get up!" He stayed there, stunned by the bright white sky, until we helped him up.

"I got my mittens off, Mom. Do you see me?" We brought him in a few minutes later.

First taste of snow

The kids have no school for the next two days, and they're hoping for a lot more snow. We'll see if they get their wish.

Do label makers and organizers float your boat?

While we were quarantined over Christmas break, we worked on getting the garage in order. It's been on the to-do list since we moved in 6 months ago and have been working on it bit by bit, but we finally got motivated to do the big stuff. We wanted some beefy shelving to store our Rubbermaid's and other stuff. Greg did some research, made a materials list, and built these shelves himself. They turned out so great!

He used some Christmas money to get his work bench organized and his peg board the way he wanted it. Who knew a pegboard and some hooks could make a guy so happy? We used part of the pegboard to organize the sports equipment and bike helmets. Maybe we're weird, but this sort of thing makes both of us positively giddy! (side note of clarification: garage organization makes Greg giddy, ANY kind of organization has that effect on me.)It's so satisfying to have a place for everything and everything in its place. We still have some work to do (would like to put in a big cabinet next to Greg's work bench), but the majority of it is done, and we can easily fit both cars in the garage. Ahhhh, so nice!

Celebrity Mom

You know you've been a stay-at-home mom of young children for a while when your kids see you in a nice shirt (ie, non-knit) and nice black pants and say, "Whoa, Mom!" and your almost 6-year-old son says, "Mom, you look too famous!"

It might be time to update my wardrobe. I'm done having babies and, hopefully, mostly done changing sizes for a while, so maybe I should invest in some non-mom attire. Then again, maybe I shouldn't.  There is still a strong likelihood that I will wear out the knees of all my jeans and find dried snot on my shoulders, Desitin on my pants, and mystery grease spots on my shirts. It doesn't make much sense to spend money on clothes just to see them ruined, but a few changes/additions to the closet may be necessary. I'll go slow, though. I wouldn't want to look "too famous" too often.

A memorable 1st Christmas in our new house

I wasn't sure where to start with my blog catch-up, so I decided to start with today. This sleeping beauty was up the majority of last night with a painful ear infection. It was a rough night and awful for a couple reasons--awful to see/hear her in so much pain and awful to be kept awake while desperately needing/wanting sleep. I got her into the doctor early this morning and have already started antibiotics, so she should be better in a day or two (really hoping tonight is better!).

I've been waiting to blog until I was certain the stomach flu was finished at our house. (We went from stomach flu to colds, hence the ear infection. It's just that time of year, I guess!) It's been 8 days since anyone puked, so I *think* we're in the clear. I was the only one who escaped the nasty bug. Not sure how that happened, but I'm thankful. I felt sick for 10 days and worried every night that I'd wake up sick, but I woke up every morning feeling fine! It started the Wednesday before Christmas with Aubrey, then moved to Grant two days later, then Greg 12 hours after Grant (Christmas Eve), and then Joel a day later (Christmas Day). As you can imagine, this flu put quite a damper on our Christmas. I tried to not let it ruin everything and tried to have a joyful attitude in the midst of unfortunate circumstances (the wonderful story of Jesus coming to earth as a baby to save us from our sins didn't change or become less wonderful just because our family was sick...), but I'm not sure how much I succeeded in being joyful. I counted my blessings and reminded myself that this was all temporary, but I was still sad on Christmas Eve when Greg was in bed literally all day and night, and I realized this was going to affect our plans. My parents and Blake were very gracious and told us to come anyway Christmas Eve since the rest of us were well, so the kids and I went over to the my parents' for dinner. We did Jesus' birthday cake, and Kari read the Christmas story aloud for us.

That night Joel got sick. Grant was up for hours that night, too. Thankfully, Greg was feeling better by then (it was a violent but fairly quick bug), and he was able to help. By morning, Joel was doing better, but we'd gotten very little sleep and the mood was not exactly celebratory. We tried, for the kids' sake, to put on a happy face and opened stockings together.

We had our Hungarian coffee cake breakfast together(those of us who could eat), and then Grant puked all over the carpet upstairs. It was totally curdled milk (TMI?), so I think his system just wasn't quite ready for his beloved milk after being sick the days before. We got him in the tub, and that's when I lost it. I put my head down on the edge of the tub and cried/sobbed from utter disappointment and pure exhaustion. Greg and the girls got ready to go to church (the kids were all supposed to be in the Christmas program), and I pulled myself together, got Grant cleaned up and dressed, and we went back downstairs to open presents. The kids all enjoyed their gifts, and it was fun watch their eyes light up as they opened them, but it just didn't feel very Christmasy.

Joel, Grant, and I stayed home while the others went to church. Mom and Dad M. took pictures and videoed for me, so I got to watch the program later. (Thank you for doing that! I enjoyed watching it later.) I spent the morning deep cleaning bathrooms (again) and disinfecting every surface (again)--never done that on Christmas day before!

My parents and Blake salvaged Christmas for us and told us to come over after church anyway. They'd already been exposed the day before when we didn't know Joel was going to be next. We had a really good time with them, and I was grateful we got to celebrate Christmas and Mom's birthday together, but it came at a price...for them. All three of them went down later in the week.

We thought we were in the clear Tuesday evening after we'd had over 48 hours of wellness and kept our plans to celebrate and exchange gifts with Brian, Emily, and Russell, and then we spent the day with Ryan and Michelle and Mom and Dad M. on Wednesday--went bowling and had dinner. It'd been three days with no one else sick. Unfortunately, we still weren't "in the clear." Kari got sick Wednesday night, and so did Emily and Russell. It just seemed never-ending! It did finally come to an end for us, though, 10 days after it started, but not before we got one more person sick--Lorelai was the last casualty, but she's well now and no one else is sick.

We celebrated Christmas with the Moffats on the 30th and had a good time with them all. It was fun to have all the cousins together again and good to catch up with everyone. The kids acted out a very loose interpretation of the Christmas story. I'm sure it will get more sophisticated as the years go by. :)

Grandma read a Christmas book to the kids. It was about children putting on a Christmas pageant and, as it turns out, a very appropriate story for this year's Christmas, as one of the kids in the story pukes all over. She bought the book a while ago, so it was not hand-picked for our situation, but it sure was ironic!

Working on painting projects

All ten cousins on the couch

While it was kind of a bummer of a Christmas for us, we did get to spend a lot of time together at home as a family. Greg had scheduled vacation days to be home with us between Christmas and New Year's, and even though we spent a lot of it being sick, we did have some good times while we were quarantined in the house. We played some games, watched some movies, and worked on some house projects (more on the garage re-org later). The kids really like their new card game, "There's a Moose in the House," and we played many rounds. On New Year's Eve morning, we went to Safari Sam's, an indoor play place we'd never been to before, and we had a blast! It's big enough for parents to go through the jungle gym area, too, and we all had a really good time together. We weren't ready yet when it came time for the kids to go back to school and Greg back to work, but life goes on. We'll have more vacations and holidays together, Lord-willing. :)