Christmas 2015

We had quite a lovely Christmas. :)

Right before we left for Christmas Eve festivities, Jonathan tried to take a bite out of his gingerbread house. I caught him with icing all over his face and this on the floor.

For Christmas Eve, we went out to a late lunch with my family and then to church at the church attached to Ben's school.  Didn't get many pictures because we ended up being a little rushed!

We were in the mood for a quiet, very traditional service and that's exactly what we got. Since it was at an Episcopal church, Tom's family came too, along with Tom's youngest brother and his family. 

After that, Tom's family came back here for appetizers and hangout time. The kids had a blast and stuffed their faces with desserts. ;)

Tom and I exchanged our gifts to each other and set up for Christmas morning after everyone left. The Christmas Eve tree photo is always one of my favorites. (only two stockings on the fireplace because the boys' were already on the floor stuffed with gifts) ;)

The boys slept until almost 7:30! (unheard of!) I got a halfway decent stair photo this year.

Simon's big gift was a drone. It has turned out to be exceptionally complicated though.  It went totally crazy when we turned it on in the house. We set it aside for another day when we had more time to read through the directions.... LOL. 

Jonathan got an iPad mini... he was a little excited....

Ben got a whole box of football stuff, including a new Ravens jersey, which I think might have been his favorite present. :)

My parents, my brother and his wife, and Aunt Debbie came over for breakfast...  here are Brandon and Shayna with their presents. (my brother's shirt is from Pee Wee's Big Adventure... one of his favorite movies.  ;)




My dad spent a significant amount of time determined to get Simon's drone up and running... he was not successful, but mom and I have decided he needs one of his own. LOL. 

After breakfast, we headed over to NaNee and Pap's house for cousin-time and more gift opening! It was surprisingly orderly this year. :)

Tom and the rest of his family went over to have an very early Christmas dinner with Tom's granddad, who is in a retirement home/nursing home. The boys and I spent the afternoon just laying around and playing. I was coming down with a cold, so it was nice to just have some quiet time after two days of non-stop excitement!

When Tom got home, we ate Christmas eve leftovers and watched a movie and the boys just played and played.... it was a wonderfully peaceful Christmas! Love that Christmas was on a Friday so we have the whole weekend to take our time getting cleaned up and just spending time together.

Tom is off with Ben and Simon this morning seeing the new Star Wars movie. We thought it would be too scary for Jonathan, plus, I'm still not feeling great. So Jonathan and I are just hanging out together for the afternoon. :) We are still in jammies!

Another Christmas in the books and time to look forward to 2016!

Happy Easter!

The kids had their traditional Good Friday egg hunt with Grandmom, Poppy, and Aunt Debbie on Friday.   For some reason, we don't have many pictures! Suffice to say, the kids had fun and found their easter treasure! ;) After that, we went out to dinner together. I think we were all tired and Easter snuck up on us! LOL!

Then Sunday, we headed to church, home for awhile, then over to Aunt Sarah and Uncle Taylor's for another egg hunt and dinner.  The kids had a blast with their cousins and playing outside. We are finally getting some truly beautiful days around here! :)

Top O' the Mornin'….

He's the only one who has school today. ;) 

Unfortunately, because we broke from our routine to stop and take this picture, Simon ended up arriving at schools sans backpack. LOL. Oops. Had to drop him off and run back home!

Party Kid, New Year's Day, and Other Randomness....

Ben, we have discovered lately, is perhaps our most social kid. LOL. He LOVES having parties and having people over. The more people here, the happier he is. As with his sleep habits, this is completely the opposite of the rest of the family. LOL.  Anyway, it's very funny.

At any rate, he has been in his element the last two weeks as we have gone from one family event to another and had people over our house constantly. Last night, we had his Uncle Taylor and two cousins over (Aunt Sarah was home sick) and Nanee and Pap.  Earlier in the day, he had his friend Tommy over.

I'm hoping all this peopling is enough to tide him over until at least Sunday. I told him I need a people-free day today.... if for no other reason than to catch up on the dishes and clean up the playroom, the state of which currently, resembles a tiny frat house.

In contrast, his youngest brother is all out of sorts with the lack of routine lately, constantly having people in his space and not having me to himself.

We have had a WONDERFUL Christmas break though. I didn't realize just how much I needed OFF the school-schedule train for a little while.

We had a nice time last night with Tom's brother and his parents. Since Aunt Sarah didn't come, I didn't really have anyone to talk to (my mother-in-law doesn't really have a whole lot of interest in conversing with me, honestly), which meant I was pretty free to just do my thing in the kitchen and keep to myself, only occasionally entering into the ongoing-20-year conversation about Disneyworld. (they all always just pick right up where they left off)  I really don't mind this!

[begin Disney tangent] Speaking of Disney, we are planning our next trip for August. We just haven't figured out any way around going in the summer. I have a problem with the boys missing school for vacation... especially Ben now that he is in the intermediate grades and misses a TON when he is even home sick for a day. Simon is not a huge fan of make-up work and missing a week, or even 3-4 days for Disney would be a huge disaster right now.  So summer it is. And it's okay.... no worrying about flu season or whether our car will be iced in when we return.... we don't mind the Florida summer heat either.  It's the crowds that are more annoying to me... but the way we do Disney, even that isn't so bad. We just do as much as we can in the mornings and early afternoons and spend the rest of the time at the pools or doing other things, then sometimes go back to the parks in the evenings depending on how everyone feels.  Plus, the new Fastpass magic band system, while limiting our flexibility some, makes it easy to plan everything out before we go.
[/end Disney tangent]

I have been toy purging like crazy over here. Only, no toys have actually left.  I just moved them to the storage room until I can get them out the door without the kids seeing. The whole time i'm cleaning, Jonathan follows me around nervously... "Where are you taking that? What are you doing?" LOL. So I have to be sneaky.   In the meantime, the boys have re-discovered bunches of toys and games they haven't touched in awhile.... everyone is super into Jenga right now.

Today, we are just hanging out. I might de-Christmas some. Hoping the boys are happy to entertain themselves. :)  Right now, two out of three are still asleep... oh so nice. :)

New Year 2015!

Last night, we rang in the New Year with just our boys and some yummy appetizers, vegetable soup, chocolate mug cakes, and some sparkling apple juice.  Tom and the boys played Risk and Jenga while I cooked, and then we had a Toy Story marathon (those movies are still hilariously funny every time!!)... and we dug out all the Toy Story toys we own and they played while we watched. Jonathan especially loves our bucket of little green Army Men.

All three kids went to bed around 8:30, we made it till about 10.  There were some really great fireworks  around then that seemed to come from the elementary school, so I guess someone else couldn't make it until midnight either! LOL!

It was seriously one of the nicest and most relaxing New Year's Eve's ever... and ours are usually pretty relaxing anyway! :)

Happy New Year to my readers who are still hanging in there. One of my resolutions is to write more here and as often as possible.  Here's to a wonderful 2015!

...And to All, A Good Night...

Finally got A Christmas photo of the boys....   it's not great....I took it at the end of a three-hour Santa brunch and so they look a little disheveled. (at least the pancake syrup on Jonathan's sweater and his snotty nose didn't show up in the photo!) LOL.  Buuuut.... it will do. I didn't even notice that Ben had his hands on his hips until we got home and I looked at the pic. I was more focused on keeping Jonathan's hands out of his pants. 

Winter Germs and Other Fun....

Jonathan is under the weather today with a head cold. He's barely speaking, which is always weird because he a kid who NEVER STOPS TALKING.

He's home from school, which is sad for two reasons:
1) It was his last real day before break and
2) it was his LAST real day before break... LOL.

His little pageant is Friday and I'm sure he'll be fine by then... so that's good. But today, we are stuck home. Not good when I had about a thousand things left to do to get ready for Christmas. But, I am enjoying the snuggles.

I fear Simon is right behind him. He left for school today saying his nose "hurt" and was a little sniffly. ARGH. Washing my hands like crazy because, while I am happy to care for my sick babies, I do NOT have time to be sick myself. Truly. NOT AT ALL.

Pageant day is a little complicated this year. Ben's new school is holding their Christmas thing on the same day at the same time. This is a little strange to me since a decent number of kids from J's preschool have siblings at Ben's school. You'd think there would have been some coordination there. We were going to skip it entirely since this is probably Jonathan's last pageant AND Ben has only been there 2-1/2 weeks so really, how invested can he possibly be? BUT....he wants someone there... so we are splitting off and Tom is going to Ben's school and I'm going to Jonathan's pageant.

Simon doesn't have any special Christmas performance this year... just a little class party next week. Which reminds me... I need to buy hot chocolate cups for that. Adding that to the to-do list.  The massive, never-ending to-do list.

Just trying to take it all in stride and whatever gets done, gets done... whatever doesn't? Well, it's just that kind of year. Made the decision to not send Christmas cards this year and that took a huge load off. We'll take a nice Christmas photo Sunday at the Santa brunch we're going to... and I'll post it on FB or send it via email to most people on our card list. I just ran out of time this year.  Bonus,  $50 saved on postage and cards! ;)

The boys are excited and counting down the days. I asked each one which they most hope to find under the tree:

Ben - the new Pokemon DS game (thankfully he mentioned this last week and I picked it up! He doesn't like to make Christmas lists... he just hopes Santa figures it all out by osmosis)

Simon - Minecraft animal figures  (thankfully, my MOM got these for him after I suggested them awhile back... because these were not going to be under the tree from Santa!)

Jonathan - A Bow and Arrow set and a microphone (both covered! WHEW!)

As for what else they are getting...  Ben is getting a couple books, another DS game, a Lego Fusion set,  some origami paper, and some science things (a rock hardness testing kit and some owl pellets)

Simon is getting a couple books (both Minecraft-related), a DS game, a Lego Fusion Set, a minecraft sword, and a minecraft Lego set

Jonathan was the toughest this year... i opted for a new cash register for our play grocery store (he has worn the old one out), the bow and arrow set, a stuffed pigeon from the Mo Willems books, and some books.

I might be forgetting a couple little things.... but those are the main ones.

As joint gifts, they are getting Disney Infinity, an old Mario Smash Brothers game my brother introduced them to that they ALL love to play, and laser tag guns (which I also found out a bunch of their friends are getting so they can have one massive game!!)

I'm definitely ready for Christmas break. It will be nice to be off the mom-taxi and lunch-packing train for a bit. I know I'll be more than ready for them all to go back to school when January 5th rolls around, but for now, the break will be nice.

Ready or not... here comes Christmas!

OH! And one last thing! Simon FINALLY has a loose tooth on the top! :) He'll be top-toothless by spring, I predict. I was rooting for this to happen soon... he's getting a little old for the top-toothless look! ;) I was starting to worry it wouldn't happen until third grade!

Updates...

Fifth grade Take Two is going well. Ben loves every aspect of it. His list why gets longer by the day! He says the classes are all more interesting, and they do all kinds of in-class projects and hands-on experiments. Lots of opportunities for moving around. There is more freedom.... he especially likes that on the rainy days when they have to have indoor recess, they can choose what they want to do -- whether they want to play board games in their classroom, go over to the other fifth grade room and do something different or even go to the gym and play! (he chose the gym last week) ;)

So far everyone seems nice. There are a couple boys he talks about more than others and says he sits with the same group at lunch every day. :)

The most amazing thing to me, is that his attitude about school changed almost overnight. He brought home some graded classroom last week and the difference in his effort, neatness, etc was night and day.   It's something I had hoped would happen but did not expect to see so quickly.

There are little things I love about it.... like that the daily homework is on the fifth grade website, along with any papers that are needed. Spelling words are there, vocabulary words, test information.... everything.  There was a slip that needed to be signed about an upcoming science test, the document was linked on the website.... Ben didn't have to remember to bring it home.  The website/homework thing is SUCH an easy, simple thing to do.... and makes a world of difference for a kid like Ben.

Anyway, so we are off to a good start there. :)

Simon.... Simon is doing well! He just finished up his second round of cello lessons through school and starts a new one next week. (they go by quarter) He made progress despite me being truly AWFUL about making him practice. Yesterday, he spent part of the day picking out all of his cello songs on the piano.  He has an ear for music, for sure.... I did discover that the instrumental music teacher has not actually been teaching them to read music.  Now, I KNOW Simon could pick this up reading music quickly....  that's the kind of thing he's really good at!  So over Christmas break, my plan is start working on this with him because I think once he can read the notes on the page, he'll really take off.  I got the level 1 piano book I used when I was a little kid and thought we'd just start it and see how it goes.

Schoolwise, he is doing well. We have an IEP team meeting coming up Wednesday and I don't think there is a whole lot that needs to be said. He has hit a groove this year. :)

He and Jonathan have become the best of friends. They play together constantly. This drives Ben insane. He feels like he has no one here at home to play with because the two of them have their dress-up/pretend games they play all the time and Ben wants someone to play sports with. I need to do better about inviting kids from school over. I say this all the time but life is just so busy.... and time keeps getting away from us. :(

Jonathan is loving his standing extended day at preschool! I may even add a second one after Christmas. We just dropped his group that he was doing through the county in favor of the teacher coming to his regular preschool more often to work with him. He had lost all of his same-age peers there to preschool placements and was left with two young 3s who didn't speak much English and another who was more like him but socially where he was a year and a half ago. The teacher's supervisor came to observe the group and thought Jonathan was the "typical" peer placed there to be a model for the other kids.  We enjoyed going, but the teacher and I agreed he wasn't getting much out of it at this point and the time would be better spent at preschool and maybe doing another activity on Tuesdays and Thursdays in its place.... so I'm looking into swim lessons or gymnastics.... library storytimes.... that sort of thing.  He just needs to spend as much time as possible with socially typical peers. He's doing SO well.... and things are a hundred times better than they were last year, but the more social stuff he gets now, the better.

I didn't do a post about Thanksgiving.... but we hosted it here and it was good. I feel more comfortable with that now and it's actually almost easier to just have it here. My sister-in-law and I do it as a team and it just works. The kids had a blast, we hardly saw them all day. The food was great and we all survived. ;)

So that's about it for now! I have a goal to do a post a day this week... hold me to it! :)

Halloween 2014

This year we had two barbarian kings and a General Grievous. General Grievous (Ben) only lasted through the school day and, as per his Halloween tradition, he freaked out about his costume and tore through the closets to make a new one for trick or treating. This was not without some tears and a borderline anxiety attack.  After much angst, he ended up a "spider tamer". Sigh.  I am so not a halloween fan. LOL. 

July 4th!

Despite it being a little bit unseasonably chilly thanks to Hurricane Arthur to the east, we headed to the pool for July 4th. It was a last-minute decision and I"m glad we went because the boys had a blast! We stayed for almost five hours.  They had all sorts of fun games planned for the kids and great food! 

Afterward, we had Tom's parents over for wine and cheese on the deck in the evening and the boys did their second round of sparklers. Jonathan has yet to last long enough to see fireworks or sparklers. LOL. Oh well... maybe next year. ;)

Mother's Day....

Mother's day....

Went to brunch with grandmom and Aunt Deb.  Actually managed to get 1) a picture of all three boys looking at the camera  2) a family picture  and 3) a pic with me with the boys.... can't remember the last time we took one of those....