A Christmas Carol

Ella's school started a little Drama club this year and made a big announcement they would be holding auditions for a play.  Ella expressed interest and I thought it was wonderful so I gave her all my support.  She went to auditions pretty unsure what she was going to be auditioning for.  In fact she thought she wanted to be one thing and when she went into the gym she ended up reading a completely different script.

She couldn't have been any more excited and proud when she got word that she had a part as Scrooge's sister, Fan.  She had just 2 lines but it was just absolutely perfect.

They practiced 3 times a week and worked so hard.  When the big day came she was pretty nervous.  She was so cute with her little costume and make up on.

I was able to make the program for the play and help the kids in the little "waiting room" on the first night and we finally got to watch her perform the next night.  They also performed twice for the school.   

Here she is saying her part.  Dustin and I were sure she was the absolute best performer out there.  :)  Proud mom and dad.  

It was such a good experience for her and helped her develop so much confidence.  She had a great time and is looking forward to doing it again next year.

The girls loving their daddy while we waited for Ella to get her things after the play.  :) 

The Christmas Tree

2 years ago our "hand me down" tree finally went to the dump and last year we borrowed a spare tree my mom had.  This year we decided to buy a $20 real tree at Home Depot.  We always have fun taking the kids out to pick out their favorite tree.  Home Depot had hot chocolate to sip while we walked around on the cold evening.  Of course the girls got excited and started pouring and we immediately spilled it all over their little table.  Once I got it under control and everybody hot chocolate poured, Molly took a big drink and burned her mouth.  So that became an ordeal with her crying about her burned mouth.  There is never a dull moment!  We picked this fluffy cute little tree to be ours.

We got our traditional ornaments.  Ella got a soccer one, Alissa chose Sophia, Molly got gymnastics and Lincoln got a baby boy with a stork that says Baby's First Christmas.  Of course he was tasting it before we put it on the tree.  As much as I love this tradition of getting a new ornament, it drives me crazy to glue one after another together as they drop them on the floor.  They play with them pretty much every day the first week.  Molly's got the leg, toes, hand and fingers all broke off so we glued it very carefully.  Many others were glued as well.   Dustin had a headache so he went to bed after we got home so the girls and I brought the tree in and decorated it.  By the end of the ordeal I had sadly lost all my patience and sent the girls off to their rooms to go to bed.  The next day while we were doing our Sunday journals Alissa drew the Christmas tree and me standing next to it with a giant sad face.  She said it was because I was mad at them last night.  Sheesh.. made me sad.  After an entire day of pleasing them with new ornaments, Christmas tree, hot chocolate all we can document is mom's sad face?!  I guess I learn from it and keep moving forward.  

I sure love these kids.  They make me so happy.  The joy of Christmas is so much more with little kids around.  I just love it.

Other November Events

Other than the girls getting their tonsils out, we had Lincoln with an ear infection, Dustin with sinus infection and a WHOLE lot of medicine taking!  Thankfully Ella and I stayed healthy.  

The girl's school had a Vetrans Day program again this year and Uncle Devin came to hang out with us.  I sit and cry as I think how grateful I am for the servicemen & women and their families who sacrifice so much for our freedom.  Devin's son David is serving in Afghanistan right now. 

I'm happy that Molly still likes to take naps sometimes.  

Lincoln is growing so much!  He's going to have to learn to walk soon cause Alissa can't hold him up very good.  She only has about 13 pounds on him now.  Ha!!

We built a fort out of their bunk beds.  Love these cute faces!! 

Ella packs this boy around all the time.  I sit him down on the floor to get something done and about 10 minutes later she is handing him to me because she went and got him and played with him and is ready to pass him off.  :)  He loves Ella too! 

Lincoln's First Tooth .. and 2nd .. and 3rd

This poor baby boy must be so miserable.  November 4th he cut his 2 bottom teeth.  Both the same day.  Just today I noticed the top left 2nd tooth is coming through.  I have never had a baby cut teeth so quickly or so oddly.  Usually 2 bottom, 2 top, 2 bottom, 2 top.  Love having my boy!  Hopefully he will just get them all so he can feel better soon.

Doing Less?

I have been having a battle in my mind this week with why is it that I have eliminated cutting hair (one day at least per week), one calling, and 2 visiting teaching sisters and I still feel almost as behind as I did then.  I guess a nursing baby adds a whole new dimension to our family of 6.  I will do my best to catch us up on this blog because I most certainly have been blessed by it in the past.

When all the kids head off to school or lay down for a nap I ask myself, "do I catch up on my blog, run errands, sleep or do house work?"  Those are generally the hardest things to do when the kids are home.  Today, the blog wins for the 1 hour they are at their activities.

Thanksgiving

This year we had Thanksgiving at my mom & dad's house.  I volunteered myself and my kids to bring little table decorations.  We made these pilgrim hats & filled with candies.

We also cooked a turkey, a macaroni salad and chocolate cream & strawberry rhubarb pies.  After dinner we tried to play a game, but it was a little chaotic with so many children and my habit of taking pictures.  

Jameson and Lincoln played on the floor for us for quite a while so we could try to enjoy the game. 

We also took construction paper and made everybody turkey hats.  Man we are getting a lot of turkeys around here!

The 3 amigos.

And this one makes me laugh only moments later.

Ella and Kailey talked grandma into a sleepover that night and kept her up until 1am! 

Under the pool table, Alissa & Kaitlynn enjoyed their stash of tootsie rolls they took from the cups on the tables.

After the festivities slowed down at mom and dads we headed to Devin & Johnna's to see some Braithwaites who didn't really gather this year.  Lincoln met his cousin Ava who is only a couple weeks younger than him.  

We have so much to be thankful for!  This year I had my kids make Thankful Turkeys rather than our traditional Thankful Tree.  They just wrote what they were thankful for on his feathers.  I think it's always good to take a season to remember all we are blessed with.  We have so much and need to always remember to give because of this great blessing.

A whole lot of tonsil tissue.

So, after at least 10 doses of antibiotic for strep throat this year these two got scheduled to get their tonsils out.  We did it all in the same hour.  The girls had to be at the hospital by 6am and they were ready to go.  It was a freezing cold morning so they were all bundled up and got to sit by a fire while I admitted them.

Grandma & grandpa were nice to let us borrow their Ipad so each of the girls had one to play while we waited.  It didn't end up being very long of a wait, thank goodness.

They got to share a super exciting Jungle themed room.  Each of their beds had a bag with a stuffed animal, coloring books, crayons and hair net.  They thought it was pretty awesome.  The nurses took great care of them and one of them even rolled them back to the operating room to check it out before hand so they weren't scared.  He gave them a mask to practice smelling.

A little more Ipad while they waited.

And here they are after.  Molly woke up ready to puke and just wanted to keep spitting.  She would only sip the slushy they gave her but after some loves she cuddled up and went to sleep.  Alissa on the other hand slept for about 45 minutes after bringing her back and when she woke up she was ready to just eat the whole cup of slushy.  It was interesting how different they were.  We also noticed while monitoring their heart rates that Alissa has a slow beat like Dustin and Molly's is high like mine.  Super interesting how they could be so different like that.  The doctor said their tonsils and adenoids were both huge and Only about an hour after Alissa woke up and we were home.

That night our neighbors across the street brought over dinner along with LOTS of extras.  Each girl had a gift bag with coloring book, story book, crayons & fuzzy socks.  They also brought jellos, puddings, popcicles and a stack of movies for us to borrow.  It was a humbling and amazing delivery.  Grandma Debbie brought over a equally amazing delivery with FROZEN pajamas and cups and a huge Frozen coloring book.  She also brought lots of good soft foods like gogurt and mac n cheese.  One of our other friends the Petersons brought the girls some new popcicles and some painting and lacing activities.  They loved all of it and I loved it too because it made it so much easier to keep the girls down.  They weren't feeling that great, but they still wanted to get up and do things.  We really are so blessed to have great friends and family that take good care of us.

The girls recovered quickly with no issues.  The biggest problem was just keeping their tummies full on yogurt and things that felt ok on their throats and then keeping them from doing hand stands and jumping on the couch.  I am grateful and am really hoping this is the end of throat sicknesses for a long while.

Playing in the Leaves

We got to go take some pictures of Dustin's niece Kara and her husband at the park the other day and while we were there we had a few of our own.  Ella was hunting with her dad.

Yum!  Leaves!  Probably tastes better than some baby foods.

My mismatched kids.  Molly didn't even wear matching shoes.  The quality of my mothering may be going down just a notch.  ;)

 

We tried to get one of all of us together.  This is about the best one we got.  ha!

Lincoln got to ride in the swings for his first time.

It was a hit!  No big breaths or acting nervous, it was pure bliss for this boy.

And since when can my 4 year old do the monkey bars?  Holy cow these kids are growing up way too fast on me.