The Birthday Extravaganza

Well first we have to say Happy Birthday, Joshua!! I can hardly believe he is 11. He had a great morning that he wanted to start at 5:30am. All 4 boys were up then and we had to send them back to their room until at least 6am. He had Enteman's Cheese Crumb Coffee Cake with scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast. Then he opened his presents and a mom knows when she's done well when the birthday boy says he got everything he ever wanted and more. Since he really didn't get all that much I think that speaks volumes about his personality. Joshua was a good sport about going to school and having to take the state MCAS exams today. I traditionally bring lunch of their choice to school when it falls on a weekday, Joshua chose Subway. I think he had a great day.

Something else that speaks volumes about Joshua's personality was his complete willingness to let Andrew and Sam have their birthday parties on his birthday. Sam's birthday is next week and we usually do a half birthday for Andrew in June. However, since we're moving we thought it would be fun to have one last big hurrah! So, welcome to Jedi training. We had 15 children for a birthday party today. They ranged in age from 3 to 11. While it was truly chaotic it couldn't have gone any better. The older children helped out a lot. Everyone made a light saber out of PVC and swim noodles and then we did a bunch of Jedi "training" exercises.

We used the force to pin the light saber on Yoda, we went through an obstacle course that included fighting the Sith (the older children) and practiced our aim by swatting balls with the light sabers on the trampoline.

Then came pizza.

After dinner they all "graduated" from Jedi training and they received their Jedi uniform. We paid a young woman in our ward who has a Silhouette printer to make t-shirts with Master Yoda on it. The light sabers and t-shirts were our goody bag and I'm terribly pleased to not have invested in the usual goody bag fare.

We then went to open presents and discovered the evil Sith had stolen them. We went on a treasure hunt to find the presents and then had a massive "battle" to retrieve the presents. I have to say it was one of the most successful parties we've done.

Of course we had cake and ice cream. If you use your imagination you can even see the red and yellow light sabers in this "cake." Our final activity was battling the poisonous bubbles (ie. whacking bubbles with the light sabers - it was a good distraction from whacking each other).

Finally, I can't have a post without Eliza. She spent the party with a friend, which is the only way this whole thing worked.

Happy Mother's Day

This post really will have nothing to do with Mother's Day, although I've had a wonderful day and hope the best to each of you. I'm mostly going to play catch up.

Joshua had an Invention Convention at school and really did a fabulous job. His mind amazes me sometimes. He invented a blind that blocks the light that comes in from the sides of traditional window blinds. When the assignment first came home I was so overwhelmed I almost cried (of course, that probably had something to do with also having a 2 day old baby and just getting home from the hospital). In the end it was okay and Joshua felt good about his project.

These next two pictures remind me once again how much I'm going to miss this preschool. Friday was Mother's Day at Small Steps Preschool. All the mothers were invited to school for a "night out" with their preschooler. We walked the red carpet and spent the day at preschool. We made some crafts together, played games and then had a snack. All the children dressed up as waiters and came out to take their mom's order. Then they returned with our order and we had snack together. There was a program where they sang some adorable songs and then we had the "Mom Awards." Each child got on stage and presented their mom an award for what they are best at. You'll all be pleased to know I'm the best cleaner :-).

Today, May 8, we blessed Eliza. I never tire of taking her picture. A friend of ours with a great camera took some family pictures today so hopefully you'll be seeing those soon.

I never stop trying to get her smile.

Here are the mom awards.

Eliza smiles

Well right on cue Eliza started showing off her smile. It just melts my heart! It's pretty tricky to capture in photos, but here is my best attempt.

She also sleeps :-). We've had a lot of fun on this Spring Break and she has been the perfect little lady. This was taken at Pump It Up, where she slept the whole time despite the noise and the other little girls her LOVE her. There's a toddler in our ward who calls her Baby LaLa. So cute!

Happy Month Day!!

Eliza is 1 month old today. We were fortunate that the day coincided with Conference Sunday. Everyone was home to help with the photo shoot. We even got a decent picture of all the children. Happy April everyone!

Oh - thanks Jenny for the bow! Annelise, I can't wait to have you show me what to actually do with girl hair :-). My mom informed me I'd have to learn a new haircut as the one I use for the boys simply won't do.

Catching Up

Here are a few pictures from the last month. Eliza is a wonderful baby and I couldn't ask for more. She feels that if she's awake she should be held, which makes getting things done during the day somewhat difficult, however, right now she is sleeping well at night. I'll take the night sleeping and day holding anytime. Her big brothers LOVE her.

This was her first day home. Sam couldn't wait to put her in the swing, and most of us couldn't stop looking at her.

Andrew loves to feed and hold Eliza. He's a great big brother. Jacob loves to hold her too, I just haven't gotten a lot of pictures of him.

Sam loves Eliza, but in short bursts. He does tell me all the time that she is SO cute! I have to say in this picture Sam is SO cute. He was having a great time dressing up.

Helping PopPop fix the tile in our kitchen prior to listing our house.

The first attempt at a family picture - I've lost all control.

We loved having my parents here.

Having fun with the camera.

This is Andrew's Horton Hears a Who project. They planted the seeds at school and Horton grew some hair!

Baby Eliza is here!!!

Baby Eliza came March 3, 8 lbs 11 oz and 21" long. All the boys were excited when she came home and had to take turns holding her.

So far she has been an ideal baby. She sleeps a lot, eats when she is supposed to and fills her diaper on schedule. The last two nights she has also allowed us to sleep from 11 pm to 7 am. I guess that won't happen much now that she is home from the hospital and the nursery won't take her back. For Jennie's sanity we have decided to bottle feed. I do have to say that although the benefits of breastfeeding were always explained very well to us, no one told us about the benefits of bottle feeding! Eat once every 4 hours, sleep longer because tummy is full, lowers the risk of jaundice, Daddy can also do it so mommy isn't always on call. This may work out better than expected.

Extra Curricular Activity

I think my friend Britt, who moved here last summer with her family, put it best when she said, "We finally figured out that school here is an extra-curricular activity." After no snow in December I thought we were going to get away with an easy winter. However, this being our fourth snow day in 3 weeks, I must admit I was wrong. When you move here you just think to yourself, "Snow happens all over the world and people deal with it, what's the deal with New England?" Everything comes to a stand still. We woke up to 3 inches on Tuesday (still had school), no big deal right? WRONG! What is normally a 25-30 minute commute took Adam 90 minutes!! School buses were late picking up children and everything was a disaster. I don't know what it is, but I do know it's how it is and there is nothing I can do to change it. So think of us New Englanders in the lovely month of June when your children are enjoying the summer months. At this point, school will extend to June 21.

Here is our predicted 3-5 inches of snow. I often wonder what would happen if doctors were as precise as weathermen.

Adam and the boys spent an hour shoveling this morning. Sam was pretty smart and opted to wait until the shoveling was done and then headed outside to play. I'm sure if the other boys knew that was an option they would have chosen (however, it wasn't for them). Adam said the boys asked if the baby was going to have to help shovel and then were utterly dismayed to figure out that by the time she's old enough to help, Joshua and Jacob probably won't even be at home.

These are the piles on the side of our ever shrinking driveway.

The picture below is from Monday. On Monday the high was 4 degrees. That's right, 4 degrees. When I put Joshua and Jacob on the bus at 8:45 it was still -8. When I dropped Andrew off at 12:30 we had just hit zero. The picture below is of Andrew's beach day at school, which was on Monday. I hope you are all catching the irony here. All the kids wore their beach clothing, brought beach toys, goggles, etc. The preschool cranked up the heat and brought in a bunch of sand (can you imagine the clean - up? - just one of the reasons I LOVE this preschool), and let the kids have fun in the sun, or at least the heat.

Great neighbors!

Uh, DeAnn, can I borrow your snow blower? Adam is another state and we have somewhere around 15 inches of snow and it's still snowing. There's been a lot of blowing so it's difficult to tell for sure, but when I walked outside it was up to my knees.

Fortunately, we have great neighbors. They have a snow blower that initially wasn't working. So their teenage son and a friend came over with shovels and told me to go back inside (for which I was SOO grateful. Normally I don't mind shoveling. However, it was causing pain in places I shouldn't push through). In the end the snow blower came back to life and for now we have a relatively clear driveway. I'm so thankful for great neighbors!!