The Last Day in November!

I cannot believe we are at the end of November already!  Thanksgiving is over
:(...This week my baby Brandon turns 16 !  Why does time have to go so fast?  Christmas right around the corner, 2011 not too far away...AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!   So, to end this month, some fall pictures...

Trevor and I taking a break from raking leaves...

 Jason, Reagan, and Elli, all bundled up and headed to the park... 

Elli looking sweet...

 

Tomorrow, Brandon and I will begin our 25 days of Christmas Music Favorites.  Let us know what your favorites are...maybe we will add them!
Actually, I am starting our 25 days today with a favorite song of mine - and a great one to begin December with!  I am also changing my background - what do you think?



Happy Thanksgiving +1!

I hope you all had as wonderful a Thanksgiving as we did!!  This was the smoothest, most relaxing, Thanksgiving ever!!  Devon and I split the meal, and I have to say, everything was perfect and delicious!!  I even got some new recipes out of it - which is always a plus!!  It was so great cooking in our new kitchen.  The microwave doubles as a convection oven, so cooking was a breeze!!  And, with the open floor plan of our house, I was able to be part of all the conversations and playing while I worked in the kitchen... 

Chris even got in on some of the kitchen action...

 We moved the kitchen table into the dining room and we were able to accommodate everyone!!  Joshua, Jason, and Reagan were my super helpers, and we set up and "dressed" the table together.

Everyone got "fancy" glasses, and we bought plastic "fancy" cups for the twins and Reese.  Before dinner we went around the table, and each of us said what we were thankful for, and Jason was "thankful for the plastic cups;)"... 

Joshua folded all the fancy napkins, and everyone helped to make name tags for the table...

We had lots of snacks and munchies before dinner...

Reagan frequented the counter... 

Of course, the real excitement started when Ryan, Devon, Reese and Ella arrived...

 

We loved being able to share our first Thanksgiving with our friends...

Baby Ella and Elli both had a wonderful First Thanksgiving... 

Thanksgiving is the perfect Holiday for building legos...

Chris REALLY enjoyed Devon's sweet potatoes... 

After Thanksgiving dinner we all relaxed and watched the Cowboys lose:(, and then we headed over to Ryan and Devon's house for dessert.  We had Apple pie, two kinds of Pumpkin pie, and a Gingerbread-Pumpkin Trifle.  I wish I had taken pictures of the desserts because they were not only yummy, but they were beautiful!  Devon even had homemade hot cocoa with gingerbread marshmallow peeps in them.  We all had a little bit of everything, and we still had tons left over! 

So, Happy Thanksgiving +1, I hope everyone enjoys their 4 day weekend!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

The house is quiet right now.  The boys are all asleep on the living room floor waiting for mom to wake them up with muffins and cinnamon rolls.  We are having friends over to share Thanksgiving dinner with us, so I am going to take this quiet opportunity to make sure that my friends and family know how truly thankful I am for them.  God has blessed me, beyond my deserving, with my amazing best friend and husband, my truly unbelievably wonderful children, and faithful friends who love us and miss us and pray for us regularly.  So, thank you, everyone for being part of my life, you have all touched my life in a very personal way, and only in heaven will you know the true impact you have had on me.  My family, I am so thankful for all of you.  I wish we could be in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Oregon so that we could be with you all!  Mom and Lisa, I love you guys and wish I could give you a big hug today!  Mom, Dad, Patti, and Hope, I am so thankful that God allowed me to be part of your family, thank you for sharing eachother with me.  The PA/N. Jersey/NY family, we are so thankful to be living close to you all now!  Thank you so much for embracing us and welcoming us so whole heartedly into your family.  We love you all!  The Williams', thank you so much for your friendship!  We are so looking forward to sharing our first Thanksgiving in NJ with you!  And, a special thank you to Pastor Overson and Colleen.  Hope you had (or are having - can't remember if you are back yet) a wonderful time on your trip to Israel, and Happy Thanksgiving!   

I realize that my musical choice is a bit off the beaten path today, but this song is one of my absolute favorites!  I am thankful to my friend Jayrell who introduced me to Kirk Franklin!  Enjoy

House Warming Gift

Before we left Ohio, Chris bought me a gift for the new house. He bought me three pictures - a cityscape for each state we have lived in.  The funny thing about this, is that I was planning on doing the same thing for him, only he beat me to it.  They got hung up yesterday, and they look amazing!!  Thanks Babe!

To make these pictures a little more fun we added Joshua!

Roseola

Roseola visited our house over the weekend.  After 3 days of 102 degree fever, that I could barely control with Tylenol and Motrin - and one of those "everything looks good, we don't know why she is running a fever, must be a virus" visits to the doctor (I hate those!!!) - Elli finally got her spots this morning.  Yep, spots.  A rash of little red bumps all over her torso and bottom.  I have to say that when I saw them I was totally relieved.  Roseola is one of those dumb diseases that doesn't reveal what it is until the rash appears, and then, thankfully, it's over.  Elli is only my second of six children to get this.  Brandon had it as a baby too. 

I am thinking that Elli got Roseola from her cousin Lily. ;) I know they live
h u n d r e d s of miles apart, but they are kindred spirits, and bestest friends, and Lily just had Roseola too. Either that or it is just a strange coincidence, but I don't think so.  Lily was there to welcome Elli into this world, so they share a special kindof bond...

We also found a couple of new teeth peaking out, so that may have caused some problems. Either way, Elli will be back to her old self for her first Thanksgiving!!  Yeah!

PS:  Later this afternoon we also found another tooth in Elli's mouth.  She cut her first upper tooth this weekend as well - Poor baby!!

SHUTTERFLY DEAL!!!

It is that time of year again!!  Yes - FAMILY CHRISTMAS PHOTO SHOOT TIME!!  YAY!!  With 6 children in our family, this can be quite a challenge. We usually end up with pictures looking like this...

or this...

or this...

or this...

 It is usually not something we look forward to, and it is usually a long and somewhat tedious activity.

However, this year we have one thing motivating us...THE SHUTTERFLY DEAL!!  Here it is in a nutshell...you can get 50 free photocards from SHUTTERFLY by blogging about their BEAUTIFUL HOLIDAY CARDS and by including links that will bring my readers to their website and view them.  Can you believe that?  I have ordered cards from Shutterfly in the past and these cards are beautiful!  I am so excited to have 50 free cards just in time for the holidays!!!  Just click on the words "HOLIDAY CARDS" above, and it will take you to the SHUTTERFLY website so you can see how beautiful their cards are.

AND...if you blog like I do...you can click on the words "THE SHUTTERFLY DEAL", and sign up to receive 50 beautifully free holiday cards for yourself!! 

If you don't typically do photocards for the holidays, you might want to consider other products that they have.  Every year I make a PHOTO CALENDAR for my mom.  She loves them.  We have been doing this for 3 years now.  This year, she actually requested one!  Just click on the words "PHOTO CALENDAR" and it will link you to SHUTTERFLY so that you can see how amazing these calendars are.   

This year my beautiful niece Mackenzie is coming to visit us after Christmas.  She is an amazing photographer and just recently started her own photography business called LILYBIRD PHOTOGRAPHY (named after her younger sister).  You can visit her website by clicking on the words "LILYBIRD PHOTOGRAPHY" above.  Anywho...I think I am going to have her take our Christmas picture this year while she is here, so I may end up getting HAPPY NEW YEAR CARDS. 

This past March we had so much fun when Mackenzie visited us...

Yes...it snowed that much in Ohio last March!!  This year we are going to put you to work Mackenzie, taking our family picture! 

So...everyone spend some time today thinking about 50 FREE PHOTOCARDS and motivate yourselves to get that family photo done!!  SHUTTERFLY here we come!!!

Our Tootsie Pop - Eating a Tootsie Pop!

BED HEAD!!



Weaning Elli...

There are so many developmental milestones I look forward to in the lives of my children.  The first time my baby smiles, holds his/her head up, rolls over, babbles, sits up, scoots, crawls, walks, talks, waves....etc....so so so many.  I love these times, and I love cheering my kids on and watching them progress past these milestones.  That being said, I can also say that there are also many developmental milestones that break my heart.  I don't think I am alone in my feelings, so you moms that are reading this need to leave me comments and remind me how normal my feelings are (if they are indeed normal :)).  You would think, that after 6 children I would have toughened up and outgrown these heartbreaks.  But, no.  It still makes me ache when my children outgrow crying for Mom when she leaves, when they outgrow their baby fat and start to look like toddlers, or in Brandon and Trevor's case - teenagers.  I have a few relatives and friends who are dealing with their children leaving home - God help me. Ok, I am not going to focus on THAT ONE now or I am going to lose it!!  Right now, we are graduating from me feeding Elli, to Elli taking a bottle or cup, and normal food.  We started out last week by pumping up the volume on the amount of food she eats at each meal, and introducing a bottle and cup (not sure which one she will take up more quickly).  That might sound like a "false start" to alot of you, but let me say that this was truly a challenge because Elli would much rather nurse than eat food, and having never had a bottle or a pacifier (she is the only one of my 6 six children to not want one), she thinks the bottle and cup are a toy to chew on.  So, having done that, and being somewhat successful, "somewhat" because she still plays with the bottle and cup more than she drinks from them, this week we began skipping the morning nursing.  This step is much harder.  Elli usually nurses in the morning to take her morning nap.  Needless to say, she has gone 3 days without a good morning nap:(.  It really is pathetic and hard.  It takes every ounce of strength that I have to NOT give in.  I feel bad for Joshua - who hates to hear his sister cry and is trying to concentrate on homeschooling - and for the twins - who are making requests for milk and bathroom trips and having to repeat themselves a hundred times because I cannot hear them over the crying, or because I just got Elli to sleep and am fearful to move lest she wake up.  I took some pics of Elli today, finally falling asleep, and some pictures of the twins making my day a whole lot better by their silly antics...ENJOY...

Joshua working so hard in the background, and Elli finally giving in to her sleepiness...

 

Reagan playing Indiana Jones...amid heaps of laundry - ugh...

Jason playing a much gentler Max Steel...he is a character in a book for those of you not familiar with him...

Today my blog is dedicated to my sister, Lisa.  For the past 4 days, my sister and I have been the same age.  You see, my sister and I are Irish Twins.  “Irish twins” is used to describe two children born to the same mother within 12 months of each other.  I turned 40 last Friday, and today my sister turns 41.  It was always such a fun thing for me growing up to be the same age as my sister for 4 whole days - I tormented her;).  I have to say that it is still fun!  Happy Birthday Lisa, I love you!

Can you guess who is who?

Happy Birthday to Me!

Friday, November 5, I turned 40 years old.  This blog is dedicated to my husband and my children for making this day so special for me.  Chris was actually in Boston, Mass. on the 4th and 5th last week, on a  FBI SWAT OP, but, before he left, he made sure that certain details were taken care of so that my birthday would be special.  The boys stayed up till 2 am on Thursday, rather Friday morning, and were up at 7 am, making sure that the plans were carried out.  What can I say except that I am a blessed woman with an amazing husband and wonderful children.  Thank you Chris, Brandon, Trevor, Joshua, Jason, and Reagan, for your thoughtfulness and love on my 40th birthday!!

These are the presents, wrapped thoughtfully in very pretty Barbie paper,

that the boys stayed up till 2 am wrapping...

 These are the yummy sticky buns, pre-ordered by Chris, and hand delivered to Brandon at 7am,

by Chris' co-worker and friend Ryan...

 This is the Birthday cake, pre-ordered by Chris, and picked up by Chris on his way home from Boston...

 This is me cutting the cake...

 This is Reagan watching me cut the cake...;)

This is Elli enjoying the cake... 

This is me getting ready to open presents... 

I received jeans from Daddy... 

The twins are going to be well practiced in opening presents before their 4th birthday in January;)... 

I received a book I have been wanting to read from Brandon... 

Trevor made me an apron at school... 

He hand-stitched the front... 

Joshua made me a new keychain...

The Rices gave me two books on how to make the most amazing cupcakes ever

 (I am certain there will be a blog on that in the future;))... 

My mom gave me the sweetest card on the planet (she put it inside a bag that she decorated with my childhood pictures), and money to go shopping... 

Daddy also gave me planters, and outdoor bird feeding stuff - my deck is going to be beautiful this Spring (another thing that I am certain will be blogged about;))... 

My Father-in-law, Mother-in-law, and Sister-in-law gave me new slippers, a robe,

and yummy smelling bath stuff... 

And...my favorite gift was a new vacuum!  My husband totally spoiled me and got me a super deluxe vacuum!  I love it! (you can see the dirt that I have vacuumed up;))...

Thank you so much, my wonderful husband and children, for making my 40th birthday so memorable and wonderful, and thank you to all my family for all the wonderful gifts.  I love you all!