Tradition

As is our tradition, we had a delicious Puerto Rican meal for dinner on Christmas Eve, which included pasteles (similar to tamales except uses a banana and plantain masa and is supposed to be wrapped in banana leaves, instead of corn husks), pork, rice and gandules, a salad, and flan. Jason was the master chef, as usual for this meal, though I helped with the pasteles and made the salad. Our friends the Peterborgs (we knew them in Delaware, but they now live in Ohio) joined us and brought a perfect flan, which they made. Victoria and Karissa had fun with Ben and Abby again and all helped act out the Nativity.

Victoria was very sweet on Christmas morning. Instead of plowing in at some crazy-early hour, which she is perfectly capable of, she waited until around 7:30 to come in. We knew she was awake since we could hear her whispering, but she waited until she thought it was time to get up. Lucky for us, it is dark until around that time. When she came in she said, "I think it's time to get up now. I think it's light enough and I saw the neighbor outside with the dog." With that sweet wake-up call, I happily got out of bed. Victoria then proceeded to pick out the gift she had bought for Karissa at the school book fair and gave the books to her before Karissa was even downstairs! Those moments were the best gifts of all for me on Christmas! The other best gift is Karissa cuddling with me on my lap and telling me that I'm her best friend, which she does all the time now!

The rest of Christmas was typical: presents, stockings, playing, fighting, breakfast, movie, playing, bath, lunch, playing, gingerbread house (a gift from a friend), home video, turkey dinner, and phone calls all in between. The worst part of the day was that it rained and all the snow was washed away!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Battle

The battle with Victoria lately is getting her to wear clothes fit for temperatures below freezing, especially for temperatures below 10 degrees! She consistently insists on wearing short sleeves and a skirt with no tights. Luckily, I can convince her to wear tights to school most days and she has conceded to wear her big coat now, as opposed to her rain coat or a light sweater, but she will not wear more than one shirt and definitely not long sleeves! And the second we walk inside somewhere, even if it's not home, she will take off her coat right in the doorway. She says she gets too hot, which is hard to believe considering she is just bones, but I do understand, somewhat. Growing up I was always the hot one when everyone else was cold, but I grew up in California! The weather there rarely gets below 50! I'm talking about wind chills below zero! (Actually, the few days this season it was that cold, she did wear a long-sleeved shirt.)

So, yesterday we got the most snow we've had this season, though not really that much, and even though it was warmer than previous days, Victoria put on her coat, with a sweater under it, as well as the rest of the wintry-wear, without a fuss! It's amazing what a little snow can do!

Here's Austin's first visit with Santa. He took one look at him from his lap and started screaming!

Sweets, Treats, and Smiles

Every year since I've had kids I have wanted to make gingerbread houses or trains, but each year I realized they wouldn't be much help and would just be overwhelmed with the activity. I decided this year was the year. On Wednesday after school we had Victoria's carpool buddies and their siblings and mothers over to make graham cracker trains, just to make it a little simpler. It was a huge success! I thought the kids would sit for two seconds eating all the good stuff and be off to play, but they all sat and were great helpers with their trains. Karissa did eat the whole time, but at least she had a good snack beforehand. Victoria started out eating at the beginning until she saw her friends having fun decorating theirs. She ended up being the last kid at the table putting on last minute candies. Next year I'm making the real gingerbread!





Karissa had a special treat at church today. Since she turns 3 two days before the new year she gets to graduate from the nursery to the primary program in church. To get the children acclimated to primary, they brought the ones in who turn 3 in 2009 for singing time. She was so cute sitting there starring at the chorister with her huge eyes, who probably looked like she was ten feet tall to Karissa since she was sitting right below where the chorister was conducting. I could tell she was nervous as she was either wringing her hands or clenching them together under her chin. Her feet barely came halfway to the floor from her little chair, whereas the others from the nursery (all boys), could just about touch the floor with their feet.


Austin has finally started smiling for the camera again, though I've had to crank up the cheesiness a few notches. His sisters smilied so willingly for the camera at his age, I barely had to do anything, but Austin, though he loves smiling and laughing at his sisters all the time, is totally serious as soon as I bring out the "gray box".

Unbelievable!

First if all, I can't believe that Autsin is 6 months! Where did the time go? I took him for his well baby check-up this week and he is 17 1/2 lbs-again, unbelievable! The doctor said he is in the 50th percentile for weight, which seems unbelievable also, but it does make sense. He does have chubby cheeks and is very long (75th percentile this time, so he slowed down in length), which makes him seem gigantic, but I've seen the babies who are in the 50th and up, and they definitely have more chunk than he does. I think all the babies we've been comparing him to are teeny-tiny and/or girls. Actually, the doctor was very impressed with the way his growth chart has been going up in perfect increments. She said she thinks he's perfect, and so do I!

Check out his lil' tuft of hair!

The giraffe is enjoying a snack.

With his sisters, looking cute!

Sticking out his toungue, a favorite new thing to do.

Thanksgiving Visit

This was a special Thanksgiving for us as we had a visit from my brother Derek and his wife Missy and their kids, Jake (3) and McKayla (1). We don't often get out-of-town visitors for Thanksgiving and we don't get to see my brother very often, so we enjoyed starting the holiday season off with his family's visit. My kids had a ball getting to know their cousins better and they all played well. Jake was cute when he would get into an argument with Victoria, he would just run over to his mom and say, "We're fighting together", then they both would apologize and all

was well.

Victoria and Karissa jumped in for a cuddle session with their uncle ASAP!

As you can see, Austin (5 1/2 mo.) is the same size as McKayla (13 mo.) We never did weigh them, but I think she's only a pound bigger and not much taller!

Jake loved playing in our basement full of toys and my kids enjoyed it more with him.

Everyone was ready for Jason's delicious turkey.

Victoria had to dance with a "prince" her size!

This is the gang at the playground at the zoo, where it was pretty cold!

50's

To celebrate the 50th day of school, Victoria's class had a 50's-theme-party. The teacher wanted them to wear things worn in the 50's, but when I told Victoria that, she gave me a blank expression. Then I realized that she had no clue what the 50's were! I thought about showing her parts of Grease, but never got around to it. Instead, I just told her I would make her a pink poodle skirt and that it would be very cute. She was happy with that. My mom sent out some left-over fabric she had from poodle skirts she had made for her students. I didn't have to sew, which was good since I didn't have much time. I just cut a hole in a square, made a poodle to put on, and voila! I made one for Karissa too with the left-over fabric.

Aren't they the cutest 50's girls?!

Here's Victoria with her carpool buddy, Dominic.
Here's Austin singing 50's music while his sisters tried out their skirts.

Four Day Weekend

Jason has a four-day-weekend this weekend which means we get to spend a little more time with him! He took off Friday to use up one of his vacations days that he had for the year, and Monday is the opening of huntin' season here in Michigan. I guess it's also Veteran's Day observed, but the empahsis is always on hunting season around here, which is very different from when we were in the military!

Here's what we've done so far:

Friday was Victoria's parent-teacher conference at school, which meant she didn't have to go to school either. She's doing perfectly fine in school, so all my worrying and nightmares at the beginning of the year were for naught. From the school, we went down to Ohio to see some friends of ours from Deleware. When we lived there, Victoria was good friends with Ben and Abby, twins who are just a few weeks older than she is. They now live just over an hour away! It was amazing to see that all their faces look just the same as when they were one- they are just taller, have more hair, and talk better!

Saturday was Karissa's last day of gymnastics, so she was able to bring her siblings along to participate. Of course Austin couldn't do much, but he enjoyed the action around him. Actually, I had no choice but to bring him as well, since Jason was standing in a crazy long line for us to get H1N1 vaccinations at the community college. He waited for 3 hours until we got there with lunch, then we all waited about an hour together. The kids and I didn't have to wait as long, but we got to wait during the worst part. When the line entered the gym, they squished everyone up in the bleachers and moved us down row, by row, until we got to the floor where the vaccinations were being given. It was worse than being on an airplane! Our knees were in the backs of the people in front of us (with knees in our backs too), we had Austin's carseat balancing on the bench, with all of our sweaters and a pizza box piled on the car seat. Then, of course there was the hole beneath us where we could not drop anything that we wanted to see again. Victoria has a cough, and though she was doing well covering her mouth, it's just hard to not get any coughing or sneezing on anyone when you're breathing down their necks! We survived and even were able to get the flu mist, instead of the shot, much to the relief of the kids.

The rest of the weekend is still to be determined, but I can gaurentee Jason won't be hunting tomorrow, just cracking the books!

Bunk Beds

Forever ago I asked everyone's opinion on whether or not I should paint the bunk beds we got for Victoria's and Karissa's bedroom. They were painted white (thanks to my dad and his wife for helping) and I made matching quilts for them. It's been finished for awhile, but I finally took some pictures. Here they are!

Here is Austin's fisrt rice cereal feeding. He liked it the first few days, but not as much since.

Here is Karissa wearing one of my dresses from when I was younger. I have kept it, but never put it on Victoria or Karissa. Suddenly, she decided she wanted to wear it-- what a cutie!

5 Months!

Austin will be five months tomorrow! Though he smiled much earlier than his sisters did, he's not as camera friendly as his sisters were at his age.

Some things he like to do:

-baths

-blowing bubbles with his spit

-sticking out his toungue

-laughing at his sister Victoria being crazy (which is a lot of the time!)

-holding Mommy's necklases while nursing

-being bounced by Daddy on the bed

-sitting up in the bumbo or with Mommy

Victoria likes to be the first to go in Austin's room in the morning and she'll take off his baguette and lay with him in the crib until he's ready to eat. It's very sweet! He doesn't need to eat first thing in the morning and for the past four or five nights he has slept from 9pm-8am! Being a big baby has its benefits for Mom!

Halloween

Jason and I were in charge of the activities for the ward over the last year, so we were in charge of the Halloween party at the church on Friday (we have been released, so this was our last party, phew!)

It was a great party, though! We had face painting, cookie decorating (Karissa's favorite, she sat there about half the time decorating and eating), fishing, pin the bone on the skeleton, football toss, ring toss, milk bottle throw, and bean bag toss. Of course we had doughnuts and cider, as well as a pocorn machine, and a spook alley. I conducted a little dancing at the beginning to Ghost Busters and we had the parade and trunk-or-treating at the end in the parking lot.

Since this was our last party, we thought we'd go as a family theme: the girls were cheerleaders and the boys were football players. Even though we each "played" for different teams, at least everyone had blue on, except me, I only had my green uniform from high school (I don't think the blue one from jr. high would have fit!).

On a side note, this was the first time in 4 1/2 years I was able to put my hair up in ponytail while it was still wet! Before I couldn't because Victoria would have made me take it down for her hair "fix" and it would have looked really funky!

Last night on Halloween, the girls were too worn out from the party to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. After a few too many tantrums from Karissa, I knew I was just going to keep her home, but when Victoria told me she didn't feel well and didn't want to go, I was shocked! It turned out she was just tired and not sick. No worries though, they got plenty of candy at the ward Halloween party! I did get them ready to trick-or-treat, so here's the princesses and Pooh.

Here's some pictures of Karissa at her gymnastics class last week where they got to dress up. She went as a unicorn.