Monday, February 28, 2011

oh, the sacrifices we make

Remember the projects I was mentioning in the last post? For Max's we needed to buy two small cylinders of oatmeal. (We need the containers.) The huge container of oatmeal we already had at home was way too big. So, now we have a ton of oatmeal. What is a mama to do with an overabundance of oatmeal?
Make oatmeal cookies of course. :) I have come to the conclusion that these cookies are free of fat and calories. After all, we only made them because of this project.
I am liking this project more and more!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

school projects

Why is it that both Max and Sydney have big projects due at about the same time? I think the teachers are out to get us. Our dining room has been taken over by poster boards...

Friday, February 25, 2011

Another trip to China?

Veronica was so cute. She came to me with such a sad, distraught look on her face. She told me, "Whenever I look at our China books, I just want to go back." I asked her what we would do there. Her response was "Go to the hotel." I am thinking it might be cheaper to go to hotel a little closer to home...just saying.

A Great Day for a Snow Day

How is that for timing? Our school closed due to the weather. I was thrilled as our children really could use one more (okay, make it three-weekend) days to finish getting over this obnoxious virus. Yippee- this day will not count against them!

Now, what cracks me up is Max asked if they could go outside to play. Hmm...let's see...you just missed two days of school. Nope, you are stuck inside my dear. :)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

and the day has just begun

It is going to be another one of those days. Yesterday, Max and Sydney ended up staying home due to being sick. Well, they will be staying home yet again today. The kiddos all sound like they are coughing up their lungs. Max slept on our floor again. Sydney ended up in with us as well around 3 this morning although she never did fall back to sleep. (We ended up coming downstairs around 4) She was complaining of an upset belly. I am a terrible mom; but, I needed proof with this one. You see, she complains of feeling like she is going to throw up quite frequently. I got my proof...all over the bathroom rug, toilet, and on the bottom of my foot. Ugg! When I went to get her a cup from the cabinet to give her some water, I had a baby bottle from the very top shelf fall down and attack me out of the blue.

Emerson woke up sometime during the night too. I went in and held him for awhile. I had a terrible time trying to get him to stop fussing. I was afraid he was going to wake the rest of the house. He is definitely a child who knows what he wants. I asked him if he was ready to go back to night-night and he started to fuss again. Guess he was not quite ready. We rocked a little while longer and I asked him again and he had no trouble going back to bed. Ron is bringing him downstairs right now (5 in the morning) because he just woke up again and sounds miserable.

I did not hear a peep out of Veronica all night. Maybe she is getting some good sleep. She would be the only one in the house! Before I could even publish this post, she was down here too. She came down right after Emerson. She was upset that she was left alone in her room.

Max joined us about 6:45. I have called the school to let them know Max and Sydney will not be there today. I called the preschool to let them know Veronica will not be at school. I emailed Emerson's music teacher to let her know he will not be in class. I still need to let Sydney's cheerleading coach know she will not be there and cancel Emerson's ENT follow-up appointment yet again. (We had to reschedule once due to the nasty weather.)

As rough as it is, I am glad they are all dealing with this virus at once. This would be terrible if they were doing it one at a time!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Help me!!!!

I am surrounded by coughs, snuffly (Veronica's word) noses, and other icky stuff. Ugg!!!! All four kiddos are coughing like crazy. Emerson had a temperature of 102 tonight. Ron thinks he is coming down with it too. I think I am going to put a straw in a container of oj and say LOTS of prayers for them and me. :)

It's back...

Winter has returned. Oh, we all knew that warmer weather was just here to tease us and to make everything a slushy mess; but, we fell for the warm sunshine, did we not? We are all feeling that spring fever now! It will be here soon, right? I will admit it was nice for Max to get a two hour delay on his birthday though. What a nice gift!



Sunday, February 20, 2011

Max's sleep over

Well, our big boy will officially be turning 10 on Tuesday. I just cannot believe it! It seems like just yesterday that I would sit and watch him swinging in his baby swing or take naps cuddling with him on the couch. He is such a blessing to our family and we all adore him with all our hearts. We had celebrated his birthday with the extended family back in January when we did the big birthday party for the 5 winter birthdays in our family. However, we had his friend birthday party last night. His theme was Star Wars: the Clone Wars. Five of his buddies came over for a sleep over. They were all so well behaved and it was a pleasure having them here. (I am not sure the girls agree. They thought the boys were way too loud. I kept trying to remind them that it was a party. I asked them if they wanted five more brothers and they quickly said no. Poor girls.)

The boys, Max (of course), Alex, Justin, John, Gabe, and Liam all seemed to have a great time having Nerf gun wars, playing video games, and just hanging out together away from school. We asked them to start settling down about 1:00 a.m. They started to watch the movie Despicable Me. According to the boys, some finished the movie and others did not quite make it. (Sydney woke me up at 2:45 and said the boys were still watching the movie. I thought, "They better not be!" I checked and it was just the music playing over and over. They fell asleep without turning it off.) The boys did not make an appearance until about 7:40 a.m. Their original plan was to stay up until 2:00 a.m. and get up at 5:00 a.m. Ugg! Glad that did not happen.
I wanted to mention a couple of the funny moments during the evening-
*A couple of them ran to get their DS systems so they could take pictures when it was time for cake. You gotta love modern technology.
*Alex told us that he had started reading the TRON book that he had given Max. I said, "Oh, you have one too?" He replied, "No, I was reading that one." We started to tease him that he gave Max a used gift. It was so funny!
*Alex asked for duct tape. They wanted to tape Gabe's mouth...guess he was talking too much. Sorry, Alex...no duct tape for you!
*Liam mentioned that the one gift they gave Max was a gift that his mom had forgotten to give someone at Christmas. Bet his mom did not mean for him to tell us that! (not that it matters to us, of course)
*We had heard from one of the moms that we were apparently THE party of the weekend and the boys just could not wait to come over. Talk about pressure!!!! I hope they had a great time!!!!
Happy 10th Birthday, Max Anthony!!!!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Story Time

I love Wednesday mornings. After dropping Max and Sydney off for school, the littles and I go to mass, meet friends at Tim Horton's and then head to story time. I thought I would document some of the moments from today's library visit.

interesting book

having fun dancing

trying to clap and suck her thumb at the same time

getting tired?

not now...jumping to "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed"

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Best Mom Award

I most likely (okay, definitely) will not get the title of "Best Mom" for the year; but, I will take it for the day. :) I am happy with that. Veronica told me twice, "You're the best mom I ever had!" I am not sure how many she thinks she has had; but, again, I will take it. :) I love it! The first time was because I let her wear a skirt to school. I did not realize I had told her no at some point unless of course it was during the bitter cold days. The second time was because I let her wear her Minnie Mouse jelly shoes. She has been wanting to wear these shoes for some time now. Keep in mind here that the weather has been freezing, snowy, and totally not jelly shoe weather. Also, the last several times she wore them, she complained about her feet hurting. She told me they do not now. That was before I even agreed to let her wear them today. Should I be disqualified for the "Best Mom Award" or win it because I knew she would only be wearing them in the car on the way to pick up Max and Sydney from school? There was minimal walking involved...to the car and to the house. Hee, hee! We both won. She got to wear the "forbidden" shoes and I did not have to hear how they hurt her feet.

Tonight, I heard "You're the best mommy in the whole wide world" from Sydney! You know why? I had bought her celery to go with the hummus that we had gotten. Can you believe that?! That just warms this vegetarian mama's heart!!!! :) To top it all off, I actually agreed to let her take a cookie for lunch tomorrow. That is a big deal as I usually do not allow them to take sweets to school.

Wow...I am on a roll today. Unfortunately, everyone is in bed and tomorrow is another day. I bet I will lose my title. :) Oh, well...some other mommy out there needs to hear that she is the best mom...even if it is only for the day.

By the way, thank you to those who gave suggestions for my last post. I appreciate all the input!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

I need a better answer!

I am starting to get a tad frustrated and I need your ideas! I have had so many people while we are out about comment on how cute Emerson is. I agree! He is absolutely adorable. You know what...so are our other three children! I know those commenting are not intentionally trying to hurt anyone's feelings; but, I am sure our other three must feel like bumps on a log when people start mentioning how cute Emerson is and ignoring them. I would rather they not say anything about any of them than make one of them feel more special than his/her siblings. Have you run into this? What do you say?

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Happy Chinese New Year!

We celebrated with Chinese food for dinner. Don't you just love these shaped chopsticks?! We have the monkey that Emerson is demonstrating and the giraffe that Veronica is showing us, as well as a panda and a rhino. Too cute. Happy Chinese New Year!!!!







Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Emerson's third birthday and first at home

Emerson turned three on January 21st. Last year, he received a family for his big day. :) No joke, it was his 2nd birthday when we officially accepted his file and told them that yes he is our son and brother.

As is tradition at all of our children's first birthdays, in this case first birthday at home, we had our loved ones sign a tablecloth with well wishes for Emerson. It makes a great keepsake for the children and can be used for other birthdays too. We just throw a clear plastic table cloth over top as to not smear any of the words or use it as the gift table. Of course, his had to be red in color.

Speaking of red, we lit a red candle in honor of his birth parents. Although we will never know the reason behind his abandonment, we do have to give them credit for going through with his birth rather than aborting the pregnancy . It was all part of God's great plan. He was always meant to be a member of our family and in order for that to occur they too needed to do their part. So, although our hearts ache with not knowing what really took place in China at the beginning of our son's life, we will forever be grateful that they did do their part to bring Emerson into our lives for we have all been touched by our little man...our Lil' Bubba...



Veronica's first friend party

Once the kiddos reach preschool (4 years old) and start making their own friends, we start holding friend birthday parties for them. This year Veronica got to have her very first and to say she was excited would be an understatement for sure. She invited four of her classmates, Greta, Anna, Julia, and Ella. Her theme was "Toy Story", of course. (Remember, she was Jessie for Halloween.)


The girls were all so cute and seemed to have a good time. They did a sand art craft. We played several games...hot potato with Mrs. Potato Head, pin the badges on Woody and Buzz, dance freeze with Toy Story music, and even had a claw game.

Veronica chose to have cupcakes with Jessie hats on top and cotton candy ice cream. The "hats" were made from cookies, gumdrops, and icing. Sugar overload anyone? I would like to note here that we did the dancing (freeze) after the sugar to help them burn it off before their parents had to take them home. See at least we were trying to be considerate. Ha, ha!

We had a lot of fun and it meant a lot to us that Veronica's friends could come and help us celebrate her big day. They gave her such nice gifts too! Very sweet!