Thanksgiving

We haven't been able to be with grandparents nearly enough this year. We were finally together at Thanksgiving. Like last year, we hosted my parents and Jack's brother and sister-in-law.



I take care of most things that fall under the umbrella of "home maker", but my failing is in cooking whole birds. When Annie, my daughter, was born, I vowed to learn so that I could teach her. I haven't learned yet. So, Jack still cooks the whole birds around here. He does a fantastic job.


Jakin and Corban agree.... good turkey....




Determined to use the candles that the kids gave me for my birthday, but unable to find the candlesticks, I improvised. With play dough. Not the prettiest solution, but a solution nonetheless.


Fun times with Aunt Amy and Uncle David

School stuff

The fact is that I don't get around to doing too many extra projects with the kids for school. It's all I can do to keep up with the essentials these days. But, it's good to have friends who help me to make projects happen. The completion of these salt dough maps of Egypt (we've studied ancient Egypt this year in history) is a result of home schooling friends and a date on the calendar. The kids had a lot of fun and I think you'll agree they did a great job.







Since our floors were still unfinished, we chose to do the project here.


The title of the post reminds me of Lauren, who doesn't pronounce her "S" sound when it comes before a consonant. So "school stuff" becomes "cool tuff". It's really cute.

Just in time for Christmas...

It's not a Lexus, but Jack did get a new truck today. Just in time for Christmas.

I hope to do some more blog posts one of these days. I've been hoping to do some blog posts and it just hasn't happened. But there's lots of doin's around here lately. New floors. Baby growing up (almost crawling!). I'll be back soon!

Halloween

All five kids in their shirts from Grandma


Annie was a unicorn and Lauren was Clifford. We still had snow on the ground, so the kids had to dress warmly for Halloween.


It's a good life when you get a Daddy shoulder escort for trick-or-treating.


We've been trick-or-treating with some of these kids since 2005. That's before three of our children were born. When we only had two children. That's hard to imagine.


We haven't been taking too many family pictures lately, so I'll post what we have!

First snow

We woke up to this scene last week. In October. But we like snow and winter so the general feeling in this house was excitement. Jack and the boys had worked hard the weekend before to split and stack our wood, so we were "ready" in that way. Here we go!


It's not every winter that the snow piles up on trees that still have their colored leaves.


This is the view we got to enjoy as we ate breakfast last Thursday morning.


With snow comes the need for snow clothes!

5 months

Everybody loves our sweet happy boy. Aidan is so jolly and social with everyone and he makes friends wherever he goes. People are delighted with his quick smile. Such a precious boy.

At five months he's starting to hold on to toys and to be serious about getting them in his mouth. I wouldn't mind if he slept a little bit more during the day, but he does well at night so I really can't complain. He loves to be with his older siblings. And he's starting to eat some big people food - he's a fan of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and bananas.

So happy and excited for Halloween!


Because Aidan is drooling so much, I dug around for some bibs. I found my sister Allison's old "A" bib that my mom had given me when Annie was born. It's too girly of course for Aidan, but it does the job for a while. Jack turned the bib around to give Aidan a Super Aidan cape.


I'm sorry that you're wearing lace, Aidan.


All dressed up for church in his cousin Ethan's old outfit

Tummy time

I haven't been putting Aidan on the floor on his belly enough. He spent at least 20 minutes, maybe more like 30, happily playing on the floor today. He was so happy and so smiley, I just had to take some pictures.




Annie is such a good big sister. She spends so much time playing with Aidan. As a result, some of his biggest smiles are reserved for her.

Siblings

I have often thought what a blessing it is that the kids each (well, except for Aidan) have a sibling his or her own age, own gender. Jakin and Corban talk to each other All. Day. Long. Just jabbering about professional soccer players, Fantasy Football, Legos, or Star Wars. Long after we have sent them to bed, we can still hear them yapping upstairs. And they enjoy doing the same things together, especially games with balls.

Annie is Lauren's little Mommy. Annie is the one who gets up with Lauren in the mornings these days (much to the delight of her mother who is still getting up multiple times each night with a 4-month old). Annie is the one who takes Lauren to the bathroom, helps to get her breakfast, and helps to get her dressed. The girls like seeing Daddy in the mornings and then they just play.

Girls doing girl things. Boys doing boy things. Lots of mixing it up. Good days.

Dirty girl

Lauren's recent run-in with the dirt pile outside.....


.... was a good opportunity for me to use my new mudroom sink!

All five

That's a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ....
A lot of dirty underwear in the laundry
A lot of soccer practices
A lot of incredulous looks and disbelieving stares when I say that we have five kids. "Are you kidding?"

Nope. Five. And it's a wonderful thing. For so many reasons.

Some recent Aidan pictures

Aidan is usually a very happy boy. And he makes everyone around him happy with his sweet smile. He smiles at everyone he sees so it's a joy to be out with him.



Hanging out with Dad


Aidan reserves the best of his many smiles for his older siblings


Big boy loves the exersaucer, especially when one of the other kids is talking to him


I did say usually happy.... every once in a while, Aidan's pouty lip makes an appearance. That, too, is very cute.

Aidan's first 4 months

1 month


2 months


3 months


4 months

Big boy!

First laugh two days ago and sitting (sort of) in the Bumbo seat

Empty

This bin and this box, which at this time yesterday were filled with apples, are now empty. Our apple trees, however, are not. I spent a few hours yesterday processing apples into applesauce. My mother-in-law's food mill has been a great help (and a throw-back for Jack who remembers many hours spent cranking that thing), but we're still not done. Yes, I am now officially weary of apples. Not eating them. Just processing them.

A visit with the Groves family

Jack and I spent a wonderful summer in Burlington, VT with Lauren and Alasdair in 2005. Since then we've done a pretty good job of getting together, but the most recent gap has been the longest at 3 years. Since then, they've had a baby and we've had two! It was time to catch up. We spent a short, but lovely time together last weekend.

Dads with their girls. Emily is a few months younger than Lauren.


As soon as Emily saw Aidan she asked if she could hold him. After holding him, she continued to ask if she could hold him. She was very interested in the baby. That's a good thing, because she's going to be a sister in just a few weeks!



Lauren and Alasdair have decided that 5-year olds are the best babysitters. As soon as Emily got her baby fix, Annie whisked the two little girls away and we hardly saw them again!



The soon-to-be family of four

It's soccer time!

This is the first soccer player from our house to wear pink!

On the first day of soccer last week, there were understandably a few kindergarteners who were a bit timid to take the field. Not Annie. After watching her brothers play for the last five years, she couldn't wait to start. And she was disappointed when practice ended too soon.

Aidan's quilt from Aunt Lisa

My sister-in-law is so talented! She has made a quilt for my last three babies. They are so beautiful. Aidan's quilt arrived this week. He loves it!





I included this picture to show how mobile he is. He started in the middle of the quilt facing the other way. He inch-worms is way around, pulling his legs up to his butt and then pushing. Three months old and already squirming around.