Makes me happy!

I am a person who likes when everything has a place and everything is in its place.  When we moved into our house a little over two years ago, very few things had a place.  But Jack has moved along steadily and he continues to make our home more beautiful and functional.  People who regularly visit our home remark that there's always something new to see.  And that's true.  The latest new thing is this shelf in our mudroom.  Jack and I bought the baskets a few months ago and then he built the shelves to fit the baskets.  I cannot even say how happy this addition to our house makes me!  Everyone has their own basket for hats and gloves.  Even the kids are excited about this.  Even Aidan is excited about this!  He knows which basket is his so he can help get himself ready to go out in the winter and he puts his hats and gloves away in his basket when we return home.  Sometimes I just walk in the mudroom and smile because I love these shelves so much.  Thank you, Jack!

Four!

 My LuLuBelle turned four at the end of January.  I don't think I'm particularly good at coming up with birthday theme ideas, but I think this day turned out pretty well.  At four, Lauren is very interested in sitting with Annie and doing school whenever Annie does school.  Lauren wants to have her own books and has been most enthusiastic about cutting and about writing her letters.  I thought she would enjoy an ABC themed party.

Annie happily made Lauren an ABC banner to help decorate for the day.  It's still hanging in our kitchen.  It has actually helped Lauren learn the ABC song because she can look at the letters and figure out the song.

Once again, I'm having trouble organizing my pictures the way I want them.  This picture is our ABC fishing pool during Lauren's friend party.  Jack helped the kids making magnetic fishing poles.  For one of the party games, the kids fished for letters and, ideally, said what letter they caught when they caught one.  Those crazy home schoolers.  Below that is actually the first picture of the day.  Our family tradition is that Daddy takes the birthday kid out to breakfast on the morning of their big day.  Lauren was so excited to go to the restaurant "just me and Daddy".

 The birthday girl is having fun!

 I made HUGE cupcakes.  They were actually probably too big.

 The kids decorated their cupcakes, beginning with the first letter of their name.  Here Lauren digs into her monstrous cupcake.

 Aidan is trying to do justice to his cupcake

 Annie is pleased with her decorations

 I'm not sure if it's because she's a girl or because she's four or a combination of the two factors, but when Lauren opens up a clothing item, she wants to put it on. 

 Calico Critters from Mom and Dad

 She also likes to lay it all out and survey the merchanise. 

 Pretty girl.  I think she had a fun day.  I love her so!

Christmas with family

Although traveling to both Ohio and North Carolina makes for a crazy amount of time in the car, we love to be able to see both sides of our family at Christmas.  Like last year, we enjoyed another year of beautiful weather in NC. 

The water level in the lake by which my parents live was waaaaaayy down.  The lake bed was like a new playground for the kids.

The guys were all helping my dad put his new dock in and it was a beautiful day for all of us to spend outside.  We even ate lunch outside!

Decorating cookies with Grandma

This was the best we could do for a family shot on Christmas Eve

My mom makes traditional Hungarian paprikash for our Christmas Eve dinner.  Every year, Alli, Lisa and I do the dumplings and we take a picture of this "event".

Another Christmas Eve event since the days when my mom was a little girl is reading Twas the Night Before Christmas.  The book we read from was a gift on my first Christmas.  It's almost impossible to get seven kids to sit peacefully to listen to a story.  But we try every year!

Of all of the pictures from our three Christmases, I think this is my favorite.  Two toddlers looking at the camera and smiling naturally?  Priceless!  My nephew JoJo has made quite an impression on Aidan.  He now calls all toddler-esque kids "JoJo".  All of them.  Even if there happen to be two toddlers in the room.  Both of them are "JoJo" and Aidan doesn't see any problem with that.

From sunny NC to snowy Ohio.  Although we enjoyed the beautiful, relatively warm weather in NC, it was nice to finally see snow in Ohio.  Aidan didn't know what to make of it.  After each step, he wanted to stop and brush the new snow off of his boot.

Oops, back to NC.  I have no idea why blogger isn't placing these photos in the order they were taken?

My extremely talented sister-in-law made these duffle bags for the girls.  If you're into quilting or sewing projects, check out her blog at      www.lovetocolormyworld.blogspot.com

The kids were having so much fun in the snow, they were reluctant to stop and pose for a picture.

Kids and cousins making Christmas treats

Annie had requested a "Mary costume" for Christmas.  Grammy very happily obliged.

She also made Lauren an angel costume

A Mary costume and Legos.  That's my Annie.

Family Christmas

 So, I'm a little behind..... Without apologizing for that, I'll just carry on with the post.  Because we do a crazy travel loop for Christmas (to Ohio and North Carolina, neither of which are states we live near....), we typically celebrate our family Christmas early, before we travel.  For some reason that I don't understand and can't fix, these pictures aren't in the order I attempted to post them.  Anyway, the photo above is the kids with the handmade gifts they made for each other.  Very sweet.

Our tradition, passed down from my family, is that our kids have to wait on the steps until they hear a bell.  Then they can come down for Christmas.  Jack and I, of course, like to torture them by making coffee and piddling around doing other unnecessary things while they squawk at us from the steps.  I included this next picture because I think I took the same picture last year in the hopes that the scene would look very different this year.  And it does!  Paint on the walls, on the steps, finished hardwood treads, finished trim.  Progress!

This is the shot from "Christmas Eve".  The picture is horrible - it makes my eyes hurt to look at it because it's so blurry - but I include it because it's such a happy time.  It is such a joy to shop for my kids and to prepare for Christmas.  And I think stuffing their stockings might be my absolute favorite parenting moment of each year.  It's just so precious.

A ski goggle Christmas.  I totally guessed on Jack's.  Thankfully, he loves them!

These Nordic jackets were one of the boys favorite gifts.  And they were a pleasure to give.  Our cross country ski program starts at the beginning of December.  Many of the kids that my kids ski with were wearing new coats at the start of the program.  I knew we would wait to give these jackets until Christmas.  I was so proud of the boys for not complaining or begging.  The closest they came to anything like envy was to declare (talking about the new club jackets), "Those jackets are reeeeallllly nice.......".  They were so excited to receive their own jackets and they've hardly stopped wearing them for the past six weeks. 

Precious times with my littlest

The boys got a balance board for Christmas.  Another hit!

Hats for Jack and me (didn't he pick out a pretty one for me?!)

New clothes, new toys

Annie posing with her new clothes and accessories

After opening gifts, we enjoyed a hike in the woods behind our house.  I'm still amazed and continually thankful that we can enjoy this kind of hike without even getting into the car.  It's our backyard!  Although we had been wanting snow, we enjoyed the beautiful day without it.

I don't usually get to be in the pictures!

Notice the carnage?  But Jack is doing what he should be doing on "Christmas" - reading his new book.