Tuckered Out

Robert went from this. . .

to this rather quickly.

Gingerbread Houses

I had intended to build these houses with the kids sometime this year but never got around to it.  Then a friend called and asked if she could come over to build gingerbread houses with the kids.  Needless to say we were thrilled with the offer.  She showed up with 3 homemade houses, lots of candy,  frosting and her daughter to help.

Lots of actions, lots of help, the kids did a great job.  I think I may try to do these ourselves in the future.

We Teach Them Young

Yes, that is a real screw driver and he is using it properly.  Seriously, why do toys come screwed into boxes now?

Robert got his hands on the laptop.  He was quite proud of himself until he managed to shut it on his hand. Then he was not so happy.

Look What Dad Sent

Wow!

Look out world, here he comes!

Merry Christmas

Busy Night

Christmas Eve at home means decorating the tree, opening Christmas pj's and watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. 

This is the mess after each child opens just the one present containing their new pj's.  And I do believe that only half the mess fit into the picture.  And here is Robert hanging out. 

Gabe decided that the tree decorations were really fun to play with rather than put on the tree.  There are lots more pictures but I think it is time to put the younger ones to bed.  Hope everyone is having a wonderful night.

Christmas Eve Mass

Sean sang in the choir this evening at Mass. Doesn't he look perfectly well-behaved here?   The pictures of the kids singing turned out rather, um, freakish looking so this is the best I can do for now.  The kids did a great job singing and providing a bit of entertainment.  

Bryan served tonight which meant he processed in with Father. This resulted in Gabe announcing to everyone who was coming.  It started with "Bryan" at the top of his lungs even before the music started because he could see his brother in the back of church.  Bryan, Bryan, Bryan very loudly until you could hear a chorus of laughter.  Then the singing starts and people start walking. Then we hear Bryan! followed by a bit of silence because he does not know the other server or the lector.  Then we hear Deacon!  Then Father! Now roll call is over and hopefully the little dude will be quiet for a bit.  Um, nope.  But we tried right?

Cookbook Review

While I was wandering around the grocery store the other day waiting for Robert's prescription to be ready, I decided to browse the book section.  Normally I would avoid the book section of the grocery store on the principle that the books are guaranteed to be overpriced and who wants to add a book to their grocery budget.  But we'd already put everything we needed in the cart and still had time to kill.  I saw this book that I've had in my Amazon wish list for a while and decided to splurge on it.  Hey, I was under orders from my mother-in-law to buy something just for me so you can call her an enabler.  The Pioneer Woman Cooks is a great book for anyone who loves The Pioneer Woman blog which I do.  I love all the pictures. I love that it is real food. I love that the portions are not already set for 2 people.  And have I said I love all the pictures?  Seriously, all cookbooks should come with so many pictures so you can actually see what you are supposed to be doing.  I do wish there were a few more recipes in the book but you can find more on her website.  Just be smart and buy the book somewhere other than your local grocery store and save the difference.  "Buy used and save the difference."  Hm, I wonder if the Duggars apply that to books? But that would be yet another post. . .

Did You Know. . .

. . .that the secret to making perfect ornaments is using copious amounts of glitter?

This is just a small sampling of the ornaments the kids made today.  I think we may need to hang up the table and counters as well based on the amount of marker and glitter that ended up on those as well.

Christmas Baking

 

The making of Christmas goodies has finally started.  I am so not in the mood at the moment but this snack is one the kids can make entirely on their own without help from me. And they love it.  We made these last night and there are none left. 

Just lay out a bunch of pretzel squares on a baking sheet, top with a Hershey's kiss, pop in the oven at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes. Pull them out and put an M&M on top. Let cool and devour.  I learned this year (or perhaps relearned) that it is best to do the plain kisses in one batch and the white chocolate hugs in a second batch because of the differing melting temps. The hugs were very soft while the kisses were still a bit hard after 5 minutes. But they were all yummy.

Happy Birthday Alan

This may be just a tad early but I just couldn't resist sharing. Happy birthday, Alan. We love you.

Robert Crawling

This one was taken in the morning with better light. We don't have many lights in the living areas of the house so things get a tad dark at night. Hopefully you can see this one better.

Baby's First Christmas

Yes, this is child number 8 and the first one to ever have a baby's first Christmas outfit. We were blessed with another box of hand-me-downs and this was in the pile.

Robert on the Move

Ok, the lighting is a bit poor on this but hopefully you can see it.

The Tree is Up

Ok, I admit that I was more than willing to just forget to put the tree up this year.  It was stored somewhere very hard to get to, I was going to have to rearrange the furniture to find a place to put it and the prospect of keeping Gabe and Robert out of the tree was not an exciting one. But the children did not agree with me  on this one.

So when Dave came by last night to drop off dinner and try to fix the snow blower, we asked him if he could try to get the tree down for us. After the kids went to bed I rearranged furniture and set the tree up.  Yes, it is hidden somewhat in a corner.  I am hoping this will help keep the younger two away from it a bit.  No ornaments will go on until Christmas Eve so this is it for now.  This kids are happy, the snow blower is now working and I was able to enjoy a nice warm dinner made by someone else last night. Things are going rather well.

New Poncho

I had been using Gabe's poncho on Robert last week and Gabe let me know he was quite upset to have to see his brother in his poncho.  So I made a new poncho for Robert the other night.  The child has a rather large head so it took two tries to get the hood large enough to fit over his head properly but we now have 2 happy children.  Robert is happy with his new carseat poncho and Gabe is happy to have his poncho back.

Quick edit: here's a link to the pattern

I Want to Play, Too

The little guy went out to play in the snow with Bryan today. This was taken before the boots went on. It's amazing Gabe was able to walk.

Pictures From Our Week

Skiing in the Yard

This is how Bryan and Katie have been spending the past few days.  Yes, we got snow and I think it will be staying around for a bit.  Earlier this year I spent some time browsing craigslist looking for inexpensive sets of cross country skis.  We already had 2 pairs plus 3 pairs of snow shoes for the kids.  I added 3 more pairs of cross country skis and now the kids have a way to keep busy outside in the winter. A definite benefit of having more than just a regular city lot to play on.  The kids can ski right outside their front door.  Sorry the picture is not the greatest. I was not wearing shoes and was not going to step outside.  Yes, I'm a wimp like that.

Happy Birthday Kieran

Kieran turned 8 on Saturday.  He had a wonderful day I think.  We went out to lunch at Red Robin then went to the spaghetti dinner at church where Father Mickey had everyone sing to Kieran.

Then we came home for cake.  He'd requested a blue cake but someone raided the pantry and it was too late to make frosting so Kieran settled for chocolate frosting.

We had a very happy 8-year-old. Congrats Kieran.

Christmas Play

The older boys were all in the Christmas Pageant at church this year.  We had 2 "additional" shepherds, one head shepherd and Balthazar. The biggest hassle was getting all the parts of the costumes to the church that night since swimming lessons ran late so we sent right from one to the other with a quick stop in the driveway to grab things.

The pageant went rather well from what I could see. Gabe was about done with sitting still and being quiet by the time everything started so I did not get to see too much from where we were hiding but I did get to see Kieran jump up and down excitedly when the shepherds were all supposed to be showing their joy and excitement at the birth of Jesus. I must say he played that part well and the other shepherds were very much slacking off.  Yes, they all wore sneakers and the show still went on.  Amazing, huh?

Let It Snow

I will admit that I am not interested in a lot of snow this winter until, oh, the end of January but this morning this is what I woke up to.

Of course, the temps today are supposed to be in the 40's and tomorrow it will be in the 50's so nothing will last long at all.  This is what the kids are doing right now.

Our Little Big Guy

I think the picture says it all. Robert is suddenly getting big on me.  I am truly wondering where my tiny little babe has gone to. 

Science Museum

We visited the science museum so we could go to the traveling Titanic exhibit.  I'm not so sure if the exhibit made much of an impression on some of the children but it always amazes me to just stop and think about the entire tragedy.  All of the things that went horribly wrong.  Bryan, Sean and I were talking a few days later about how if we were there, Bryan would have been old enough to be considered a man and left behind to die.  Very sobering thought right there.  Also makes me question why on earth we allow our children now to shirk responsibility so much during their teen/pre-teen year but that is another post unto itself. We don't have pictures from the Titanic exhibit since you are not allowed to take any but I do have a few others of the kids.  The older two spent a good 15 minutes playing with an interactive Erie Canal exhibit moving the boat into and out of the locks.  Abby and Gabe spent a ton of time playing in the water table.  Kieran spent a lot of time putting on weather reports that he then emailed to Dad and the other kids spent a ton of time climbing in some tunnels.  Everyone had a great time.