Happy Birthday Alan

Happy Birthday to a wonderful husband and father.  For the times it gets too loud to hear yourself think and 6 kids come running at once. For the good times and the not so good times.  The moments of unbridled joy and the moments of indescribable pain. For all of our life together.  Just wanted to say thanks and I hope you had a wonderful birthday.  Yup, I'd do all over again.  All you have to do is ask.

M&M's plus Pretzels plus Kisses

. . . equals the easiest holiday snack ever.  Something the kids make every year on their own.  Ok, I buy the ingredients but that is it for adult involvement.  And you can get creative with colors and such for other holidays. You just need some sort of large chocolate piece to place on the pretzel that will get soft but not melt after a few minutes in the oven.  These were delicious with Rolo's and I think my favorites are the ones made with peppermint Hugs.

Christmas Eve Pictures

Around here the tree does not get decorated until Christmas Eve.  Then the kids open their present with new pj's.  We attend Mass on Christmas morning so we can avoid the sheer chaos that is often Christmas Eve Mass plus we can easily find a seat for the entire family in the morning without having to arrive 30 minutes early.  Makes for much happier parents.  As usual, we have no pictures from Christmas day because we were much too busy but here are a few from the night before if you are interested.

Look, it's Alan's snowman.  I love that we have a few ornaments from when Alan little.  Heck, they were the only ones we had our first Christmas together since there was no money in the budget to buy anything at all that year.  Yup, the tree looked rather pathetic that first year. I hope to be able to send our kids off with a small box of their own ornaments when they start their families.  Just a little something to hopefully remind them of these days of chaos and not being able to see the floor through all the paper.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Gingerbread Houses

I picked up a few of the ready to go gingerbread house kits at the store. Told Alan we would have a gingerbread house village.  I don't think he was excited about this prospect.  Some days he is such a fuddy duddy.  But the kids enjoyed making them.  And making a mess.  I tried supervising for a while but then the baby needed to eat so the evening's events were turned over to Alan.  I think he just failed to appreciate the point of the exercise.  Or maybe he got tired of having to rebuild the houses when they fell apart under the weight of 10 lbs of candy.  Or trying to keep Robert from eating the hard candy.  Frosting off a knife, sure kid. Go right ahead.  But hard candy is not quite allowed at your age.  Robert says we are mean, terrible, awful parents. First we try to insist on a daytime ban of the pacifier, then we limit his access to choking hazards.  But everyone had a good time I think.  The kids enjoyed it and are asking when they get to eat the houses already.  Yes, this is the important part.  Eating the houses.  Bryan really got into the project and spent time dying the frosting and getting rather creative.  That strange dichotomy of teens.  One minute they seem incredibly grown-up and you'd think they'd never want to participate in something that is so child like. Then you stand back and give them a chance and realize that they still are truly child like in many ways and have many, many years ahead of them of enjoying the simple fun stuff before life demands that they truly grow up.  Please remind me not to force it early and to allow all the kids to enjoy the fun stuff while they can rather than pushing them aside for the younger ones. 

The girls' house

The younger boys' house

The older boys' house

Eating the frosting, yum!

The finished products.

Making Cookies With Dad

Alan made sugar cookies with the kids yesterday.  Apparently when making Christmas cookies with Dad, anything counts as a Christmas cookie.  There were dinosaurs, cars, musical notes, letters, all sorts of things.  And by the time the decorating was done, there were sprinkles everywhere. I think the kids were trying to decorate the table and the floor. 

Crock Pot Peanut Clusters

I decided to try a new recipe for candy this year.  Something super easy. The kids can very easily make this recipe themselves which is always a good thing.  And if you make them, they pretty much make themselves so you don't have to watch them or spend a bunch of time on them.  Crock pot peanut clusters.

This recipe make over a hundred clusters so if you don't want that many, make sure to adjust the recipe.

Robert and Ellie

Read Aloud Math Books

I love finding somewhat non-traditional ways to get some school time in. We love books on tape, puzzles, educational games, movies, art projects, file folder games and the like. When it comes to math, I have a couple of kids who simply are not math oriented thinkers. This has caused me many hours of frustrating and banging my head against the wall. Ok, maybe not literally but it sure seems like it some days. So we now use Teaching Textbooks and The Life of Fred math books and lots of manipulatives when needed. But something we also use for the younger kids are read aloud books. A great way to sneak in those math concepts and help the kids understand them. Nothing better than reading a funny book with Dad who seems to make the books even funnier. And nothing better for me than listening to him read the books while he tries to keep a straight face through some of the more trying jokes.

Our current favorite series of math read alouds are from Charlesbridge Publishing. I love the Sir Cumference books and hope to collect more of this series. The kids are learning all sorts of geometry ideas while reading books before bed. What could be better than that?

Christmas Card 2010

Here's the card for this year. A much better option than getting all the kids in one single shot.  And did I mention I got these for free this year?  How cool is that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stocking Bliss Christmas 5x7 folded card

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First Pennance

Katie and Liam had their first confession today.  There is something reassuring when you witness that childish innocence of kids coming out of the confessional skipping and happy.  I have to wonder where in our lives we loose that sense of security that all is right with the world and our lives now that we've been to confession.  And seriously, wish I had a camera to catch Liam for that 5 seconds where he was totally still, kneeling and praying his penance. Didn't last long before he was back to making paper airplanes out of the program.  Seriously that child never stops moving. 

While trying to convince the parents to go to confession as well, Father said something along the lines of "the kids like to go to the priest they know, the adults like to go to the priest they don't know."  Again, just wondering when we make these changes in our minds.  I think it is a mystery that will never be solved.

A Very Girly Afternoon

Abby and Katie went to a princess birthday party today.  They got to put on make-up and face paint and color their hair.  Even better, they got to hang out with a house full of girls and play.  There was pink frosting and sprinkles and decorating cupcakes and just plain fun.  The kind of party I can enjoy because the kids truly just played together, brothers were welcome to hang out and play and no one seemed worried about everything being perfect. We had a great time.  Abby's make-up seems to have lasted longer than Katie's because it was put on with a bit of a heavy hand.  Just had to share a picture.  Yes, she went for blue eye shadow.

What Really Happens When We Take Group Pictures

St. Nicholas Day

The shoes were all laid out excitedly last night.  The row is getting longer and longer. 

For some reason the older children decided Ellie needed to borrow a pair of shoes to put out as well.  I think they were hoping they could split her share of the chocolate.  Everyone was thrilled to find the shoes full this morning but not so happy when Dad said they actually had to eat breakfast first.  Yup, he's a bit stricter about these things than I tend to be and well, he was around this year so they had to follow his rules.

We often watch the CCC video about St. Nicholas on this feast day but for some reason have not gotten around to it today.  Perhaps we'll watch it tomorrow.  If you are looking for some history and coloring sheets and activities to help celebrate St. Nicholas Day, check out the website run by the St. Nicholas Center.

Happy Birthday Kieran

Our early St. Nicholas present turned 9 this year.  He was really hoping to end up with a birthday buddy and have the baby arrive on his birthday but seemed just as happy to have the baby arrive a bit before his birthday. It's a bit obvious that Kieran is growing up since he requested enchiladas for his birthday dinner.  We'll take him out to eat probably sometime next week when the snow stops falling so darn much. 

Can you count the candles on that cake?  Yup, someone accidentally put 12 on there. 

Hope you had a good day, Kieran.

Just a Little Size Perspective

Robert walked over to the couch carrying his baby doll so we had to take this picture.

Winter Music Recital

Eleanor Grace

Here is our latest addition.  Baby Ellie decided to join the world on December 2 early in the morning.  The first midwife did not show up until 45 minutes after she was born.  Totally wonderful experience to just be able to hold your child for almost 2 hours without anyone messing with you or trying to take the baby away for something or other.  Ok, I let Alan hold her for a few minutes but otherwise we were just able to snuggle.  Quite a different experience than the other 8 kids.  I'd definitely do it this way again. 

The Jesse Tree

Another tradition we are using this Advent is the Jesse Tree. A Jesse Tree is a project which helps to track the ancestors of Jesus. It is called a Jesse Tree after Jesse of Bethlehem who is the father of King David. This project helps to teach you quite a bit of Old Testament history, something that I know we can all stand to learn a bit more about.

With our older two, we are using the Jesse Tree kit from Illuminated Ink. With our younger kids, we are using the Jesse Tree images available on the Advent CD from Holy Heroes.

The Holy Heroes DVD also gives us short videos to use every night to explain the history of each symbol. If you also use their on-line program, you receive direct to your inbox each day word searches, cross word puzzles, coloring sheets, a decade-a-day audio, and audio version of the Angelus and much more. We are combining both the on-line version with the DVD because I like to be able to play the videos on the television rather than just the computer. It's not too late to sign up if you missed doing so earlier.

Celebrating Saints and Seasons

I am always looking for a few new ideas to add to our schedule to help the children understand the liturgical year better.  Heck, I love finding ideas for the adults in the family as well since we both grew up without truly celebrating the liturgical year.  The book Celebrating Saints and Seasons is full of easy yet fun ideas to try with your children.  Many of the activities would be appropriate to use in a classroom setting so they would be great for religious ed classes but there are also plenty of activities that are best for a home setting.  This book also has ideas for drawing attention to some secular accomplishments in each month such as the lunar landing.  The inexpensive price makes this a wonderful book to add to your library.  I am looking forward to using the ideas in the book to add a little something extra to our religious education studies this year.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Celebrating Saints and Seasons . They are also a great source for first communion gifts and baptism gifts.

Kids in the Kitchen

While Alan was making dinner, the little ones decided they wanted to help cook.