Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody! Here are some pics from our fun holiday season.Laine loved her presents this year. She got a magician's kit, a journal, some books and toys and a book that she could be the author and illustrator of. She's absolutely loving it! We'll post pictures when she's done with it.Eve was delighted with every single present. My technique for never disappointing the kids on Christmas is simply not setting any expectations. I don't even ask them what they want. Then, if I only end up getting them like 3 books and 2 toys each, they're completely thrilled because that's 3 more books and 2 more toys than they get on a regular day. I think I may only be able to get away with this for another year or two before their friends start telling them about all the iPods and Barbie cars that they're getting for Christmas.Here's Eve with her Dada.James is a total puzzle champ. This is a little video of him doing this puzzle for the first time ever.
This December, I was super duper busy and stressed out, so I didn't get a single holiday card sent out and many presents are still en route, so sorry everyone. Yet again, I have failed at Christmas. Next year, I'm going to get my ducks in order before Halloween. I hope ya'll have a fun New Year's this week.

A Gingerbread House Making Party

Today Laine's kindergarten class had a gingerbread house making party. They started out the holiday celebration by enjoying latkes for snack time.Then they assembled their gingerbread houses.Laine was delighted by all the fun candy colors she could use on her house.Here, she proudly displays her finished product.And here she is as an adorable gingerbread girl.

Disney World

Last week, our family had the opportunity to go to Orlando on vacation. What an adventure we had. Both the flight there and back were fabulous. The kids were very well behaved, the flights were on time, and the flights were about half full so we had plenty of room to sprawl.When we got to Orlando, we were met by my aunt, uncle, mom and sister. Every night the kids played card games like Go Fish and Garbage with my sister. I was amazed at how quickly they caught onto these games which I thought were too complicated for a four and five year old.We spent a day at Magic Kingdom where the girls were mesmerized by the castle, the shows, the characters and the rides. Chris and my poor sister hauled the girls around on their shoulders a lot so they could see everything. I'm achy and sore from having James in a sling or holding him all week long. James surprised me by learning how to do puzzles while we were on the vacation. He also learned new words like "sling," "snuggle," "puzzle" and "mother." He may catch up to the girls one day in ability to speak and communicate.Laine was kind of a scaredy cat. Here she is on the Jungle Cruise. She was freaked out the whole time and kept asking if the animals were really fake. Eve was very brave though. After the craziness at Magic Kingdom, we decided James was really too young for the theme parks, so he stayed at the resort with me the remainder of the time while the girls went off on adventures. They apparently had a ball at Sea World. They got to pet a dolphin for like 10 minutes and went on nautical roller coasters. I wish I had pictures to post, but like I said, I stayed behind and it doesn't normally occur to Dads, bless their hearts, to capture these moments on film.Here's James chilling with my aunt munching on an apple. The elephant he's holding is one of two elephants that my sister brought him from Wales. He immediately fell in love with them and insisted on holding them both in his hands for almost the entire vacation. Oh! That was his other new word: "ehphant!"Despite all the theme parks and fun things there are to do in Orlando, Laine and Eve's favorite thing was to hang out at the pool. James loved it too. He loved being tossed high in the air between me and Chris in the pool. We called him rocket boy and he squealed with delight and laughed hysterically every time he was tossed in the air. Here's a very happy Eve enjoying some night swimming

Star of the Week

This week was super duper exciting for Laine. It was her turn to be the class Star of the Week. The big SoW is a prestigious status awarded only one week out of the school year so you can just imagine her excitement at being chosen. The SoW and the SoW's mother have many responsibilities that include things like making a poster.

In the above photo, Laine is holding a biography that her classmates wrote about her after they interviewed her about her life. They asked what color her cars were, what her favorite movies and games were, how many siblings, etc. The SoW also gets to have her parents come in and read to the class with them.Laine and her Daddy captivated the audience with the tale of Rumplestiltskin.And even though this post is about Lainey, I had to throw in this shot of Eve looking so sassy.Oh and here's a good picture of our Star of the Week where you can see her newly upper-toothless state. The tooth fairy has been a frequent visitor at our place lately.And Natalie, babe, this one's for you. A picture of me! This shows that I really love you a lot because I hate having my picture taken. Today was my last final of the semester so some girlfriends and I went out and celebrated. Us nurses sure party hard, let me tell ya.

And that's been our lives lately. Now that I'm out of school for a month, I'll update the blog more frequently. Ooh! And I'm planning some major organizing projects for the house. I really know how to live it up when I'm not in school.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! This year we had a great little feast at our house. Dain and Maryann, Chris's cousin, came over with their family to celebrate with us. We all had a great time and ate way too much food. Here are a few things that the girls are thankful for.

And here are some recent ADORABLE pictures of James, my little love.
And here are my boys getting a Daddy and me haircut yesterday.

I Love You Tooth Fart

Laine came home very excited from school yesterday. Her friend, Camilla, had suggested that Laine simply pinch her tooth and pull it out. So, she did. And it worked. When she told us this story, Chris and I had the exact same response. We've been telling you to do that for a week! Laine said, "Yeah, but you didn't tell me about the pinching part." She got to go to the school clinic and get a treasure box for her tooth.

Eve was very excited for Laine. Last night, the girls didn't fall asleep until like 11:00. They were in their rooms having the most fun anyone has ever had. I had ordered some fairy prints to hang on their walls and the girls were really excited about that. Then they were busy alternating between playing fairies and superheros for about an hour and a half. Then they fought and tattled and whined for another good hour before finally falling asleep. There was a LOT of noise coming from the pink room. When it was finally safe for the tooth fairy to work her magic, she has a cute surprise waiting for her.

She also enclosed a letter with the tooth describing what had happened. Dear tooth FAiry I puLD Mi tooth ote in P.E. Love Laine!
Also, I finally caught James doing his "Wake Up!" trick on film.

A Weekly Update on the Kids

I can't even begin to tell you how much I adore baby James. I love all the kids so very very much, but I think James might love me back the most. He's always willing to snuggle and give me smooches and say sweet things to me. This is him settling down for a nap in his little bed. When he doesn't have his mama to snuggle, he snuggles his woof-woof. His latest cute trick is he'll squint his eyes shut, cover them with his hands, then he'll uncover his eyes and say, "Wake up!" I tried to catch it on film, but he wouldn't cooperate. He also gets a big kick out of pat-a-cake.

Our Eve is ever the lovely princess. Her preschool teacher just loves her and was telling us how proud she was of Eve for finally opening up and talking in class. She used to be so shy and quiet and never said a word. She's still up to her usual pretending games. This morning during girls' reading time, we had to stop and act out each book we read. She has the loveliest sleeping face so I had to post this picture.

Our Lainey girl still has that upper tooth hanging by a thread. She's so scared to let us yank it. This picture's from today. The tooth really needs to go. It looks kinda gross always dangling off at a funny angle, but she insists that it needs to come out on it's own. It's a busy week in school for her with all sorts of fun Thanksgiving activities coming up.