Post Christmas Fun

Well Christmas is over. All the presents are unwrapped and the decorations are even put away already. I sorta think Christmas should last a little longer, not all the craziness of it, but the spirit and the festiveness of it. I think at least the whole week after Christmas should still be considered Christmas time. I'm sad my tree is gone and my house sorta looks a little empty now. But that hasn't stopped us from having a lot of post Christmas fun this week. Tuesday morning my entire family (minus Mom who was sick) headed over to Monkey Joe's for a morning of jumping, running and sliding. We had a blast. It was really fun to do something outside of the house that all the kids loved. The adults even got into it, taking the smaller kids down the big slides. 

We've also just had a lot of fun at home playing with new toys. Paul set up the drum set and the jumpolene in the basement. The kids have a grand time beating on the drums and jumping around down there. Logan could use a few lessons on how to get out of the jumpolene. Don't you think?

Christmas Extravaganza

Christmas is here! Jesus' birthday celebration has finally arrived. Jack has been excitedly counting down the days until Christmas with this giant advent calendar I made for him. Some days he couldn't contain his excitement and just had to do two stars...thus all those extra ones above the manger scene picture. A few days after Christmas at breakfast, Jack was telling me about his sticker chart to Christmas. He told me that God would have a sticker chart for his (Jack') birthday, since he did one for God's birthday. I love to see how his little mind works. 

We of course, had a very busy Christmas. Paul was off the entire week before hand which was really wonderful and extremely helpful. I had a lot of preparation to do since we would be hosting our first Christmas on Sunday for Paul's family. We got the house in fairly cleaned up condition and all the food prepped and treats made. We were busy, at least I was. It takes a lot of planning and organization to prepare a house and a meal when you will be gone most of the day before it all needs to be ready and when there are three small children. But we pulled it off and without really too much stress.

Our Christmas celebrations began on Christmas Eve with our annual trip to Buckley for a family gathering at my aunt's house (mom's side) followed by church and another gathering at my grandma's house (dad's side). Things got a little hairy for us during church. The kids were totally off schedule with short or no naps, strange meal times and a lack of sippy cups because I forgot the cooler in the fridge at home. Paul ended up leaving church with Logan who was completely unhappy. The other two barely survived the service without melting down. All in all though, it was a good time seeing aunts, uncles and cousins. Sunday we started off the morning with just the five of us. The kids opened a few presents form us and got to play with new toys. Paul's family came over later in the morning for the rest of the day. It was a really wonderful day and the kids never made it out of their jammies. 

On Monday we went to my parent's and did Christmas with my sisters and their families. It was crazy. The kids were crazy. We did all the kid's presents in the morning and then fed the kids lunch and put them down for naps. Once all most of the kids were down for their naps we finished the adults lunch and did the adults presents. Logan didn't approve of this plan and screamed while we ate lunch. I ended up getting him so he didn't wake anyone else and he joined us while we did our gifts. I won't deny that there were stressful parts of Christmas this year. I guess that comes with having three small children (one with a double ear infection) and throwing their routines out the window. But the stress was minimal and there were way more sweet, fun, joyful and memorable moments. Overall we had a really wonderful Christmas spent with the people we love most and celebrating our Savior's birth.

Christmas Pictures

He's still trying to understand why the book is missing parts from the movie.

Tickle Monster and Boogie Monster Dress Up

This kid has been a crazy goofball lately. Just look at that face.

Favorite toy of the year. A working garbage truck.

This picture cracks me up. For some reason it sort of reminds me of that old farmer and wife picture. The look on Logan's face about sums up his Christmas. He's been fighting a double ear infection and not feeling well for nearly two weeks now.

Dress Up

I always thought it would be fun to play dress up with my kids. To see them excitedly transform themselves into someone or something else with funny clothes and their wild imaginations. Jack is not really into that sort of thing, however, it seems as though Schaeffer and Logan might be. They are a little young for the wild imagination but they are constantly bringing Paul or I articles of clothing to put on them. It's so funny. Recently, they wore their new "fancy" shoes with their Christmas outfits. Ever since they have LOVED these shoes. Yesterday they both wore them all day long. Sometimes they bring us coats or shoes or hats or sweaters. Once you put the item on they walk around the house with the attitude that they think they are really something special for wearing this item. It's really quite entertaining.

And just because it's cute. Here are Jack and Haley "dressed up" like Santa Clause. That's what they decided once they found these bags and "put them on".  Maybe Haley's love of dress up will rub off on my kids.

Create A Cookie Day

Today we had a houseful of kids (and their moms) over for some cookie decorating. Thankfully Paul was home to watch the twins because they would not have been a fan of cookie decorating. I could not have paid enough attention to them and they could not have participated (outside of eating a lot of junk). So Paul whisked them off to the basement and I got to devote my attention to the older kids which was fun. In preparation for the morning I just kept reminding myself that this was going to probably be a far more loud and chaotic experience than I imagined it to be and that the results would probably not be as pretty or even as edible as I expect them to be. So I had to do a lot of managing my expectations. I must have done a really good job of that because I thought the kids did a great job. And the kids all created some real masterpieces. In fact, I was so pleased with the morning I'm already planning on doing it again next year. It was fun to do this for the kids and they all seemed to have a good time either decorating cookies or playing with each other. I even rolled out some dough for them and let them cut out their own and get their hands in the flour, which they really loved. And surprisingly, despite the mass amounts of flour that ended up on kids and in my kitchen everything is already all cleaned up a few hours later.

Pre-decorating but missing one cookie decorator.

Mid-decorating craziness. 

Look closely at Jack's tray. See the pile of green sprinkles and marshmallows? There's a cookie under there and at the taking of this picture he was not yet done "decorating" that cookie. I know the entire container of yellow sprinkles ended up on it as well. All of his cookies were of course blue. What other color would they be? Jack definitely would win the award for the most sprinkles used on one cookie.

Some of the finished products. Some of these were done by the kids, some of them done by the adults. I think once we (the adults) started decorating some ourselves, we realized that it wasn't so easy to make the cookies look as pretty as we picture them in our heads. I made lots of gingerbread men to use as ornaments and after trying to decorate a few I decided they really just looked best plain with a cute ribbon. 

The Best Christmas Program Ever

Jack had is first ever Christmas program on Tuesday night. What fun it was to see him interact with his classmates and perform his songs and show off his school. He really did a great job. A few days before when I was talking to Jack about his program he asked me if he could wear a costume. Pretty sure he meant like a Halloween costume. Of course I told him no and thankfully when it was time to get ready he didn't protest the Christmas, dressy clothes we had picked out for him. Though leaving his collared shirt tucked in proved to be a challenge for him. We had to get to school early so we could grab enough seats for us and all his grandparents. Jack of course was a bundle of excitement and energy and with every friend he saw he exclaimed, "There's so and so!!!!" During the program he kept trying to catch our eyes and he sang most of the songs and did most of the actions. He didn't act goofy or do silly things he wasn't supposed to. I was impressed. I didn't have the best picture taking view, but I did my best to get a few shots amid other peoples arms, heads and backs. It was a fun night and we were glad to share it with all of Jack's grandparents.

 

They got to use jingle bells for a few songs. For the times they weren't supposed to shake their bells, Jack would hide his under his armpit as as to help avoid the temptation to jingle them.  The other picture I happened to snap right as he caught me pointing the camera and grinning like a proud goofy mom at him, so he gave me his best smile, mid-song. He's very cheesy these days. 

Schaeffer was totally disinterested in the whole affair, with the exception of clapping when everyone else clapped. You can see how excited he looks. Logan just wanted to climb the bleachers and wonder around.  But they look so cute in their Christmas outfits.

Bath Time with Logan

I am somewhat notorious for not bathing my children frequently. It's not that I don't value cleanliness. It's just that  I find the task somewhat difficult, stressful and time consuming with effects that last hardly an hour. It also has something to do with Logan HATING baths. I don't know how this happened. One could argue that it's due to his lack of regular exposure to a tub full of toys and water. However, Schaeffer has had the same exposure and loves bath time so I'm not convinced by that argument. And during the summer months Logan never seemed to have an issue with pools and playing in water. But sometime this past fall he developed an intense disliking for baths. Bath time goes something like this. I go upstairs to get the water ready. The kids hear the water and make their way upstairs, Logan is always last. By the time he gets upstairs the other two are already splashing away. Logan comes into the bathroom with wide eyes and a bit of excitement. He comes up to the side of the tub and looks in. He stands there. He seems to be enjoying himself and seems to be interested in what his brothers are doing. He lets me get his clothes off but after that if I make any move that he could interpret to be me putting him in the bath, he turns and "runs". When I finally do put him in the tub he starts screaming dramatically and crying hysterically and he immediately starts to climb out. He's big enough now he can get his knee on the top of the edge of the tub and work his way out. He absolutely will not sit down, if I can even get him to bed to force him to sit, he immediately stands back up, still screaming. For now I don't force that issue. I just let him stand and scream while I hold him in the tub and scrub him down with soap and water. So that is our normal bath time with Logan. The last bath they had however, went a little better. I don't know what made the difference, but Logan actually was in the bathtub with his brothers without screaming. He still would not sit. He was still very unsure about it. But after sitting on my lap watching his brothers I was finally able to ease him in. I started by just sitting him on the edge while I held on tightly. Then I poured a water on his toes. he yanked his feet up under him as much as he could. But he let me hold him there on the edge. After a bit I eased him into the water. He seemed like he really wanted to play like his brothers were, if he could just get past the water. After he stood and played for a few minutes, I tried to sit him down. He would have none of that. So he had a standing bath and for the first time in a long while all the boys were in the tub together and no one was crying. Perhaps, if we just aim for baby steps, eventually he will be as excited about baths as the other two.

Sitting in the security of my lap watching his brothers play. This is as close as he happily gets to the bathtub and that's only if he is confident I'm not going to try and put him in the tub.

Homemade Decorations

Since we don't really have a ton of Christmas decorations for this house I've been trying out ideas I've come across in magazines. I always see crafts that look fun and cute that I want to do, but I've been trying very hard to let Jack do them and to not interfere. Though I have perhaps been making my own while the kids do theirs.  I think these turned out really cute. Haley and Jack did a great job making these Q-tip, glitter snowflakes. What's not to love about lots of glue and lots of glitter?!

First Snow Dusting

Last week I had to make a late night run to Walmart. I was there for over an hour and a half filling my cart to the brim. I had no coat and flip flops on. Around 11:30 when I finally exited the doors and pushed my load to my van I saw that sometime while I was inside it had started to snow. This was really our second snow, but our first one didn't last long or stick at all. As I crawled in bed I thought how excited Jack would be for the snow, provided it stuck around until morning. My son did not disappoint. Jack came in my room after he woke up and drove his favorite Christmas train around my floor while I slept just a little longer. At some point he left my room and either went downstairs or saw through a window from the top of the stairs. Regardless, he saw the ground outside and flew into my room jumping and spinning and exclaiming, "Mommy, it snowed!". I groggily replied that I knew it had snowed while he continued bouncing around my room telling me about the snow. He asked if he could play in it and before I had even sat up I said yes and he bounded out of my room to grab socks and his boots. Then he sat down on my floor while I slowly made my way to the bathroom. He impressed me by getting both his socks and boots on by himself (I'm not sure he has ever put socks on before, he usually is't wearing any). I grabbed the twins and we all headed downstairs. While grabbing breakfast for the twins I also helped Jack finish getting his coat, gloves and hat on. He bounded outside in a whirlwind of excitement. I watched his delight as he made footprints (which he finds very interesting), threw snow in the air and of course had a taste or two. He didn't really stay out long as he hadn't had breakfast yet and the rest of us had no plans to join him out there. But for those first moments of the day I had so much fun watching him take such delight in what was really just a light dusting of snow.

Jack and God

A few things about Jack and God that I'd like to remember. I've often wondered how to best explain God and Jesus and salvation to Jack. I just wasn't sure how to put it in a way that would be accurate and true but understandable. But I've tried my best to tell him about my Savior. You know with kids it's just never clear how much they are really grasping and understanding. But lately Jack's started saying things that make me think that maybe he is starting to understand, at least a little bit the importance of God. At Thanksgiving we were decorating our thank you feathers for our turkey centerpiece. I asked him what he was most thankful for and without prompting or even prior suggesting, one of his three things was God. Later that day or weekend we were discussing how Christmas was coming. I asked him if he remembered what Christmas is all about. Once again without prompting or previous discussion (recently) on the topic he said it was about God. I feel like his responses were so simple, the basic "Sunday school answer", but to me his responses meant that he was paying attention somewhere, either at church or at school or at home. Somewhere the right message was getting to him and it was sticking. He also recently announced to me after waking up from an afternoon nap, "Mommy, I asked God to help me with my shirt so I didn't have to yell for you."  I had seen him on the monitor before he fell asleep as he struggled to get his shirt on by himself. It took him several attempts and several minutes to get it right, but eventually he did and he settled down for his nap, all without calling out for me. And this past week as we've had so many friends dealing with medical situations I've been having Jack help me pray for them. At first he just listened as I prayed. For the second person he prayed along with me and for the third person when I asked him to pray he did the whole prayer by himself. It's exciting to see him take these small steps and learn that prayer is for more than just thanking God for our food and our mommy and daddy (which is also good!).  As we've been enjoying this Christmas season, we've continued to do our best to explain to him how exciting and wonderful Jesus birth is and what it means that he is our Savior. I can only pray that God takes the words that I say and edits them to make sense in Jack's 3 year old brain.

Yogurt Babies

For the past couple of weeks I have been giving Schaeffer and Logan utensils at meal time. At first having a fork in hand made food more interesting which was good because it made them eat more. Now it's really just another object to throw on the floor or play with. Regardless, they still enjoy getting forks with their food and surprisingly have been pretty good at using them correctly. Though, sometimes Logan does get lazy and asks for help on every bite. That's slightly annoying, but on the plus side he'll eat whatever food I stab on there. After seeing how much they enjoyed their forks I decided to cast aside all hopes of avoiding even messier mealtimes and I gave them spoons with spoonable foods. They enjoy mashed potatoes, yogurt, applesauce, and cottage cheese. At first their skills once again surprised me. They both were using their spoons correctly and fairly cleanly. Somewhere along the way though Schaeffer found the cleanliness of correct spoon usage to be too boring for his liking. Now he most often is holding the spoon in one hand while he scoops up his spoonable food with his other. It's such a mess. But for now it keeps him happy in his high chair, it's getting food in his belly and I'm hoping one day if the opportunity keeps presenting itself, he'll decide to try the spoon again. Logan so far has not followed Schaeffer's example and continues to use his spoon more appropriately most of the time.

She's Here!

Our newest niece that is. We are so excited to welcome a little girl into the Friend family. Some, ok most of us, thought that this would never happen. But the Lord is good! Hayden was born at 12:17 this afternoon. She was 7 lbs. 10.8 oz. and 19 inches long. And she has a head full of dark hair. So much hair on that little head. We are excited to see this little girl grow and to be her crazy, loving relatives with all those crazy boys. I have a feeling this little one will be spoiled rotten with girly cuteness.

Twin Pics

Did you know that Logan LOVES to eat apples. This particular day he was the first up from naps (way too early) and enjoyed a quiet afternoon with an apple in each hand playing by the Christmas tree.

Logan and Schaeffer really like the fireplace. The bricks are just the right height for them to practice climbing and to sit with their feet on the floor. They frequently climb up and sit down there to enjoy a snack or play.  

 It looks like Logan is just leaning over, but really he is trying to give Schaeffer a hug. It was so sweet. 

More trains.

Nicole got a pack of these Santa diapers for the boys. They are so cute. Maybe I should make the boys beards to go with their diapers.

Deck the Halls

We were excited this year to get up our Christmas decorations. To the kids delight, Paul put up lights on the bushes outside and even got a little "extravagant" with some lights on our only tree in the backyard. Since Jack loves blue he put white and not one, but two colors of blue lights up on the tree. Our neighbors are highly impressed with his tree wrapping skills that end about as high as Paul can reach. It looks a little goofy, but the kids love it. Inside, we decided to do two trees, one in the front room and one in the living room. The kids of course think all the lights and decorations are great. For the first several days Logan would point and "ooooo" at the trees every time he saw them all lit up. Last year the twins were too little to really enjoy any of the Christmas festivities, but this year though they don't understand they still get caught up in the excitement. We got an early Christmas present from Kevin and Nicole, a Christmas Geotrax train. The boys have spent hours driving trains around and now it encircles the Christmas tree.

Paul and Jack went out and got this tree last Sunday afternoon. They got there with barely enough time to pick a tree and buy it before the place closed. Despite being rushed they found the perfect tree, tall and skinny. Jack helped decorate it later that night and since then the bottom has been redecorated daily. But really the kids are good about leaving it alone for the most part, though they really love the ornaments Jack and I made with their pictures on them. Jack also helped me make a tree topper for this tree. I couldn't find one I liked the few times I looked while out shopping so I found a tutorial online to make a paper plate angel, thank you Martha Stewart. Jack is really into glitter glue, especially of the blue variety, so I cut out the template and he went to town with the glitter.

We've put up pretty much all our decorations now and besides the trees, it's a little hard to tell. What would have filled our last home to the brim with Christmasyness, barely makes a splash in this home. I'm hoping we find some excellent after Christmas sales on things to spruce it up a little more next year.

Monkey Joe's

Paul got home a little early from work yesterday and I suggested we eat an early dinner and head to Monkey Joe's for the evening. I thought it would be fun to do something that I though all the kids would enjoy rather than something Jack would enjoy and the babies would just do. This was the twins first time going to Monkey Joe's and at first they were a little hesitant, Schaeffer especially. But by the time we got checked in and shoes and coats off they were excited. We spent a good while in one of the jumpers meant for little kids. We were pretty much the only ones in this jumper which was wonderful and all the kids loved it. Schaeffer and Logan finally have enough strength and balance that they could walk and even try to jump a little. Of course they also enjoyed crawling and rolling around. Unsure of what their reaction would be we decided to send them down the slide. From the get go they loved it and just kept circling around for more. We did venture off into other parts of MJ's. Jack finally tried some of the bigger slides which I had been telling him he would really like and he had been telling me they were scary. Of course by the end he was doing the big slide over and over again. And of course on a Friday night the crowd is a little bigger and the kids a little wilder. Those older kids just have no thought to pay attention to where their limbs are flying in relations to other people. And some kids are just plain mean. Jack got pushed good by a bigger boy and came out of the jumper crying. I had seen most of it happen and had tried to stop it but I couldn't. We spent most of the drive home talking about how we need to forgive even though the bigger boy didn't ask for forgiveness. It took Jack quite a while to decide he could forgive and I had to remind him that sometimes he does mean things to his brothers or friends and needs their forgiveness. In the end he came around. And while Schaeffer thoroughly enjoyed himself, the poor thing was exhausted and started waving bye-bye and blowing kisses before we ever said it was time to go. At one point towards the end he just laid down on a mat and sucked his fingers like he was ready for bed. I do love MJ's  for wearing kids out. Most kids anyway, Logan just kept signing more. He could have done slides for much longer than we stayed and we all know that Jack is pretty challenging to wear out.

Jack really wanted me to get a picture of him on the slide, while smiling. Sort of ended up with a crazy look.