Finally catching up

Here are a couple of slide shows from the last couple of weeks. The first is from the hub's fam . We had a great time catching up with them and with our relatively new cousins. Abby is 15 months, Zach is 13 months, and Garrett is 7, so these 3 will be chasing each other before long.

Now pics from the rest of the week. The hubs spotted me a new cam, so we had fun posing the kids for our "professional pics". Don't laugh at my attempt!














And if you've made it this far...here's the rest!

Who could resist this face?

Lots of Tots...and older ones too.

Well..I'm a post behind on Christmas. When I cleaned off my memory card when we made our pitstop, I forgot to upload our White Family Christmas pics...so I'll get those up when I get home. These are all from my side of the fam the past few days. The kids are so excited to see each other! Got a big group pic last night.

Crazy Enough...

it was just a bad nugget. We've never had an "isolated incident" such as that in this household, so I was shocked and thrilled to find out it was JUST THAT! We knew without the presence of the big D she was probably all clear, but we both drove looking backwards at her! We made it there fine and had a great time. I took lots of pictures and will post tomorrow! Yeah!!! Fun times with fam after all!

The Christmas Curse

I'm not one for superstition, but I think the title is only appropriate for this situation. Once again, plans are foiled right here at Christmas. Things are looking up though. Yesterday, an hour away from Bunny and Pappy's house, Mary threw up in the back seat. After much debate we turned around...again. The same thing happened 2 years ago, and we all ended up having the bug on Christmas. Last year Allie had pneumonia which prevented us from being at my parents on Christmas. Turns out there may be a silver lining this year. That was at 2pm yesterday. She has not thrown up since, has had 2 full meals, slept all night, and had a normal bm after breakfast. We are chalking it up to car sickness since she was in the very back seat...and that she's had no diarrhea or vomitting. So here we go...6 hours in the car yesterday all for not...today is going to be great!

Anyone tired yet?

Emmy will kill me for posting this I'm sure! Last night the hubs and I had a Christmas dinner we needed wanted to attend. I was sitterless, so Emmy graciously offered to keep them even in her delicate condition:) The girls were so excited that she and Adam were coming over! When we came home, I found her sacked out on the couch! Such is the life of the first trimester. Thanks EM!
We've been celebrating all week it seems. Here's a pic of Mary actually smiling for the cam at her school party.

The rest are video clips from the last week or 2. The first is of Allie's program at church, the second of Mary's program at school (I didn't make it with the video cam to Mary's:(, but she's on the far left), and the last is a random video. I found Allie reading to Mary on the couch and grabbed my camera. She's reading from a Christmas bible they were given at church that day. It's rare that Mary will sit with Allie despite multiple efforts on Allie's part.

7 Months

Baby Garrett is not looking so babyish any more. Today he turns 7 months, and it will be the busiest he's probably had yet. It will be a month filled with craziness, but what I'm excited about is COUSINS! It will be fun to see Garrett with his cousins on the hub's side (3 in 8 months born including G), and on my side (3 in 3 months born including G). His "big" cousins will be waiting to get their hands on all of the babies. It's so hard to find the time to get together now, so we are looking forward to catching up.

Garrett is just moving right along...literally. He's not up on all 4's and crawling, but he does rock back and fourth and can scooch pretty fast now wherever he wants to go with his characteristic grunting of course. He's eating several different baby foods, and we see 2 teeth now. His trademark that sets him apart from the other 2 is DEFINITELY his smile. He LOVES to smile which makes all of us smile! Don't forget to check out the video of Garrett..with Allie stealing the show.

Eating for Two

I apologize in advance for those of you reading this that I have lied to! This pic was taken several weeks ago after Em had called me one morning suggesting that I "drive by the hospital, so that she could 'show' me something". Being the risk taker that I am, I drove by the donut shop on the way to see her and ordered 2 donuts, and made a pretty little sign to hold out the window when she walked up. It WORKED!!! I was right!!! She had her first ultrasound today and saw the little peanut, so she gave me the OK to blog about it! I'M SO EXCITEDDDDDDDDD! They are going to be AWESOME parents, and I'm just glad at least one of mine will be close enough to enjoy hers! HA! I guess Allie will be babysitting for her:) Hop on over to her site to wish her congratulations.

Fun with Scrap

My friend mama lion over at the lion's den blogged a while back that she had come upon a new free digital scrapbooking site. I finally had a chance to check it out and kaboom...a new header. I didn't mean for it to be so big, but oh well! Mary had her school Christmas program today and I didn't have a good video, but I'm going to hunt one down to post later. Here's also a funny pic of Garrett from lunch today. His cheeks are going to explode one of these days! Oh and I almost forgot, he was laughing today, and I tooth has cut through!! That is EARLY EARLY for a white baby!

All Aboard!

Saturday morning...I have to say how excited I am about TODAY! The hubs is off (a rarity for Saturdays for the past month), it's cold outside, Garrett is still sleeping, and the girls are perfectly happy coloring pictures and showing real signs of humanity to each other, and we have NO WHERE TO GO!!!! Yeah!!!!

Last night was enough excitement for the whole weekend. After getting Allie ready for school, I told the girls we had a surprise and let them open a gift. It was pajamas, and Allie figured out very quickly what that meant..the Polar Express! We did this train ride last year, and she was so excited to go back.


What could it be?

We're ready to go! We left right after school and didn't account for after school traffic or something. We were trying to catch the 5:10 train, and we arrived at the depot literally at 5:06. I was about to have a heart attack, and the hubs was his normal "this was perfect planning..we'll walk right on and not have to wait" self. They were blowing the whistle as we were all RUNNING to get on!! Our neighbors went too, so we were just trying to enhance the experience for them.

Hot chocolate!

Typical family pic...Mary is not looking. We left Garrett behind...which is a good thing because we definitely would have missed it if we had to lug him around.

They just saw Santa get on! All "E" wants for Christmas is his two front teeth!

Mary was very unsure, and Santa made a valiant effort to get her to smile. She had more of a "just give me the bell and go" attitude, but was secretly very excited.

See!

No flu for you....

No don't worry...there is no flu bug going around this house. We are just doing our annual flu shot updates around here, and Allie has managed to slither under the radar for several weeks due to the fact that she's been her typical asthmatic, coughing up a lung self. The allergy doc dude said, as soon as she is well, bring her in for her shot. Now, I realize that most kids HATE shots, but most kids are not Allie. I explained to her that EVERYONE in the fam has already gotten their shots, even Garrett, and that we had all done fine. I said, "it's your turn, let's not make a big deal of this, you are going to do great!" Before I had even parked the car, she was in the back seat crying. UGgghhhh! She whimpered all the way inside, and I ignored it the best I could as she tends to feed off the drama and attention. She did as expected and cried very loudly which is fine because it was just one shot. When we came home, however, I said to her, "Tell daddy that you got your flu shot today." She said, "Dad I got my flu shot today, and I did GREAT. I didn't kick my legs this time, and they didn't have to call anyone in to help home me down!" See, I didn't even see the improvement. Little battles won.

Ornament Tag...and more decor

I'm making up my own games now. I took a picture of my favorite/funniest ornament. Every time I see it I laugh out loud! Here it is!!! Now take a pic of your favorite/funniest/most memorable ornament, post it, and tell all about it! We all have one right? I tag everyone...now GO!

This ornament was made at MOPS the year before last! It is so funny because it's supposed to be a happy memory ornament, but it's Mary's typical mug shot packaged all nice and pretty. It's so sad that she'll always look so miserable on my tree! She really is a happy kid!
Mando (hub's sis) gave the kids this advent calendar for Christmas. Isn't it AWESOME! The girls love it. We put suckers all the way down, and it is QUITE distracting to Mary..who loves a good sucker!

My "JOY" is complete. I bought these stocking holders when we had Allie because there were 3 of us total...not thinking it would be all messed up when we had more kids. We have enough kids for stockings now...all DONE!

It is not my kids who make my JOY complete (obviously..some days they destroy it...ha!), but it is Christ. He alone is the reason my JOY is complete!

John 15:10-12

10^(A) If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as^(B) I have kept^(C) my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11These things I have spoken to you,^(D) that my joy may be in you, and that^(E) your joy may be full.

"Dat one is TALL..........

just like you Mommy!" This was my favorite quote from today...said by Mary of course. Today the hubs was off, so we made our annual trek down to the Christmas tree farm. It was a bit colder than I was expecting, so I was all for "JUST PICKING ONE!!!!!" There wasn't much debating or arguing because I just wanted to get back in the truck. I'm sure my Rochester peeps are rolling their eyes about now:) The girls had a great time running around trying to decide, but we missed our small group that we usually tag along with! I want this one.....I want that one.
Finally...the tree
My boys
A rare smile.."caught" on the way home.

Too much Turkey

We drove to the hub's parents for Thanksgiving and the girls were SO EXCITED! We had a great week with the fam. Katie, Jason, and Zach drove down, and the kids loved seeing him. They are great entertainment for each other. We missed Abby, Mando, and Bo, but we'll see them in a few weeks for Christmas! My mom and dad stopped in for lunch on Friday, so it was good to see them too. Zach had a birthday party that day too, so it was a jam packed weekend...maybe too much excitement.....

Leaf pile

We are back! I'm too tired to post the Thanksgiving pics, but I thought this was a funny pic! Pappy had a leaf pile in the back yard, and it didn't take long for Allie to find it! More tomorrow...we had a great week.

Daddy's home!

note: those are green beans on Gbaby's face...not boogers

Car Seat Talk

This has been a L O N G weekend and start to the week, but relief is in sight! Garrett and Allie had bad colds last week and into the weekend, so I quarantined them as not to infect the rest of the town and to keep them from getting anything else before we leave for Thanksgiving. I HAD to get out by Sunday afternoon, so we went to where else??? SONIC! When I handed Allie her drink, she said, "hmmm.....Mom it's Happy Hour!!!, and then asked, "what does that mean?" I said, well it means we got your drink a little cheaper. After taking a sip, she said, "hmm...it tastes cheaper...it's REALLY good!!" Ahh...the concept of money to a 5 year old.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We are outta here tomorrow. The hubs has not had more than one day off at a time since Nov 1, so we are BOTH so EXCITED that he is off 4 full days!!!

Look there's Land!

That was Allie's big line in the kindergarten Thanksgiving play at her school. She told me before that she was "a little nervous,", but who ever knew Allie to be afraid of an audience. When it came her time, she said her line, and then she grinned from ear to ear at her accomplishment with pilgrim pride. Check out the "bow" at the end of the play! It was pretty long, so I just posted a few clips.

Is it Friday yet?

It is only Wednesday, and I'm not counting this as one of our more stellar weeks. I took Garrett for his 6 month well child visit yesterday, and he wasn't so well. He's just got a nice little cold, with more wheezing than what makes me comfortable. The Dr gave him an inhaler which is giving him relief, but he's having fevers still and awake much of the night. Oh, and did I mention that as I'm trying to type this, my backspace function is not working. You try typing a blog post without using the backspace button! So here's what happend to top off my morning ('I'm not correcting the word happened because I'm afraid it'll freeze up again!), one of the girls locked the dog in the bedroom unbeknown st to me. When I came home from dropping Allie off, I heard banging from the bedroom. It was Hannibal trying to get out, and he literally almost dug a whole through the carpet. Fabulous! Oh and now I cannot even see the words I'm tyiping.! Tyme to reboot...everything!