Sorry!

We have been thoroughly enjoying our Christmas vacation, especially with these few days of nice weather we've had. Seth is taking the kids sledding now before another cold front hits us like a slap in the face.

Last night we went caroling with some friends and it was so much fun. Fortunately over half the group was musically inclined enough to do harmony on all the songs and it sounded beautiful. The kids especially liked it when people handed out cookies! Charlie was happy to be outside - he probably doesn't even remember what it's like to be outside longer than it takes to get from the house to the car. And I'm pretty sure he was singing along on a few of the songs.

Another thing we've had more time for is playing games with the kids. Elena, Sam and I played Sorry! the other night. Elena won first (which really makes everyone happier) so then Sam and I finished the game. Sam beat me, and about 10 minutes later Elena came up to us and gave us our "prizes."

Here they are. I'll translate what they say since she's still working on sounding out words:


Here is Sam's (with a blue ribbon in the center): "Sam, You are the star. Congratulations, Sam. Best Player Ever!"



Here's mine: "Great try."

Roast Dinner

Not to brag, but the roast I recently made for dinner was delicious.

I know because when Elena tasted it, she said, "Mmmmmm. I wish we were carnivores."

Unfortunately for her, I made all the omnivores at the table eat their vegetables, too.

Seth was drinking wine with supper, which triggered this puzzling comment from Sam: "Wine is made from elks."

"How do you figure?" I asked.

"Because it's elk-a-hol."

Look Who's Walking!

He's actually been walking now for almost a month and I'm just now getting around to putting it on here. He is our earliest walker so far, taking his first steps at 10 months.

Brrrr...

For those of you not living in MN, I'll give you a little weather update.  Though the past couple of days have been staying at a tolerable sub-freezing temperature, December so far has been COLD. There were several days in the last 2 weeks where I was tempted to put on boots, jacket, hat, scarf and mittens just to answer the door.

For those of you also enduring this MN weather, let's look at the bright side.

It could be worse. We could be total wimps like these people (and I say that in the most loving way possible):

(OK, I'll admit it's very debatable whether it's worse to be a wimp or to suffer through 6 months of winter every year)

Happy 5th Birthday, Sammy!

Sam decided that he wanted to have a birthday party with just his friends this year (which actually ended up being 3 cousins and 1 friend).  I was a little apprehensive about keeping 5 little boys entertained for the whole party. I had a few games lined up, but those took up all of 10 minutes before the boys started needing to burn more energy than they could exert on Pin the Tail on the Donkey.






Enter Seth and our 11-year-old nephew AJ to the rescue.  We were lucky to get decent weather for Sam's birthday so the boys all played football outside for almost 2 hours. They had a great time playing and my mom and I had fun watching them from inside. Elena was a bit disappointed that the majority of the party was spent on something she had no interest in, but once she accepted the fact that a bunch of preschool aged boys will not sit and play dolls for 2 hours like she would, she was OK.

 

 After 2 hours of running around, the boys were ready to join Elena in an activity that was more up her alley: stuffing envelopes for the 800+ Christmas cards we are sending to Seth's clients.  She outlasted the boys by far, though, and I've still got around 500 to go :)

Note to self for next year: make sure to check the toilet seat and floor around it before going to the bathroom when there is a house full of little boys. And keep those sanitizing wipes handy!






Included with Sam's card from my parents was this picture of my 5th birthday. I'm sure it seems like an ancient picture to Sam, but to me it doesn't seem so long ago:

A day in my shoes

Charlie is getting to the age where he is learning something new almost on a daily basis.  He is such an easy-going baby and so much fun to watch. He has recently mastered raising his arms for "So Big!" and clapping his hands. 

He is also very good at climbing the stairs and, unfortunately, he LOVES it. Too bad he hasn't yet figured out how to get safely back down the steps. For those of you who haven't been to our house, we have a large wooden staircase right in the middle of our home.  We did not realize that it was too wide for a standard baby gate until after he started climbing the steps, so I'm very anxious for the extra-wide gate we ordered to arrive.

In the meantime, I spend most of my day holding Charlie because every time I set him down he heads straight for the staircase and starts to climb. If any of you would like to try out a day in my shoes, just follow the rules below:

1) Find something (a sack of potatoes, for example) that weighs approximately 20 pounds. 

2) Carry it around in one arm the entire day, doing pretty much everything one-handed (brushing teeth, cooking, cleaning up after meals, working on computer, etc). Ideally, your 20 pound object should interfere with whatever it is you are trying to do. If, for example, you attempt to undertake the daunting task of sending a quick email, you should bang your object on the keyboard the entire time you are attempting to type.

3) You are allowed to set your object down for two 1-hour intervals (nap time).

4) If you must set it down to free your hands quickly, you have 5 to 10 seconds - 15 seconds tops - before you need to pick it up again before it starts climbing the stairs.

5) If you need to set it down for a luxurious 5-10 minutes without picking it back up again, you will first have to safely barricade it somehow and then pay for those minutes by choosing a bookshelf, cupboard or drawer and completely emptying its contents.

6) If you decide you need a bathroom break, you must unroll and re-roll a large portion of the toilet paper while you go. Another option would be to dump out the bathroom trash can.  Also, your 20 pound object should be leaning against your leg and pulling your pants down as you try to pull your pants back up.

7) As an extra touch, if you don't have a couple of older kids running around, you could invite some children in from the neighborhood and have them mess up as much of your house as they possibly can.  And tell them to bring along their homework so you can help them with it. They should also be extremely hungry and want complex snacks while they are there. At least one of them needs to spill their snack and try to clean it up by spreading it around even further.
(Note: if you put down your 20-pounder while re-cleaning up the snack, have one of the kids repeatedly place it in the middle of whatever it is you are trying to clean).
Also, the older kids need to have at least 34 fights/arguments every hour.
Feel free to remind yourself that they are learning good conflict resolution skills for their future. Repeat this reminder as often as needed.

8) You can finally be done around 8:30 or 9:00.  I'll exempt you from having to run upstairs to put the baby back to sleep again 3 times before you go to bed at midnight. I will also graciously exempt you from changing your chosen object's diaper while simultaneously rolling it around on the floor.

Unfortunately, I can't really recommend the above exercise as it could give the unrealistic impression that being a stay-at-home-mother is just extremely annoying and frustrating. But when that 20-pound object is an adorable, loveable baby, and when you can watch those older ones grow into children capable of demonstrating kindness, love and generosity (in between all the squabbles) everything I described above is totally worth it.

They are also great at helping me recognize the areas of my life that I need to work on. Like patience. And detachment from all those superficial distractions life offers (usually on a shiny, glowy screen...such as the one I'm using now. Yes, I see the irony. You don't have to rub it in. Sheesh!) And patience. And did I mention patience?  Yeah, I've got a long way to go on that one.

Oh! I almost forgot. Here's a picture of Charlie at Halloween. He's Charlie Brown!

Sam saw this picture of the Pope hugging a man during his visit to a rehabilitation hospital and said, "Mom!!! Is that St. Francis hugging Daddy??"

He was so excited I hated to break it to him that no, Daddy did not get to hug Pope Francis. But we were still happy for the other guy :)  He does look quite a bit like Seth from behind.

Elena and Sam were playing some version of tug-of-war upstairs while I was feeding Charlie when I heard the start of a cry. It sounded like a cry of pain that would soon escalate, but it went silent almost as soon as it began.

A little while later, I heard Elena say, "Sam, you're the best brother ever!"
Sam: "Why?"
Elena: "Because you knocked out my tooth!"

She was so happy to have it out, she doesn't even care that we can't find it.

We'll miss you, Grandma

My grandma didn't quite make it to her 103rd birthday, but she was pretty dang close. Holding off until just past midnight, she passed away on the anniversary of her own father's passing.

The visitation and funeral were beautiful tributes to her memory, and it was so nice to see all the family again. One of my favorite parts was when everyone had the opportunity to stand up and share a memory. At the very end, Sam stood up in front of everyone and with a loud voice said, "I know why Grandma wants to go to heaven.  She wants to be with Grandpa Lawrence!" I think she would have been proud to see her faith passed down to this 4-year old descendent of hers who embraces the hope that this good-bye is not forever, and that we will all be reunited again someday.

At one point, I was reminded of a story Grandma once told me of my great-aunt's visitation.  I was young enough at the visitation that I barely remember it. Several years afterwards, my grandma told me how much she had enjoyed watching me walk right up to my great-aunt and, full of interest and curiosity, peer in to get a closer look. Laughing at the memory, she said how her sister "would have just loved that!"

So I smiled when I saw my own children (and my nephew) go up to their great-grandma several times to pay their respects and say their last goodbyes, knowing how happy she would be to have these little great-grandchildren there.

I will miss bringing the kids to visit her; she would always ask, "Do they talk a lot?"
And I was always able to answer very honestly, "Yes. They never stop."
"Good," she would say, apparently happy to know that her genes were being passed along.
The only Irish blood my kids have comes from her, but apparently that has been enough to completely fill our home with the "Gift of Gab." Once, upon hearing the story of how Grandma's father used to offer to pay her if she could stop talking for 10 minutes, Elena decided she wanted to try. After 4 successive failures at this attempt, she said, "Let's just try again tomorrow."

Here's Grandma with 3 of her (nearly) 7 great-grandchildren. (And this is a woman who, after having to hold off on marriage until she was 38 due to an interruption from WWII, thought she would never even live to see the day she had a grandchild.)