Random thoughts

Rocky's hair is now to his armpit! Cooper had the same hair. As soon as we cut it, it went straight and brown. I am not looking forward to cutting Rocky's.
Rocky has an affinity for my colander. He puts everything in it and carries it around. He dumped a container of Parmesan cheese in and shook it all over my floor. It is a good thing he is cute!
Coop inherited what I like to call the "Jam Gene" from his Papa Rich. Matt inherited it as well. Coop LOVES jam and Cinnamon/Sugar as well!
Rocky's favorite day is Monday. He loves to bring the garbage can in from the street. If only his siblings were as excited about their jobs.
Coop stuck ALL of his Lego mini-figure bodies together. We are going to need a bigger house if he is going to continue this practice.

Rocky fell asleep with a pretzel in his mouth! Love that kid! I love my job!

Christmas 2011

Christmas Eve just couldn't get here soon enough this year. We celebrated by delivering Secret Santa gifts. On our drive home we saw Santa driving down the freeway! So cool! We had dinner with some dear friends from church, thanks Dermody's!! We always open one present before we go to bed. This year it was a family gift, a Lego Christmas Village. I love it! It will be part of our Christmas traditions forever. The bad thing was that Cooper wanted to stay up until it was all built. Needless to say, Santa was exhausted by the time he got to our house. We did him a favor this year and left him carrots instead of cookies.

Christmas morning.
Christmas usually gets me choked up. One of my favorite gifts was a CD of my mom reading the story, The Five Chinese Bothers with the book. What a treasure! When my mom found out she had cancer she started recording stories to give her grand kids. I love to hear her voice, it is like the heavenly angels you hear about at Christmas time. Thanks Petersons!

I also loved my "Mom's Book" that my family "gave" me. OK, I had it made and asked them to write in it each special holiday. I am hoping in 30 years to look back on a full book and see all the sweet notes they have written to me. I may be asking for trouble!




Love our Christmas hats, thanks Riches!




The aftermath...

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!!!

Christmas Traditions

Decorating a fresh tree.
Fun Christmas Food. I love it when the food I make reminds my kids that I am the BOMB! I usually have to remind them, whatever works!

Christmas dishes. Love them!!!
Christmas Parties. We had a lot this year, the Lego Party was one of our favorites.
Ornaments. Each kid gets a new ornament each Christmas that represents their interest for the year. This year I made the ornaments thanks to my new handy dandy sewing machine (Thanks Jennifer!!). We also get a family ornament. Our ornament this year was a ball filled with Legos.
New traditions! Indoor smores over a sterno!!! So much fun! We may end up doing these all year long!
Secret Santa. We love doing secret deliveries each year, it is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. This year, a dear family did it for us. It made my kids oh so happy.

One of my most sacred Christmas memories was when Santa and Mrs. Clause showed up at my house several years ago. They couldn't have come at a better time, our situation was pretty sad. I still have no clue who that Santa was or who sent him. It chokes me up every time I think of it. Thank you whoever you were.


Sitting on Santa's lap. My big kids HATE this tradition with a passion. Rocky is not so fond of the jolly stranger either. His poor little heart races as we wait our turn.

Ruby loves to see the Nutcracker Ballet. This year we saw the Albany Ballet perform in the Springfield Symphony Hall. Ruby is much more mature about the ballet than her mother. When I went as a child, I said, "Too many musics!" Sometimes I still feel that way, but I love being with my favorite girl.
The Nativity. Rocky felt right at home in our "manger", he has to climb in my basket every time I do laundry.
Stories under the Christmas tree. I loved this tradition with my mom. Rocky loved it so much that he fell right asleep.
Decorating our WOODEN gingerbread house. My dear friend Luann gave me a wooden house that you decorate and scrape the frosting off each year. We use our leftover trick or treat candy, nothing tasty mind you, that was consumed by the grownups long ago! Gingerbread houses remind me of my sweet mom. We would go to the Festival of the Trees every year. I missed that tradition this year.

Christmas music. Thank you Pandora!

Follow your nose...

...to the emergency room! Matt was playing basketball at work during lunch and took an elbow to the face. I wish you could meet the nurse that checked us in. Lets just say it is a HUGE blessing she wasn't the one that did the stitches, she had some shaking issues:)
Once the swelling finally went down, the ENT suggested that Matt have his nose put back where it belonged.

They knocked him out, shoved a tool that looks like a butter knife up his nose and stuck a cast on him. All better!

Kidfest Hartford 2011

If you have a Lego lover and are ever in a spot where they have Kidfest...GO!

Catching up...

Way to go Coop! Soccer was finally worth it when he received his trophy!
Both my big kids started screaming at the same time while we were driving down the street. I turned around to this!!! Rocky had a good grip on their hair!

Budding artists!

In New England we have Candlepin bowling! So fun! The ball is much smaller and the pins are a different shape. Rocky loved it and is signing MORE!!!


I know it is December in about 26 hours, but cut me some slack....Halloween was canceled in my town. Right before Thanksgiving, our town did a trunk or treat. We live in such a great place. We went though a natural disaster together and then rallied around each other to get life back to normal. We feel very blessed to be here. Just for the record, a month later, you can still hear chain saws all day long! There is still a ton to be cleaned up.

The best part of the Trunk or Treat was that my nephew David was with us!!! We came straight from church, someone thought he was dressed as a Mormon ;). He was interviewing for medical school and came to see us for a few days. It was such a treat. I adore him! OK, I adore all of my nieces and nephews, but if you come all the way to see me I have to make a note of it!

That same weekend we had another special guest, Aunt Becky!!! Becky is Matt's older sister and my dear friend. Anytime I have cute clothes, it is because of her! She took us to one of the fanciest restaurants I have ever been to in my life. I was very proud of my kids, they were super stars! Unfortunately we only had a few hours with Becky, but it was pure heaven!!!