Christmas 2010...

I'm finally getting around to getting a few pictures up from the past week.  Surprisingly, I must've been more focused on the celebrations/gift openings because I found myself with very few photos of the actual gifts received...which were overwhelming to say the least...these kids are nothing short of spoiled =)

I also wanted to make note of the love I now hold in my heart for Chris' aunt Alice...this is what she wrote in an email in regards to the video that Chris made for my birthday:  "Loved the video....it was certainly a verification that you were gorgeous at every stage of your development....Alice."  Alice, no doubt, must've forgotten to put on her glasses before watching the video but honestly, her classifying me as gorgeous, glasses or not, kind of made my day =)

As for Chris' video...thank you Chris...it was amazing and wonderful and made me cry at various times throughout the day.  I ended up spending my birthday at a hotel and it just wasn't what I was expecting.  I found myself on the verge of tears the entire day...I don't know if it was because I was period bound or if it was just the idea that I'm now 30 years closer to death. 20 is young and lightyears away from being old and decrepid but 30...man, 30 is getting up there.  And it hit me when I was rocking Adler to sleep a night or two before, that already, I was going to be missing out on  AT LEAST 30 years of his life...(if things go like normal and I die at like 80 something and he is still trucking along into his 50's) and that's depressing.  I'm pretty sure I could start crying now!  As much as I wanted to get away from the kids and have some quiet time to myself to get through the 50 magazines piling up or another blog post written (that I rarely have time to write these days), I didn't do any of it...I just moped around in the deafening silence that was my hotel room without my children there.  I was tempted to come home...but then I thought to myself that as a rapidly aging grown woman, I should probably be able to peel myself away from the kids for one night.  And the stupidest thing of all...is now that I'm back home and surrounded by my ever mounting to-do list and 3 children who are determined to be underfoot (Ayris and Asher) or on my hip (Adler) for the day's entirety, hampering my ability to get ANYTHING done, I'm counting down the days until I can go back to that hotel!  Chris asked when that would be tonight...I told him probably 5 months from now...so that he could have a chance to go to a hotel to play some video games first.  He said he wanted like 3 weeks off from work...I told him if he'd arrange his hip surgery, he'd get that wish...and he said "Yeah, like that'd be fun"...to which I responded Heck Yeah!  It's going to be a total vacation...he's going to be laid up for weeks with nothing to do but play video games...and then I compared it to my 2 day vacation that I got in the hospital when I had Adler...then we giggled about how we have to have surgery or be hospitalized to get free time =)  Why does he think I keep having babies???  I kid, I kid.  But seriously, I do look forward to my 2 day hospital vacations when I deliver!

Anyway, on to the pictures!  I came upstairs to find all the kids in some sort of hat...of course, no child was ever smiling at the same time...I love how it looks like Adler is looking up towards God in this first picture...like heaven help me!



Asher's not looking...Ayris looks great...



Asher is now smiling and Ayris isn't!


Asher teacher Adler the art of sword fighting...notice he even gave Adler a little crayola bucket hat!




So I decided to tie Mister-I-Won't-Sit-In-My-Highchair-That-Is-Less-Than-A-Foot-Away to one of our kitchen chairs with some scarves so he could be smack dab beside me while I was cooking...


Until I remembered that Alice had sent us this little getup...it worked great but it's getting a bit snug now...I REALLY want one of these tie chair things but I'm not spending $50 on it...baby steals sells them for 24 bucks but I just have to happen upon their site on the right day before they sell out!


Ayris woke Asher up about 2 hours before his normal wake up time (around 7 a.m. instead of 9!) and he just was not able to look alive yet...Adler on the other hand was ready to go!






Not the most flattering picture of me BUT I think I'm going to have Chris start taking the kids pictures because they ALL ACTUALLY looked at the camera at the same time for him!


For as much as Ayris and Asher talked about these darn pillow pets for the past few months, I'm pretty sure Adler was the most excited about them!








Grandma Sooner reading to Adler...


Grandma Callie giving Adler his blanket...






Ayris doesn't get as much blog facetime as she should...Adler, well he's the baby and is just too darn cute right now...and Asher...he's always got the personality in pictures but Ayris can really take some striking pictures too...and anytime I go into the editing program and I'm making sure she doesn't have red eyes and I'm greeted with these lovlies below...I just love her eyes...especially blown up...and I haven't even edited the picture below...



The shots below were taken because I was trying to get a picture to put on the front of her birthday invite...otherwise, I just need to take more pictures of her in general!


It's scary to me how grown up she looks here...

Happy 30th Birthday!

Hello all, it's Chris.  I figure if M can hijack my blog anytime she sees fit, I can do the same right?

Anyway, I'm here to share with you a slideshow I put together to celebrate M's 30th birthday.



I love you, Michelle, happy birthday!

This State Sucks...But The People In It Are Pretty Awesome...

Seriously, I feel like MN weather has been snowing on my plans parade ever since winter began!  Today the kids and I went to Faribault to drop off all of the gifts/donations to Ruth's House...I'm not kidding when I say we must've passed about 20 cars in the ditch...including two semi-trucks.  I probably shouldn't have even been out but I don't watch the news so I didn't know the weather (Chris mentioned something about working from home because of the snow but I just assumed he wanted a reason to work from home =) ...and by the time we'd seen our 10th car, we were half way there...anyway, what should have taken about an hour there and back ended up taking 3 hours...because we were driving about 20-40 miles an hour the whole way...I didn't feel comfortable going any faster than that!  Anyway, my point, is that I've never felt as interrupted in my plans during my entire 15 years of living here than I have this year.  And it's starting to irritate me.  I just need to cancel any remaining plans that I have for the next 5 months and hang out with my babies!

Speaking of babies, here are a few recent pics...Adler is turning into the perfect little model...whoever said that the later born children never have any pictures of themselves alone? 

Someone's getting ready for Christmas...



In a big way...









Have you ever seen a cuter elephant?


I think not!




George and Martha Washington's baby boy???


Nope, it's just a cute little panda!




I'll leave you with Ayris' conversation this morning:

Ayris:  I'm ready for spring, so I can pick you and daddy some flowers. 
Me:  Yeah, me too.  This weather sucks.
Ayris:  Yeah, the snow has killed the flowers.
Ayris:  And the snow has killed the sun.

Hahaha.  The snow has killed the sun.  The snow is definitely killing the light in my life these days! 

One last thing...RJ calls me last night because he has "big news" and asks me if I want to guess what it is...I guess that he's pregnant...well, Andrea's pregnant.  So he tells me that she's pregnant with triplets and asks if I'll watch the triplets after they're born while they go on some trip...I immediately say yes, without even hesitating...which seemed to bewilder him...why in the world would I want to watch 6 kids all at once?!?  Um hello...triplets???  Yes please!  Unfortunately the loser was just joking!  BUT FORTUNATELY, the big news was that he and Andrea are moving back to MN...yea!  So, I guess I'm not going to be an aunt anytime soon but my brother is coming home...and that's a good thing =)

My Baby Is Growing Up! =(

Adler has been a fussy pants lately...turns out...he has good reason...my little man is sporting his first tooth. It's just a tiny spike right now and the kid won't move his tongue for nothing, so no pictures yet...he's obsessed with running his tongue back and forth over it...like this:



The rest of his time is spent chewing on anything he can get his hands on...

I Am Seriously About To Go Insane!

Adler is currently upstairs in his room crying.  He has been doing this on and off since about 9 a.m. this morning when I went to put him down for his first nap.  He's been sleeping in this since he was born but unfortunately he's outgrown it...since it's tilted upward a bit, he's now figured out how to sit straight up and I'm afraid if he rocks it enough, he'll just topple forward...that and his feet have been hanging out for a good month now...so, we decided, or rather I decided that we were going to put the bunk beds back together and reassemble the second crib in the kids room...and Adler would start sleeping in his crib...which also means, no more propping bottles to get him to sleep.  This has seriously been a nightmare day.  And I can't even imagine what tonight is going to bring (since, let's be real, we can't go back to the sleep and play thing or this entire day would have been for nothing...and I haven't listened to crying for the past 7 hours for nothing)...Adler is the first child that we've decided to try the cry it out method on...but honestly, after having 3 kids, I can't speak for Chris, but I'm personally over getting up 1200 times in the middle of the night to give a bottle or change a diaper (because of all the nighttime feedings)...I have been reassured that Adler is big enough that he doesn't need bottles during the night...and with Asher, I don't think he slept through the night until around 18-19 months...

It's been about 5 minutes since I've heard him cry...I don't want to jinx myself...but I think he might have finally gone down for his first nap of the day at 4 p.m.!  Too bad I'm going to have to wake him up in an hour or so, so he doesn't get his nighttime schedule all out of whack =( 

Aside from that, I still don't have much to report...we've been busy around here with crafts, buying gifts, mailing out Christmas cards, cleaning, baking, rearranging rooms, building cribs, going through everyone's clothes so we can donate them to a local shelter, painting with glo paint so the older kids will want to sleep in their rooms again after being able to sleep with mommy and daddy for the past 6 months!  It's just a never ending array of business 24/7! 

Here are a few photos from the past few weeks...I haven't taken that many lately!

I was chosen to host a Gerber Generations party and this was everything that was sent!  It was over 100 pounds of free product to distribute.  Most of it ended up going to Women's Advocates (a shelter in St. Paul) and Ruth's House (another shelter in Faribault)...but honestly, I can't say enough good things about Gerber.  They had sent out some certificate that I was supposed to bring to the hospital when I gave birth to Adler for some baby bag thing...well the hospital didn't have any so they told me to email them...I did and I ended up getting a full container of formula in the mail along with high value coupons, a gerber onsie, and a handwritten note advising me that they were always there 24/7 for any questions/concerns I might have for my baby.  They have excellent customer service/products in my opinion!



These were some of the projects I had done with the kids...the Thankful sign was up for Thanksgiving and the next week, was replaced by mittens filled with candy advent style...




This is not the Christmas picture that I opted to go with but I will have you know that there were MANY that were taken and it still didn't turn out as I had hoped so I ended up having Chris do a little photoshopping on the final product because I had an issue with his hair (it was too flat!)...he did such a good job, I couldn't even tell with the end result.


Awwww....my boys in their matching shirts!  I just ordered some more matchy-matchy things from Gymboree the other day and can't wait to get them dressed alike again!


I couldn't decide which ones I liked best...


So stinken cute!


Ayris having Adler be "a patient" of hers...I just thought he looked like a cute little jewish boy...


Getting so big!


I can't believe these super cute outfits I just HAD TO HAVE from etsy (if you remember, I posted them when I was pregnant with Adler) hardly fit him anymore!  He never even had a chance to wear them =(  BUT, have no fear because I am learning to sew...at which point, I will be making him a spankin' new pair to wear this summer once he's toddling around!!  Chris can't wait either...he's SUPER excited.






I just love this picture...when I went to pick up our family pictures the other day, the woman kept raving about Adler and how he should be the next Gerber baby...yeah, I'd have to agree.


Sophie curled up in the Boppy...


I had Chris and his friend Jerry take one of our old TV's/stand, toiletries, pots and pans a few clothes to Ruth's House last week and they came back talking about how sad/crazy it was there with tons of children running around and a few parents here and there...so I took Ayris and Asher to buy some toys for the kids...we ended up with a TON of toys for about 60 bucks...not everything is pictured but this is some of it...the kids were really good about just picking things out "for the kids who didn't have any toys" rather than asking for everything they saw for themselves (which is what they normally do anytime we go shopping)...they're also extremely excited to drop them off...but I'm now going through all of our clothes and dishes and whatever else I can find that we don't need/aren't using...


That's all for now, except for what Ayris said the other day...we were driving back from McDonald's when I saw some guy with a bunch of dead dears in the back of his truck...and I said something about how it was gross and he should cover that up...anyway, about a minute later, Ayris says:

"I wish there weren't stupid people in this town, but there are.  We need to pray for that deer...and since he killed the deer, he needs to die.  Because he's a bad guy."  At which, point, I started laughing...and she informed me that it wasn't funny that those deer were dead.

That's my girl!  I may not want to pass on my psycho, everyone's-out-to-kill-you mentality to my kids, but I'm totally okay with my children not being on board with hunting!