The 2014 Wrap Up

Way overdue wrapping up the year of 2014!  My last post was early November after one of Silas' soccer tournaments.  Since then, soccer lead to the holidays, the holidays flew by and now it's 2015!

So...November...
Ella had her first 6th grade social.   This is her "Stop! In the Name of Love" move.  I think I mentioned before but she is REALLY loving 6th grade!  She gets herself up at 5:50AM, makes her breakfast and gets me up to pop her contacts in and walk her to the bus stop. The extra 30 minutes of sleep does wonders for me :)

Justin's old white truck finally (pretty much) bit the dust.  It still drove like a champ but the radiator spewed fumes into the cab and there was no heat...it would cost more to fix than the truck was worth. So...it got donated and Justin got a new old truck!

He loves the cap and he loves having heat again!

I went on 2 works trips in Nov/Dec. - One to Tucson and one to Boston.  Both were pretty quick trips and I would have loved to have spent more time in Tucson taking some pictures!

I still never tire of taking picture of sleeping kids. This boy has to have the book yanked out of his hand every night - he's re-reading the Harry Potter series now and on book 3 or 4 again.

We got a beautiful November snow - perfect, beautiful, fluffy snow.  I took a walk on the Mudsock Trail and it was gorgeous.

We hosted Thanksgiving again this year - which we love to do.

I love having my family all together.

And lots of cousin love!

and some sister love too :)

Thanksgiving was late so Christmas came early...

We had Santa come for a little visit too (even though there were MANY moments that he has marked them in his naughty book this year).

Felix (aka Buddy) came back for a visit. Not sure how many years it's been now but it gets more complicated each year! His friend, Gino, now hangs out with him and they roam...around the house.  Usually around 4am or so. But sometimes they are just too damn tired to move. Or respond to the notes that Silas leaves for them.

We had a wonderful family Christmas party at Greg and Tracy's - and we celebrated Dad's 80th Birthday!!!!

So blessed to have parents that are happy, healthy and wonderful :)

And then it was Christmas! I tend to be the first one up now on Christmas - though I fall back asleep until Ella (who is generally the first one to wake up and then wants to get everyone up). Another year with all 3 at home which I'm thankful for.

Justin did surprise me with a little Happy Birthday party.  That was nice even though I was in pj's and hadn't showered - but then again so were a few of the attendees!

And it's never boring after Christmas either - we get to celebrate Silas James' 9th birthday!  He really wanted to go ice skating this year on his birthday...so we did.  And it was painful!!

Two hours doesn't seem like that much time but strap some ice skates on your feet and it can seem like an eternity! I cried uncle quite a few times.  

And we did have some cake and ice cream for the 9 year old (even if it was my leftover cake). He'll get a party and a real cake...maybe in FEBRUARY?

Ella edited this fantastic photo of Silas in his new Superman pj's. I love it!

He was laying on our couch in the family room and then she did the cloud edit.  So cool!

And then it was time to ring in the New Year - it was spent at some different neighbors (because of the OSU game on New Year's Day!) and then at home with the kids after 10pm.  It was nice and relaxing and felt like the perfect way to start 2015!

Happy New Year!  I feel like this one is going to be GRAND!

December is NUTS!!

As you can tell by my lack of posts, December has been NUTS and I've found no time to blog.  The month flew by - I can't believe we're staring 2012 in the eyeballs!

Ella and I started the first weekend in December with the Jingle Bell run downtown.  Her gym teacher got over 120 people signed up from the school. It was a ton of fun and Ella ran the whole way with me!  (It was a 5k, or 3.2 miles).  She did great and wants to start running with me more often.

We put our Christmas tree and decorations up earlier than usual this year because we hosted the Santa party, and it would have looked pretty bad to have Santa but no tree or decorations!

Both Ella and Silas wanted to put the angel on the tree this year - so they both did.  Both are getting pretty heavy for Justin to lift up that high!

We had another great visit with Santa this year - our 10th year I believe.  Such a fun tradition.
And Ella had quite the outfit picked out - she looks like one of Santa's Elves!

Ella's class also put on a stellar performance with their play called Snow Way Out.  It was very good and some of those kids that sang solos were very brave!

I tried to upload the video of one of the songs but no go...

Silas had  a fun party in class.  All the kids got a gingerbread boy. Si was so excited to get him.  His teacher had been reading The Gingebread Boy to them in class.

Margie got a cardboard gingerbread house for Ella and Silas to paint.  They did very well for the first couple days...then I had to twist arms to get them to paint!

Guess who ended up finishing the painting on it!? It turned out cute and Cleo likes it :)

Much more to post about Christmas and Si's birthday...but that will have to come later!

A Silas Funny

The phone just rang and I answered:

me: Hello?
telemarketer: Hi, this is John from Yada Yada Chimney sweep company
me: Oh, no thanks, we don't have a chimney...
(hang-up)

Silas: Mama, was that Santa??

Because the Kids Are SO Good...

We get a Santa visit a little early every year - and this year was no different. He arrived with a ho, ho, ho and a bag of goodies.

Yeah, Mason still believes in Santa ;)

Ella was a little uneasy but managed to sit by
Santa long enough to get the present and a picture.

Silas enjoyed Santa's visit. Santa knew all about Si dressing up
like him at Halloween. He was flattered.

Mason, Ella and Silas with Santa.

All the kids with Santa! Mason, Sarah, Allysa,
Ashlee, Abbi, Alli, Ella, Silas, Sam and Michael.

Santa and I chatted for awhile about what a nice tradition this has become. He's been paying a visit to our kids since 2001 - so he's really watched them grow up and seen our families expand.

2001
Santa with Mason, Abbi and Alli, and Sarah

PJ day at school

Ella had her PJ party at school today. They wore pajamas, brought sleeping bags, slippers, robe, stuffed toys and then they made popcorn and watched a movie. She had a "BLAST" as she told me tonight. Here she is with her cousin Jaden.

Today on the way to school she had another Ella question. We were talking about the weather and how it was going to get "warm" today (47 degrees).
She asked: "Who makes the degrees, God or Santa?"
I swear, I love her questions, though they often stump me (well, not this one so much)...

And Silas the other night at dinner: "More snowballs peez" Asking for more MEATBALLS PLEASE!

And then there is Mason, telling us how he's a genius, but then has to pause and ask - "How do you spell Genius?" That's my boy!

Santa C is coming to town

Santa came to the 'hood last night. We had our annual neighbor party and had about 10 billion kids there this year. Si gave Santa the stare-down.

2 more sleeps until Christmas - in E's wording. I have nothing wrapped yet but that is not unusual. At least it is all bought. I will try to ship the kids off for few hours tomorrow and get some wrapped. Then Margie and Tim as well as Sarah and Brian will come over and we'll have snacks, drink a bit and finish it up. Seems to work for everyone (luckily or else we'd never get all our gifts wrapped!)

I discovered a new super easy Christmas treat - pretzels with melted white chocolate and m&m's on top - yummy. I made a batch today to take to mom's on Christmas day. J was commenting that I've been very crafty this year - made some frames for family and some Christmas ornaments for some other family. I skipped out on making the cards though. too much pressure!

We made our first call ever to Poison Control today....J was doing some stuff for work and was gone, M was at the movies with pap-pa and E was up in her room playing. It suddenly dawns on me that I haven't heard a peep from S in awhile...that usually means he is looking at his books or getting into something. I went upstairs and the smell of Vicks vapo-rub about knocks me over. He's covered himself all over his chest, arms and neck in it. I asked him "did you get the medicine in your mouth?" and he says "eat med-sin, eat med-sin". When I started rubbing it all off with the wash cloth, he stuck his tongue out too to be wiped down - apparently it wasn't as tasty as he'd hoped...His breath didn't smell like Vicks but I figured it was better to call Poison control and see what they say! J came home then and called the hotline. Not to worry, apparently it takes quite a bit (2 tablespoons or so) for it even to be an irritant, meaning that he might then throw up. I watched him for about an hour to make he didn't seem sick or have a tummy ache.