Holidays survived: Thanksgiving 2011

Holy Bananas! I can't believe we made it through the week unscathed! It was awesome, but busy. It started out with a reunion/playdate with some high school buds on Tuesday night. You know, the Florida 7 gals. This time it was just 4 of us (myself, Jenn, Elizabeth, and Philie) and our combined 5 offspring. Here we managed to get a group shot. From left, Cal (18 mos), Fred (3), Sam (15 mos), Noah (3), Morgan (3).Then the three 3 year olds did a funny pose. I can't believe how big they are getting. They played so well together and sat together at dinner chatting about the foods they liked and disliked. Can't wait to see what next year brings!
Not to be outdone, here's Cal's silly face. How cute is he, even if he does outweigh Sam by 10 lbs (not exaggerating at all there).
Then on Wednesday, Auntie Kimmy came with Nick and Cesca. We had a blast pre-cooking for Thanksgiving and getting some cupcakes baked for the kids.
Seriously Noah, can you NOT look at the camera?!
There was some major cousins vs Uncle Mike wrestling time. This is the hair that resulted. So Rodriguez that coarse hair of his!
On Thursday we got ourselves all spiffed up and hosted about 20 people at our house. It was a lovely day, here are the cousins just before everyone arrived.
Sam got a seat of honor at the "big" table with his hook on chair while the other kids were relegated to the kids table. He thought he was pretty cool.
The inevitable post-Thanksgiving nap featuring Phil Hewes. This was part one, he moved to the couch for part two.
Noah's not a big pie man, unless it's french silk. And apparently Baker's Square doesn't allow you to pre-order french silk for Thanksgiving, a travesty Josh uncovered this year. So Uncle Josh came through with special cake for Noah. If you could hear the picture it would sound like the Thundercats battle cry, but with "CAAAAAKKKEEEEE!"
Don't worry, the little man got some too!
Life is good when you are surrounded by wonderful family and friends and chocolate!
Pants came off and relaxing time commenced with Auntie Faith. She rubbed his belly and he was a happy little buddha.
Now, on to my fav, CHRISTMAS! Do you think we'll have any spoiled boys in this house come December 25th? Methinks perhaps.....

Gettin' ready to Gobble Gobble!

Hope everyone is having fun gearing up for Thanksgiving! We have been busy this week with preschool parties and prepping our house for 20 some people... AH! On Thursday I was able to go in at the end of the preschool feast to hear them sing some songs.This time (as opposed to the Halloween party) Noah sang his little heart out. I could hear him over the din of the rest of the class, it was awesome!
He always gets excited when his picture is being taken, he can't help but look over!
He proudly wore his turkey headband for the afternoon, he told me he picked out the purple feather on the turkey just for me (my favorite color). He said, "I wanted to make you happy mom!" Too sweet!
In other news, brother #2 is proving himself to be QUITE the handful. During baths I sometimes feel like he should be wearing a helmet the way he dives around, and I should be wearing a wet suit because of all the splashing!
He even blows bubbles by himself. Look at that tiny tush!
And, in even more fantastically exciting news, he's walking! After a few months of physical therapy, he is starting to walk on his own. We are SO proud of him :)
He gets so excited and proud of himself when he's strolling around the house!
Hope everyone enjoys the holiday, we'll be back with pictures after the big turkey day! I am especially thankful for my wonderful, healthy, beautiful family!

The Artist and The Peanut Savage

Probably Noah's favorite thing about preschool (aside from getting juice and good snacks) is that he gets to do art projects. His preschool is a bit old school, so it's always interesting to see what he comes home with. This last week it was an "Indian Headress." Not really culturally appropriate, but certainly cute. He wore it for the whole day.
Sam has been a HANDFUL lately. We call him the Peanut Savage (Noah came up with it) because he is so small but acts so big and eats so much. This week I had to pull him away from Evie numerous times because he was slapping her. Literally slapping her across the face. But they made up later :) Sammy truly is a peanut. We went to the doctor for his 15 month check up. He is 20 lbs 6 oz, which puts him in the 5th percentile for weight. Where this smallness comes from I couldn't say because the kid ate an entire cheeseburger yesterday!
Ellie, just tolerating life. Noah wrapped her up in the newly pulled out Christmas blanket.
Noah's art is slowly taking over our house. Today I finally decided to recycle a bunch of it since the dining room table was basically invisible under it. But we did keep some of his best work to hang up in the basement. He did color and cut these out all on his own. Pretty good, eh?
The artist with his work, this is just a third of what he has done in the last 2 weeks!

Sickday Saturday

It seems we have had sickness in our house since August. I know I should be thankful, it's been only colds and such, but we have had our share of runny noses, cruddy coughs, and burning sore throats to last us through 2013! This week we've been hit with trying to prep for time change (keeping the boys up later) although this sometimes results in random napping, as evidenced by the picture below. On Wednesday my dad had the boys and Sam did not nap according to plan. He napped during his haircut, well his partial haircut. When they woke him to do the back, he had a meltdown so he's now rocking a semi-mullet. Awesome.
So, what do you do on a cold Saturday when everyone is coughing? You make cookies! Mike stayed home today due to his feeling awful. He managed to pull himself off the couch to participate in the cookie assembly line. Here's what we were making.... cutie bugs!

Here's our quality control expert, he checked out all the ingredients for us. Pretzels? Check. Nutter butter cookies? Check. Mini M&Ms? Check. Melted chocolate candy coating? Check.

Noah has really been into helping do things in the kitchen lately, so he and daddy donned their matching jammy pants and got to work. Mike was the dipper and Noah was the decorator...

The cutie bugs turned out to be much more difficult then advertised (aren't all projects like that!). So we did some random decorating of our own. You got your ghosts, your snowmen, your silly faces, whatever....
We do have one cutie bug worthy of posting. Isn't he cute? Here's to hoping everyone feels adjusted and better soon!

Wrap Up to Halloween 2011

Well, we all survived Halloween 2011, or as I call it the Halloween that wouldn't die! After a busy day at work on Monday (I haven't worked on Halloween in 3-4 years!) I brought my exhausted self home and geared up for trick or treating with the boys. Fortunately Mike had had a low key day with them, so they weren't too hyper when I got there. Noah wanted Sam to try out the dinosaur costume he had worn when he was little. Pretty cute, eh?He is soooooo close to walking but still prefers to have a fingertip hold on the couch at times.
Ready to head out, black spiderman and cute dino-man!
Ellie participated too, I think we got more looks and comments on her costume than the boys. We spent about 45 minutes out trick or treating and then headed out for dinner. Overall a successful night for all!