Christmas Crazy!

Well, what a holiday season!  We started off the break with a trip up to the lakehouse where a good portion of the Benhart clan met us for a full weekend of family fun.  My mom did the handprint ornament project with all the kids, Sam...

 Ella...

 Addie...

 Kate...

 Meredith...

 Noah...

 and CJ...

 They turned out beautifully and were proudly hung on the horrible red Christmas tree.

Sam had gotten to the house first with Bamma and Bampa, so he had decorated the tree, notice how most of the ornaments hang on the bottom half!

 I found some ridiculous Christmas suspenders for the big boys!

Which of course the BIG boy had to try out for himself.  Pretty dapper Josh!

 There was lots of snuggle time on the couch with cousins galore!

While this may be the last holiday in the house on Decatur, we sure have some great memories of this annual couch photo and we're sure to have more in other locales!

There were many ridiculous gifts given, including giant mustaches from Kjersten!

and a GIANT whoopee cushion for CJ (I have NO regrets, haha!)

Also from Kjersten, some crazy gorilla feet to add to our dress up gear!

 We returned home after the lake weekend and had a fun Monday playdate with the Worsts.

There was some gingerbreading that ended with catastrophic building failure, but it was still fun and we got to eat candy!

Christmas Eve came and we headed to spend the evening with the Rodriguez/Mioni family

 More cousin time, it's the best!

 The boys, as usual, got spoiled with a variety of legos, superheros and the like.

 Hugs for Auntie Faithie!

 There was wrestling time in the basement with Papa.

 And just general running around getting excited about Santa.  Noah was very concerned about getting to bed on time so that Santa would come.

We ended the night in jammies watching Kung Fu Panda before packing up some tired kiddos and heading to my parents house in Burr Ridge to spend the night.

We awoke Christmas morning to discover Santa had come!  Uncle Josh brought some cool Star Wars masks.  The Darth Vader one even changes your voice!

 The boys had picked out gifts for each other that were well received and ended with huge hugs! Brothers forever!

Sam scored a cool green lantern costume.

 Bampa found these ridiculous giant inflatable fish with remote controls.

 Uncle Josh and Daddy spent about an hour performing delicate surgery.

 The boys had a lot of fun with the new marble run.

 I think the big guys liked the fish as much as the little guys!

 Poor Isaac, as my last baby you will be forced to endure some creative wardrobe choices from mommy.  Leg warmers, check!

 Christmas day was a wild success!  Can't believe how big these guys are getting!

 We arrived home to discover that Santa had left a pretty cool Hulk pinball machine. 

So the Christmas week was all we could have hoped for!  Tune in soon for much more fun from our winter break!  Hope yours was has happy as ours!

Happy Holidays 2013!

As is tradition, here is a list of some hilarious quotes offered up by the Rodriguez brothers this year.  From our family to yours, we wish you the best of holidays and many Silent Nights!

January 2013 – Noah and Sam got walkie talkies for Christmas and were using them to communicate from the living room to other locations in the house.  I overheard this exchange: Noah “do you copy?”  Sam “no thank you, i no like coffee.”

January 2013 - Noah was having a conversation with Bampa about age.  He asked Bampa how old he was and Bampa replied “60.”  Noah looked shocked and said “Wow, that’s almost dead!”

February 2013 - Our friends Michelle and Bob moved from being 10 minutes away to more like 30 minutes away.  Since all the holiday hubbub and busy schedules and such, we hadn’t seen them in awhile.  Our sensitive man Noah said “I really miss Aunt Michelle and Uncle Bob and Evie and Leo.”  Sam’s response, “I like crocodiles better.”

April 2013 - Mike was playing with Sam and chasing him around saying, “I’m gonna eat you!” Sam responded with, “Don’t eat me Daddy! I not a cheeseburger!”

April 2013 - In discussing what sports the boys would do over the summer, we talked about what equipment we had and what we might need, etc.  Noah was very helpful and said, “well I already have those shenanigan guards for soccer.”  Yes, you always have to protect yourself from those pesky shenanigans!

June 2013 - We ordered some Chinese food today and told the boys they could have their fortune cookies after eating their food.  At the end of the meal, Sam said, “Can I have my Wheel of Fortune cookie please?”

July 2013 - Sam loves to role play different animals.  Today, he was pretending to be a frog.  I asked him if he wanted a treat and he nodded.  So I asked him “What does a frog like to eat for a treat?”  Without thinking, he said, “Bacon!”  He is SO my kid.

July 2013 - After Noah being gone for 3 days at the Dells, we excitedly awaited his return home.  When he pulled up the driveway with Pops, Jojo and CJ, I opened the door and excitedly yelled, “Noah!”  Sam ran out to greet them.  He ran past Noah and directly to CJ, yelling “Hi CJ!” with arms flung open.  Guess 3 days wasn’t long enough to miss his brother.

July 2013 - The night before Sam’s birthday we were jokingly saying goodbye to the 2 year old Sam.  I took the boys to bed and we did prayers as usual.  Noah prayed in a tearful voice, “Dear God, bless this two year old Sam as we send him to heaven and bless the three year old Sam that comes to us.”  Noah was overcome with grief and then began to cry.  

July 2013 - As we started our discussions and research about mini vans, Noah and Sam had been participating.  One day, unprompted, Noah from the back of our Pilot said, “You know what Pops and Jojo have in their van, Mom?  They have a lady that talks and gives them directions, maybe we should get that in our van.”  I said, “oh yea, for their GPS, huh?”  He adds, “Yea, but Pops doesn’t really like to listen to her.”  Then he continues quietly to himself, “I don’t like listening to girls either!”

July 2013 - Noah asked why I called Isaac a “Buddha baby.”  I explained that Buddha is a fat figure and that fat, chubby babies are healthy.  He replied, “well then Isaac must be REALLY healthy.”   

August 2013 - I realized I need to monitor the lyrics of the songs played on my radio station more closely when Noah started asking questions about a song called, “Turn me on.”  He rationalized out loud, “Mom, she’s saying ‘Turn me on’ so she must be a robot.”  I nodded, eager to avoid an awkward conversation.  He continued, “But that doesn’t make sense, because if she was off, how could she ask people to turn her on?”  Good question Noah, good question!

August 2013 - We had a fantastic weekend up at the lakehouse with the Schwantz family and the Worst family.  The kids were all wrestling and jumping around the bonus room when Fred came down with a bloody nose.  We discovered that Sam had launched himself and knocked Fred in the face.  Sam also happened to have a poopy diaper at the time.  So Fred told us, “Sam’s stinky booty gave me a bloody nose.”  They do smell pretty bad!

August 2013 - I took both big boys to the dentist.  They both did a great job and were rewarded with several special treats and even doctor masks!  Later that afternoon, Sam was holding Isaac’s head and moving it around a bit too aggressively.  When I told him to take it easy, he pulled the mask down (which he was wearing) and said to me completely seriously, “but mom, I’m a doctor!”

September 2013 - Noah was stung by the bee one morning when I was at work and Mike was home.  When he was retelling the story later he told me, “I screamed bloody murmur!”

September 2013 - We were praying one night and Sam said, “Dear God up in Kevin.”

October 2013 - We had been talking about giving Isaac some baby food or solid food.  Sam asked me the next day, “Are you going to feed Isaac that salad food?”

October 2013 - Sam is our singer, he’s been regaling us all with the sweetest, cutest version of “You are my sunshine.”  When I asked him how he learned to sing so well, he replied (very matter of factly) “God give me my songs.”

November 2013 - Sam emerged from bath time to get his Superman pajamas and declared, “I’m superman, I’m fearless and naked!”

December 2013 - Noah experiences some crabby moments, during which he has been known to make snarky or sassy comments.  Today he told Bamma, “you have NO idea how hard it is to be a kid!”

December 2013 - I enjoy watching a lot of NFL football and the boys often watch games with me and pick teams to root for.  Today Sam asked, “are we rooting for these raisin guys?”  It was the Baltimore Ravens.

December 2013 - Noah sits down on the couch with a serious face and says to me, “I’m going to tell you a story that will be quite dramatic and you might be mad at me...”  Hard to be mad when you lead in with a line like that!

Almost there...

We are soooooooo very close to Winter Break, we can't wait!  We've had some snow this past week and the help has been out on shoveling duty.

 Ike isn't quite ready for manual labor, yet.  He's content to sit in the garage and watch the action.

 The neighbor girls McKenna and Deven stopped by to play for awhile too.

 For his first time in the snow, he was pretty true to character, mellow and happy.

 Our not so little man is really showing us how big he is lately.  The baby swing needs to get retired as he can now fully sit up and try to touch the floor while still in it.  He also sprung his first tooth this week.  Typical 9 month mark like his brothers!

 Thanks to a borrowed bath seat, he's now enjoying baths in a more upright position too!

 The big guys got in a raucous game of catch with Uncle Josh.  More like "target practice" for Josh, but fun was had!

 Bamma art project of the week, paper plate Christmas trees with cotton ball snow!

 Noah had his gingerbread play followed by class party on Tuesday.  Since mom and dad had to work, Bampa got to go this time.  Noah got to chat with Mr. Stockhousen, the principal.

 Some fun games with his friends.  He had a blast as usual!

 Back at home we're enduring the chilly weather by snuggling up on the couch.

Stay tuned for our online Christmas card/quote list.  The photo shoot this morning was a ton of fun, I think you'll enjoy the results!

Fat Baby meets the Fat Man!

The snow/cold has officially arrived here and has added to the holiday feel and building of excitement!  On Monday, I got this picture at work from Mike.  The boys were SO excited to go out and play in the snow, he let them run around the deck for a bit then in for some hot cocoa.

 Tuesday's project with Bamma was super cute handprint/snowmen ornaments.  We are proudly hanging them on our tree now!

 Tuesdays generally mean donuts with Bamma...

 ...and cozy couch naps with Bampa!

Today (Wednesday) we tackled getting from this...

 to this!  All cleaned up and nice for Santa.  We practiced our smiles and our polite words for the Jolly Man.  They were all pretty gung-ho about the mission.  We were at the mall by 10:40am to wait for Santa's arrival at 11:00am.  If you can ever be in line for Santa's arrival, I highly recommend it.  The anticipation, the empty chair, and then we heard the jingle bells and the deep "ho, ho, ho!"  And, THERE HE WAS!  There were coy waves as we waited our turn and then they all hopped on the big guys lap!

And VOILA, the annual picture.  Pretty much how we expected: Noah going for the smile points because he's the people pleaser, Isaac smiling like a cute baby with promises of lunch to follow, and Sam just being (sigh) Sam.  He really was excited to see Santa, and very polite and very willing to talk to him.  But when it came to smiling time, this is what we got. 

 Despite the bitter cold, the older two again really wanted to get outside.  So we put Isaac in his bouncy seat in the kitchen so he could watch and the big guys and I went out and shoveled our deck off.  How cute are overall snowpants, really?!

 Hope the season of anticipation is going well for you all and everyone is staying warm!

A much needed weekend break

My parents (aka the BEST grandparents EVER) took the older two for the weekend so that I could get a much needed break/start on holiday shopping/wrapping/deep cleaning my house.  I'm exhausted, having spent every second occupied with one task or another.  But my house is cleaned, my shopping and wrapping are about 80% done and I feel like it was a very productive weekend.  You see here our home is starting to look festive, with my 3 gingerbread men.  Yep, another Bamma masterpiece!

 Noah has a lot of lovies (stuffed animals).  I'm not exaggerating when I say that he sleeps with 20-30.  I should know since I had to climb up to his top bunk to clear them all out when I was madly cleaning their room.  Noah goes from one favorite to another, never really attached to any single lovie for an extended period.  For Sam, there is only Black Puppy.  He sleeps with at least 10 others, but in the middle of the night when he cries out, we know it's because Black Puppy has gone M.I.A.  I wanted to make sure to have a picture of him with this special friend to remember his close bond with him.

 So, I enjoyed the freedom of just one kiddo this weekend.  5 short years ago, I would have NEVER considered going into Target with an 8 month old on a Saturday in December over lunch; but now it's child's play to me.  He enjoyed his first cart ride not in a carrier.

 The big guys had a great weekend up at the lakehouse with Bamma and Bampa.  They went to Lunker's for dinner.  If you don't know Lunkers, it's an outdoor hunting/fishing/camping store with fish tanks.  And there's a restaurant.  Fun times!

 They even got to see a 600 lb alligator!  It was stuffed, but still impressive!

So, we're all home together now, having survived the weekend apart.  It was a nice break, Mike and I enjoyed the quite and noticing all the little things that Isaac does.  He enjoyed the freedom of crawling everywhere with no fear.  And the big guys enjoyed a fun special weekend with the grandparents.  Win for everyone!  Well, maybe my parents are a bit tired...