Preschool!

Marcus has officially started preschool! Mon-Fri from 8am to noon. He was scared stiff at first, but by the end of his first week, he was beginning to warm up to his teacher and classmates. He's been having lots of fun making all sorts of crafts. Since it's the holiday season, the children made stockings, decorated a big tree in the classroom, and exchanged handmade christmas cards.

He absolutely adores Auntie Beth (his teacher). He's really improving on behavior in the classroom (which we practice and go over at home). In turn, it's been helping while he's in Primary, too! YAHOO!!!! He really strives to have good behavior in all places now. :) There's a lot less tantrums and it's much easier to get him to move from one activity to another now. :D He's coming along so well!

I have to say, I had mixed feelings about him starting full time school. One the one hand, I know that he needs it. He needs the examples and influence of the other children his age to help him with his speech and social skills. BUT, on the other hand....he's my baby! Ack! And just when I thought that life would slow down a bit with all the children in school....well, yeah right. We drop the older three off at school at 7:25am, Marcus by 8am, and then my gym class starts by 8:30am. I get home around 9:45 and after I hit the shower, eat breakfast, get the laundry started and do my errands, it's time to pick Marcus up again. We have about 1-2 hours til it's time to pick up his siblings. And there went the day!!! Cause after the kids come home, it's homework, cooking dinner, dishes, scouts, activity day girls, ect. It's absolutely crazy, but we love it!

Trains!

Marcus is LOVING his new train set. His Thomas trains fit the track perfectly (thank you Mema, Papa, and Granny Mac!).

Happy Birthday Marcus!

I believe the theme was all about cars this year. He received a really cool race track, complete with its own car from his friends, Avery and Audrey.

Thank you to Mema and Papa for the Toy Story 3 race track! He spends lots of time with all his cars, racing them down the slide.

And from Granny Mac, a place for all his cars! And it has a handle, so he takes his cars with him all throughout the house. Thank you! She also got him some painting booklets, too. We're waiting for the weather to clear up so that he can paint on his picnic bench outside.

Ryan and I figured it was time for him to have a big boy bike. Nana got him a helmet and a little ringing bell to accessorize. :) He LOVES his new bike!

Mele Kalikimaka!

I think this was the first year ever that Ryan wasn't laying wide awake in bed going "Can we wake them up now? Is it time yet? Oh come on, let's wake them up!"

Instead, Julia was wide awake at 2am and couldn't go back to sleep.

Jacob came wandering in around 3am, "Psst! Mom! Santa came already." "Uh huh, go back to sleep."

I finally gave up on the idea of sleep around 6am (hadn't gone to bed til 1:30am and then Skittles decided to attack our feet and hands ALL NIGHT LONG). Talk about bleary eyed Christmas morning! But I went ahead and got Marcus up since all the others were up and eyeing their stockings. Soon, they were all smiles as they gathered together to see what Santa brought them (Nintendo DS's).

Thanks for the AWESOME silly bands, Connor! Jacob's been wearing them all day long.

If you heard high pitched squealing, you know it was coming from a certain little girl who LOOOOOOVES stuffed animals! Especially when they come with their own portable home. Thanks, Hannah! (Hey, Nathan, please take note of Julia reading Maximum Ride in the background...she plans on using her Borders gift card to buy the next book already. She's read 5 chapters her book and is completely in love with it! Thanks so much!) Marcus opened a speeding race car from Kyle. He's had great fun zooming that around the living room and kitchen. Thanks, Kyle!

The next round of gifts they opened came from Granny Mac. Do you think Julia was just a little excited about her Harry Potter DS game?


Jacob could hardly contain his excitement. He's been asking for this game for a looooong time. Thanks, Granny Mac!

Evelyn was given Princess Belle complete with Belle's own castle while Marcus was given some Thomas the train trains to go along with a track. Thank yoooooooouuuuuuu!

Next came the gifts from Mema and Papa. Julia promptly asked if she could make chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels. She can't wait to make use of her chocolate melting pot!

Another princess castle! This time it's Cinderella...and the cool thing is that the castle attach to each other. :)

Jacob received the other game he'd been begging for (Star Wars the Force) while Marcus got a couple more Thomas trains. Thank you, Mema and Papa!

"WHOAAAAAAAAAAA!" Uncle Rob, the kids were digging this game all day today. It's super fun! And we love that four people can play together at the same time.

Thank you, Uncle Rob and Aunt Amity! These games ROCK! (And a HUGE thank you for the gift cards!!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!)

Needless to say, it's been a very fun filled Christmas day. Once the gifts were opened, we all had some yummy breakfast casserole (made with milk). ;) McMom and Joycelyn will get that joke. :) Then the kids were playing with all their new toys all day long. We were able to talk to Ryan quite a bit and he even webcammed with us while the kids were opening their gifts (we webcammed with him on his Christmas morning and were able to watch him open his gifts from us. So special!). So we actually celebrated a bit of Christmas early on Christmas Eve. While Ry opened our gifts, the kids were able to open their gifts from their dad. Ry had sent them each a couple of books (Where the Side Walk Ends, I Spy Christmas, Twas the Night Before Christmas, ect) and in them were mini DVDs of him reading that very book to them. :D Talk about the absolute best gifts EVER! He even sent a Twas the Night Before Christmas book that had his voice recorded on each page. So we opened that book and listened to him reading the book to us. There were many tears, both happy and sad. But it was sooooo nice to see him on our tv, reading to each child. And then he was right there on the webcam, too.

We just want to say thank you to all our family and friends who have given us so much love and support. We love you all and are so grateful to you. Mele Kalikimaka!

Some R&R fun

Skittles

Introducing the newest member of our family:

Skittles!

Why, yes, I am aware that our beautiful BLACK cat is named after a bright, rainbowy candy. :) We think it's a perfect name for her. Julia was BEGGING me to take a look at this cat. A friend of hers in her class found this kitty a couple weeks ago. It was lost/abandoned. So they took it but planned on finding a home for it. They're moving back to the mainland in a week and were putting word out that they had a small kitten to give away. Julia's friend told her that she could have dibs. I'm such a sucker when it comes to cats. And I've been wanting one, too....so of course we went to "go look".....and came home with Skittles.

Part of Julia's begging consisted of "I'll feed it, take care of the kitty litter, sweep, change it out....PLEASE??????!!!!!!!!!". She also insisted that she needs to read to Skittles, too. So they're delving into Fablehaven #4 together.

Ahh, Julia's reading to both of them. I LOVE that my children LOVE books!

Julia's 11th Bday!

She had a few close friends over to share her special day with (somehow we missed a group picture). She had decided to wait til after school to open all of her gifts at her party. Boy was I glad she did that! Imagine if she would've opened THIS gift before school! She would've wanted to play hooky so that she could play the wii. Thank you Mema and Papa!!!!

She sure was excited about her gifts from Granny Mac.

She's been wanting these Harry Potter school books for a while now (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages). She and her friends ended up reading one of them that very night. :)

Granny Mac, thank you so much for The Lost Hero book! She's also been BEGGING for this book ever since it came out. :)

A new quilt for her bed from Nana. It's a Surf's Up protype. Perfect for the lovely young lady who soooooo is NOT GIRLY.

My treat to her was to send her and her BFF, Hailey, to the movie theater to watch the new Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I actually sent my mom with them since I'd already seen it with Ry (we hit up the midnight showing when he was home for R&R). She LOVED it.

Our clan

The kiddos wanted to get in some pix on Julia's bday before they headed off to school.

Better Watch Out

Better not cry,

better not pout I'm telling you why,

Santa Claus is coming to town!!!!

Evelyn's Halloween Class Party

Mom helped out with this classroom party. The teacher welcomed younger siblings so Marcus was able to join the festivities.

And I always thought we were clever to string up donuts...the kids tried eating apples strung up on a line (instead of bobbing for apples). :)

They each made ghosts with tootsie pops (decorating with eyes and faces).

Evelyn's teacher had a section of boxes where the kids put their hands inside and had to guess what they were feeling (eyeballs: grapes, noodles: brains, ect).

Can you tell how much fun she was having with this activity?

Marcus really enjoyed it, too.

Everyone pitched in for the snacks and goodies. Holy cow, they all came out so sugared up!