Advent & Christmas Wrap-up!

These past weeks have FLOWN by - I can't believe that Advent has come and gone.  Luckily, Christmas is a season and we still have some time to celebrate!  Here are some pictures of what's been happening around our house.

Our Elf on the Shelf - this may just be one of my favorite traditions during the Advent season. With teenage girls in the house, it was so much fun to see what our elf would be doing each morning! Here are a few of my favorites.

Potato Sack Race

Drinking some syrup!

Spiderman inspiration

And let's keep rolling with the super hero theme...Superman!

And our elf playing a little Scrabble with his friends.

Todd took the big kids to the new Star Wars movie and brought home movie theater popcorn - Benjamin was in heaven!

And later that same afternoon, Esther and Eleanor were playing "jump off the couch and land on your hands" (yeah, that was the name of their game).  Surprise, surprise....yep, Esther broke her elbow. Lucky for her she has a fabulous big sister (thank you Haley!) who is sleeping next to her to help her in the middle of the night and takes care of her throughout the day.  She'll go in to see the orthopedic doctor this week who will re-xray to determine what to do next.

Christmas Eve dinner is always malts and pizza for our family.  The kids love it and it is super easy - win, win if you ask me!  The evening is spent in jammies (their first gift from mom and dad) and we open presents after supper.

Christmas Day begins with Mass.  Then we have a brunch and open up gifts from Santa/stocking stuffers.  The rest of the day is very low-key and even had nap time for me!  After dinner, we all watched Elf and ate Christmas cookies.  What a wonderful day we all had!

The tree with the Santa gifts underneath.

This is our first Christmas in our new house.  We don't have a mantle, so we had to get creative about where to hang the stockings.  I think this worked out alright.

Ahhh...teenagers who clean the kitchen. Merry Christmas to me! :-)

Benjamin is a Jenga master!

Playing Apples to Apples Bible edition while waiting for supper to get done.

Ham, cheesy potatoes, brocolli/rice, buns, "kid wine"...yum!

There are a ton of photos on the other camera, but I am too tired to get to them.  Perhaps another time?  

God Bless!

Heather :-)

Dinner Out

I've been absent from the blog-o-sphere for quite some time.  I think about blogging and then life interrupts me...anyone know what I'm talking about? This summer has flown by and we've settled back into our school routine. I need to do a post about what we've been up to all summer (because I know you're really dying to know!), but am prioritizing sleep over that right now.  So, for now, I'll leave you with a picture of our outing after Mass this evening.  We ran into one of our favorite families from church there, so it was that much more fun!

That's a nice lookin' bunch, huh?

And one more photo, because I can never take just one!

Hopefully, I'll get you all caught up on our summer activities soon!

God Bless!

Heather :-)

Happy Friday!

We were supposed to close on our new house today....but, sometimes life doesn't go according to our plans.  There was some sort of mix-up with scheduling, the appraiser being on vacation, blah-blah-blah...whatever the reason, we are not new home owners today.  We are tentatively rescheduled to close on Monday.

But, the sun is shining.  The rain and snow have all melted and dried up.  And I've got a lovely bunch of little people to keep me busy.  We still have a ton of packing to do before the official moving process begins on Thursday.  This weekend will fly by and then we'll buy our home on Monday.  It looks great and we can hardly wait to get in!

I'll leave you with these cuties who posed for a picture for me this morning before we scurried out the door to Mass and home school group.

Have a wonderful weekend!

God Bless!

Heather :-)

Google Plus is Awesome!

I recently discovered that when I take a bunch of photos in rapid succession, they are automatically put into a kind of picture movie and stored into a "cloud" somewhere. I have absolutely no idea how any of this works, but am having a great time playing with it!  Take a look at how much fun this is!

Lillian was busy trying to keep Benjamin quiet while I was on hold with the doctor's office this morning.  She's such a good big sister!

At the doctor's office last week, Peter stole my phone and started taking pictures of Grandma.  She was thrilled to get her picture taken, can't you tell! (What an excellent Grandma she is to spend the afternoon at the doctor's office with us!)

Madeline was one of the "Weeping Women" in the Living Stations performance at our church last week.  It was an amazing and prayerful experience.

Benjamin started crawling last week - and he's getting pretty good at it!  We need to get better about keeping the floor free of choking hazards and keep the stairs guarded - I'm not ready for this!

 Okay...now wasn't that fun!?!  Have a great week!

God Bless!

Heather :-)

A Walk in the Woods

We're finally experiencing some spring weather in Minnesota. It has been so nice to get outside!  The kids and I have been going for a walk after lunch. I asked Esther, Eleanor, and Peter to hold hands for a bit while they walked...isn't it adorable?

And here is the rest of the group. Take notice of Peter making his "funny face" at the camera!

And, a random Benjamin picture because he's so darn cute!  He's a little blurry due to the fact that he's always moving!

God Bless!

Heather :-)

Back in the Saddle

I'm so far behind here! I've been putting off doing a blog post because I just don't know where to begin. So, I'm going to pretend like I have been posting regularly and just show you what we've been up to the past few weeks.

Benjamin Thomas is 9 1/2 months old. He has 5 teeth, with a sixth coming through.  He is sitting, pushing himself up, and just started to crawl a bit.  He loves attention and gets plenty of it from his siblings.

Peter just turned 3!  He is working hard to keep up with all his older sisters and brother.  He still loves his blue blanket and carries it around like Linus. He is starting to talk more, but we continue to work on deciphering what he wants throughout the day.

Where would I be without the help of my older children?  Haley and Madeline are great assistants and are always willing to help me out.

I am always amazed at the different ways the children find to avoid doing school work.  Lillian set up a salon for Eleanor and Esther and gave them makeovers.  How could I possibly get upset with her and make her do school when they were playing so nicely?

Eleanor and Esther have been a bit obsessed with puzzles lately.  Of course, Peter tries to "help" which never really ends well.  These two girls, when left uninterrupted by 3 year old brothers, can knock out a puzzle in no time!

Madeline found a recipe for microwave eggs and has us all hooked.  Joseph even makes his own every morning.  Now we just need to work on doing dishes!

Joseph takes his big brother responsibility seriously.  He's making sure that Benjamin understands how to race cars!

Madeline is still crocheting away when she has time as her school work is taking up more and more of her day.  She made this Olaf for a friend's birthday gift. Didn't it turn out well!?!

Madeline and Haley needed some pictures for a school project, so they headed outside with the camera and came back with some neat (and some weird!) photos.

Todd also celebrated another birthday. He wanted to go out to eat at a non-fast food restaurant. So, the family went out to eat at Perkins which, overall, went pretty well.  Happy Birthday, Todd!

And, I cannot find a picture that has me in it...so, you'll just have to imagine that I look about the same as last time, minus the big baby belly.

There you have it.  I will be blogging more often, hopefully.  Leave me a comment so that I know anyone still looks at this.

God Bless!

Heather :-)

Thankful

I have long admired Jamie and all of her Thankful posts.  I read them and think how nice it is that she takes the time to document all that she has to be thankful for and think, I really should do that, and then don't. It seems that I am dealing more and more with children who are not seeing all that they have and tend to be focusing on all the "stuff" they want....soooooo, I figured perhaps it may be my lack of example in praising the Good God for all that we do have.

In no particular order, here are a few of the many, many things that I am thankful for!

I am thankful for being 26 1/2 weeks pregnant with an almost 2 year old and 4 year old who still think they are my babies!

So thankful for the family vacation we took a few weeks back to Wisconsin Dells.  We had fun in the indoor water parks, went bowling, played games and shared all this fun with another family we brought along with us!

Thankful for this big sister who helped out a pregnant momma by going on the water slides with her daring little brother!

Thankful for this big brother who puts his little brother down for nap time!

Thankful for a $2 box of Fruit Loops and the hours of entertainment it has brought for the younger girls in the house.  I mean, all of the stringing practice to develop their fine motor skills! :-)

Thankful for messages written in the snow!

Thankful for the snowy hill in our yard that the children built a "bob sled" track on.  They love sledding and then coming in for hot chocolate with marshmallows!

Thankful for little boys and remote control trains.  The best part is the "choo-choo" sounds he makes while driving this Thomas the Train all over the kitchen.

Thankful for my crafty girls. This is Madeline modeling one of the hats she has crocheted and has for sale in her etsy shop.   More to come on that in a later post!

Thankful for birthday celebrations with friends!  My wonderful husband celebrated a birthday last week and we had some friends over for supper and Dairy Queen ice cream cake - a perfect evening!

Thankful for little boys who think they are big boys. Peter will eat just about anything as long as it is not cut into "baby bites".  He prefers to push a chair up to the island, pick it up whole, and chow down!

Thankful for big sisters who spoil their baby brother.  I left to run a few errands and came home to find this picture on my camera.  Madeline and Haley got Peter his blanket, a bowl of M&M's and mini-marshmallows, and put Thomas the Train on television.  That boy has quite the life, don't you think?

This really is just the tip of the iceberg.  I am going to try and do this more often and really focus on all that I have been blessed with.

Have a blessed week and remember to take some time to count all of your blessings!

Heather :-)