Christmas Morning

It was a very Merry Christmas Morning at our house! Nothing more fun than watching 5 kids tear into gifts! Actually, the older ones wait and watch the little ones. Mavery tore through the fastest, we barely got a picture of her at all! Last year she was just home so she was very overwhelmed, this year she is all about the presents! Santa goes overboard here, there is no doubt. Rumor has it his (HER) love language might be gifts. Hmmmm... Some fun things on their gifts this year.

• Malaine sat on Santas lap the week before Christmas. I asked her what she asked Santa for. "Kirsten the American Girl doll that is going away and I just know he is going to bring her for me and I can't wait!" Amazingly Mommy had NO IDEA that she wanted her. Or that she was SOLD OUT in the store. Thankfully that Santa is smart and was able to deliver because I could see her looking around for that doll as soon as she walked out! and she loves her.
  
• Makenna, also a week before Christmas, saw some clear converse tennis shoes she wanted. Up to this point she had asked for nothing except $$ because she is saving to travel to China. (she wants to go and work in an orphanage, no we are not adopting again!) So in the days before Christmas Santa was busy! As you can see from the pictures she did not expect Santa to deliver those shoes! Her 2nd favorite was a package of socks that did not have matches in her favorite prints and colors.
  
• Sage & Maverys favorite was their motorcylces. Sage got a scooter her size because she insists on riding Malaines around. Which is to big for her. She was excited for about 20 seconds till she realized that a 3 wheel scooter does not go as fast as a 2 wheel scooter. She quickly passed it on to Mavery telling us it is WAY to slow for her. I have to get this kid on video riding this to big scooter. She is FAST! As I said before, Mavery tore through her presents, tossing each aside quickly. Sage took her time, studies each gift, gets excited over each thing. They are so different.
• Sawyer was thrilled with his as you can tell. Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics was his only wish along with legos of course. Though he insisted Dad had to have a certain game for his Christmas Gift (playstation 3) which I am certain was as much for Sawyer as for dad! How do I expect my son would not be into electronics when their almost(not quite but getting closer!) 40 year old father is still getting new game systems for himself?? ;-)
  

I love LOVE the magic of Christmas morning. Watching my kids faces as they open things, priceless. I have no doubt that my children know what the true meaning of Christmas is all about. And I believe that God finds joy in the delight going on in our house Christmas morning!

Twas the Night Before Christmas...

We have made it a tradition to let the kids sleep on our floor on Christmas Eve. We mainly started this because of the way our house is set up. The kids are on one side of the living room, us on the other. We like to watch their faces as they come out to see what Santa left, so this was the solution. Plus the fact they think it is GREAT fun! We decided to let the little girls join in on the slumber party this year. That was not so much fun. Mavery was over tired so we were reminded of the days right after she came home. Night terrors, screaming out, thrashing all over. Not a good thing with a room full of kids! Then at one point when she was quiet, Sage woke up and went tearing through the room in the dark, heading out the door. Stepping on Maverys head in the process! Guess she decided she might catch Santa, not sure! At that point we let Sage & Mavery both sleep with us. (HA! sleep?) Then at 430 Sawyer could take it no more and continued to ask every 15 minutes if we could get up yet. Oh the joy of Christmas morning! I am reminded of why Christmas Day is my very favorite nap day of the year!

Christmas #2

We started our Christmas Eve morning with breakfast at IHOP with Marks family. My kids love nothing more than eating breakfast out! Afterwards we came home and they opened their annual gift of new pj's. We have done this every year since Makenna was born. New jammies to wear to bed = fun morning pictures! (though I have to admit this year we did stretchy outfits instead of pjs.) Last count was that the little girls had 35 pairs of jammies in their drawer! Add that to the fact I can barely get my older kids out of pajamas, I decided a stretchy outfit could serve 2 purposes! Sleep in it, yet look like you are dressed during the day.

Mostly smiling, what a miracle! On our way to church for the Candlelight service. Candlelight & 2 4 year olds, always an interesting combination!
Afterwards we came back to our house with my dads brothers and family. We had birthday cake for Jesus! This year we did chocolate cake, which shows us and our sin, but filled them and covered them with white icing to show that Jesus was born to cover those sins. (Thanks Amy for the pic, I had to borrow from you blog, we did not get one!)

All the cousins together!

My dad's brother Ray with his kids. We sure miss my cousin Dawn and her family. Kids were thrilled to spend an evening playing with their cousins!My Uncle Joe. Missed a picture of him with my cousin!

My beautiful Makenna, looking way to old!

And my silly Sawyer, always around to make us smile!

Our family with my parents and my brother.

No one crying, yeah!

My mom's sister and her kids. Not one of my dads brothers, but in a round about sort of way related to that side to. It is complicated. ;-) And no party is complete w/ out them so we let them join us!

Makenna & I worked hard on putting together a nativity for the kids to act out and it turned out so cute! Makenna & Colby were Mary And Joseph holding Leighton as baby Jesus. Sawyer was a Shepherd & King Herrod. We had Adley as a little sheep. Dalayna, Jaylyn and Malaine were the 3 wise divas. Missing from the picture were the angels, Sage & Mavery. Who we all know are no angels! Sage cried through the play and I am not sure what happened to Mavery. hopefully I can add a video of it, the kids all did so good! More to come!

Christmas #1

We had FOUR days of Christmas parties with family. Which actually worked out best for Mavery. She can only handle so much "excitement", and we can only handle HER w/ so much excitement! Our first party was with Marks parents, his brother and family. And we actually used a camera this time!

The Elf on the Shelf

This year we had a visit from a new friend! Have you heard of the Elf on the Shelf? LOVE it! I love the magic of Christmas and the wonder, and we had lots of fun with this. One morning "Buddy" as the kids named him, showed up with a letter from santa. He would be coming to the house every morning to a new hiding place they had to find him in. He would watch them all day, and at night, report back to Santa. Then on Christmas Eve when Santa comes to leave the presents, he would take Buddy back to the North Pole till next year close to Christmas. I wish I could say it helped with the behavior, it did not. We were tempted to send the Elf to live in Sage's room to keep an eye on her! I wish I had taken more pictures of his hiding places. Or a close up of him. This is up above our dining room, hiding in my collection of Nutcrackers. He was a sneaky elf for sure!

Our Christmas Dinner

For the holidays we have tried to make it a point to have a special family dinner night, just the 7 of us. We did fondue for our Christmas dinner this year and it was as yummy as before! If you have never done a fondue dinner with your kids, I promise you it is a dinner you will not regret! Even with out a fondue pot it can be done and they will think you are the BEST. We had it complete with sparkling grape juice. Our fav!
In the past we have let the kids draw a name of a sibling and choose a gift to give them. We changed things up a little this year. We decided our family night we would keep the focus on Christ and what Christmas is really all about. We once again acted out the nativity. Complete with some throwing around of certain nativity pieces by certain children. I admit it goes through my head as we are trying to be all spiritual and Mommy is losing it because the nativity pieces are flying through the air, I ain't getting any awards for playing the part of Mary well! ;-)
After we were done playing soccer, I mean telling the Christmas story, we moved on to our Jesus stocking.
I read this idea on a blog a few years ago and finally put it into action this year. We had the kids each write down things on cards that our family, or themselves could do to serve God. Ideas were serving at a homeless shelter, sending a package to the soldiers who serve, a siblings chores etc... We then put it all in the stocking as our gift to Jesus. We will keep the stocking out all year as a reminder to pull out our cards and actually do the jobs we said we would.
Counting down till Christmas!

Maverys Mullet & Heart Update

Mavery had a lung profusion scan done this week. We saw the cardiologist last week and the pressures were still borderline, so they decided the lung scan would decide if we needed to do another heart cath now or later. She had to be put out for the lung scan because they have to lay still and quiet. With an IV in the arm that puts dye through the lungs. There was NO WAY she was going to lay still if they came at her with a needle. So we opted for the drugs. She did better this time. She did come out swinging, like a bucking bronco! She is STRONG! But the results were good. Before, the lung pressures were 95% on the right and only 5% on the left. Normal is 45% on the left. This time the left is 30%. So for now we just wait and watch that they stay there. It could be that the stent that was put in over the summer, will continue to allow more blood flow on it's own. That is our prayer. Anytime she has to go in for these things it is hard on her, and on us! Which is why we opted for drugs on this test. The other option was to hold her down for it and as we are still working on attachment issues, felt that was not the right thing to do. Give her a drink that makes her forget it all, seemed the smartest.

So afterwards, she was still pretty loopy the rest of the night. And as you can see in the above photos, got out of our site for just long enough to have some fun. It could have been worse, I realize that. But for how long we have worked to get hair, ugh!

We are thankful for good heart news and appreciate all of your prayers.

Sugar Cookie Fun!

My kids love to make sugar cookies. We had fun this week icing & decorating. Beginning to feel alot like Christmas!

Merry Early Christmas to me!

Finally! Mark surprised me with a new computer this week. We went with the Apple Macbook and so far LOVE IT! Now, no excuse for not blogging!

Malaine loses another tooth!

Sawyer's Brother Song

Every once in awhile Sawyer decides he has had it with being the only boy around here. Alot of the time he claims he enjoys his role. But lately he has been on a kick of wanting a brother. I should get it on video, but here are a few of the lyrics from his "song". And no, we are not adding a boy anytime soon. I would consider a BOY dog before a boy boy. ;-) For the record, we HAVE considered getting ANOTHER dog, but then our common sense did kick in (which is rare actually, that we use common sense!) and we decided now might not be the best time for a puppy either.

"I am only 9 years old

nah nah nah nah

And I am tortured from my head to my toes

nah nah nah nah

I have ONE

nah nah

TWO

nah nah

THREE

nah nah

FOUR sisters

and it is not fair, I need a brotherrrrrrrrrrrr"

There was more to it, maybe I can get him to re-sing for a video! This boy of mine is pretty hilarious.

** I did add a few Sage posts under this one.

My baby turns 4!

Such an odd thing when suddenly you realize you can leave the house with out a diaper bag, or sippie cups, and that you don't have to have to worry if there will be booster chairs available. This is the first time in 12 years that I have not had a baby or waiting for a baby. VERY strange to be honest. But for now, I LIKE IT! ;-)

However, to be honest, when I really think that my BABY, our Sage is 4, it does make me sad. I tell her all the time she has to stop growing. And sometimes she says ok, she wants to stay my baby. Other times she tells me to " get on a plane & go to China and get my own baby because she is NOT the baby anymore! "

Some Sage stuff for 4 years old....

• she is SMART. To smart that is for sure. You can just see the wheels turning. She can spell her first & last name along with most of our names in the house. She remembers EVERYTHING. (which is not always good for me!) She came home with a paper from school today and I swear I could have mistaken it for Makennas handwriting. Can count high, knows all her letters, recites the books of the bible, and knows the words to just about any song that comes on the radio.
• Still has her deep voice. her singing is hilarious it is so low.
• Likes school, but is my first child that is getting in trouble in school! She has a listening issue. If Ms Renee tells her to get in line, she might, or she might not. Depends.
• VERY athletic. And competitive. Not a good combination I am going to guess. She is determined and will practice her cartwheels forever till it is right. Or kicking a soccer ball. Or riding a bike. I have never seen someone go faster on a scooter that is twice their size than with her!
• She is HILARIOUS! i have honestly never met anyone funnier than my daughter. No matter how mad I am at her, (and believe me, she is STILL spicy!) one look at her and I crack up. I don't know what you do with that. She cutesies her way out of everything. Which is so annoying to the other children, but she typically has the same effect on them.
• Which leads us back to the not listening issue. She does not listen. EVER. She is in her own little world much of the time. We are working on this. Cute won't get her out of all school trouble I am afraid!
• Still has her spicy moments. Often. Tonight as we cleaned her room we uncovered PILES of candy that she had stashed and had been enjoying during "naptime". (chewed up gum in the carpet, suckers stuck to the rugs...) Still forgets (yeah right!) that my furniture is not for drawing on. For whatever reason she still believes that if you are not eating or drinking at your place, she is free to go to your spot and have her fill. She is the child you will find climbing the unclimbable, actually this is a whole post in itself so I will just stop here!

Sage ChenYi Mae. My baby and a true blessing to our family. She is a pure joy and I am still in awe that God picked ME to be her mommy forever. My heart is full as we celebrate 4 years of our gift, my Sage.