Back to our Regularly Scheduled Program…

Now that we are all “back to normal” (whatever normal is).  I’ll share pictures from Liam’s birthday party.  We went low key, as I’ve stated earlier, because our plans changed so quickly.  We asked him who he wanted over for his party and he chose Kristina and her family.  So them, with Super Wy and mom, we had ourselves a party.  Pirate themed, of course.  Zoe and I lucked out the morning of  the party and found some cute plates and napkins that were not the Pirates of the Carribean type pirates and picked up plates and napkins.  Legos helped serve as our “decoration” for the cake.  He loved it!
 
Mark’s our resident cake letter writer.
Okay, so he enjoyed sampling the icing too.

So did Josiah.
After cake, ice cream (which was Mayfield and I happened upon for like $2 at Kroger…I love deals like that), we loaded everyone up and headed to our resident Putt-Putt Center which is all of two minutes from our house.  Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy being in the city?  I don’t take our short car rides for granted people…and Liam with brother, dad, Jack (okay he didn’t make it all the way in), Laura, and their dad played Laser Tag.  Zoe was going in but changed her mind halfway through.  So, Tracy took her place (that’s Super Wy’s mom).

All suited up.  Not sure how he hefted that big thing around but he made it through.

Ace was pretty pumped as well.

Laura (in the background) all suited up!

This is what I got to do while Kristina changed a dirty diaper from Jumpin’ James!  They almost look like triplets, except Super Wy is supposed to be smaller since he’s only five months old!

Miss Meg Meg just chillin’

I caught Super Wy at the end of a smile.  He’s still adorable.
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Ceili Rain at Nine Months!

She’s drinking from a cup, on her own!!
Eating Big Girl Food…she refuses baby food and wants only what we’re having…none of this ground up with a hand blender, nope.  She’ll take it in very small pieces or whole (Don’t worry, we were right there…it’s a pizza crust).
She’s also pushing herself up from laying down to sitting.  Despite being sick most of December, she’s still a great baby.  She isn’t crawling but prefers to either scoot on her bottom or roll around.  She is also enjoying walking holding onto hands…still a little shaky with this but enjoying it none the less.  She loves being up where she can see what’s going on and if she’s in a room with her brothers and sister and they leave, we all know about it!
Here’s her stats from her nine month check up:

 17 lbs 1 oz (20%)
27 1/4 inches long (40%)
17 1/2 inches head (60%)

Now, if you’re trying to compare…she’s dropped off in her weight and height (percentage wise)…but she’s proportionate.  Dr. B. is not concerned and, like I’ve been saying, said she was just petite and going to be a little smaller than her siblings.
On a sad note, Ceili Rain has pretty much weaned her self from nursing.  She started to drop and refuse (and I mean flailing arms and yelling when I tried) two feedings at the start of January and cut back to one feeding a couple of weeks ago and then has pretty much started sleeping until we all get up (7 am) and not really interested in nursing then (like a few sucks and then grins and laughs and looking around and then refusing to go back on).   I know a lot of it has to do with the pregnancy.  Because of my hormones my milk supply is changing and some women even have a decrease in milk.  The flavor can change as well.  I believe that is the cause of a lot of her disinterest.  Because she’s not quite a year and to prevent her from becoming anemic, we’ve had to switch to formula and give that to her during meal times.  Thankfully, she’s not really minded drinking that instead of water and has been guzzling it down the past few meals.  I’m very grateful that it’s only for two months.  I was praying we would make it to one year, but alas, God and Ceili Rain had other ideas!  Because she had such a dramatic drop at the beginning of December, I was prepared for her to stop nursing before a year.

Now, while we were there, Liam had his four month check up and shots.  Here’s his stats:

Weight:  36 lbs (50%)
Height:  39 1/2 inches (40%)

Believe it or not but he’s not small at all!  He’s actually tracking right on the growth curve.  Dr. B said that there are just so many obese kids that he looks small compared to them.

And, while we were there, I asked Dr. B to listen to Zoe.  She’s been hacking like a smoker for a little over a week and it gradually got worse two nights before we had to go to the doctor’s office.  Dr. B listened and heard the beginnings of pneumonia in her chest.  So, now Zoe’s on an antibiotic.  She’s doing much much better.
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Mark and the TP Saga

Mark is volunteering with the Kindergarten Awana Sparks this year.  A couple of weeks ago, I believe all the leaders got together, laughed a maniacal laugh, and chose to reward children who said a lot of verses.  The reward:  toilet paper to TP the Awana leader of your choice.  Mark was one of the ones selected.  Looks good on him, no?!

Ace was so proud of his mummy daddy.

Ace’s friend K, was pretty pumped about getting Mr. Mark as well.
*These were taken with Mark’s phone so please excuse the quality but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to post pictures of Mark and toilet paper!*
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Happy Birthday Liam!

Ignore that ruff lookin’ mama in the background…it’s been a rough three weeks.  Rather, let’s focus on that adorable little boy who’s holding up those four fingers!  Liam turned four after Christmas.  It was a long time coming, too.  He was deeply hurt that we were not celebrating his birthday when we celebrated Zoe’s.  But, finally, his birthday rolled around!  Now, we had the party on Saturday with a couple of friends…don’t worry, I’ll include those pictures soon.  The original plan was to leave on his birthday and travel to visit family for Christmas celebrations and then have a party with cousins that included a “treasure hunt.”  However, with all going on with the baby, we felt we needed to stick close to home just in case we needed to make a beeline for the hospital, etc.  So, a simple celebration on the birthday day…and then party on Saturday.

Mark picked up an ice cream cake with the kids the night before.  Don’t worry, I made a cake for Saturday…just couldn’t get off the couch on Monday night.
 
From Uncle B & Aunt B and cousins!
The Sunday before his birthday before celebrating Christmas with Ge and Granddaddy, Liam and Zoe opened gifts from them.  That look on his face was the same look as he opened all his gifts this season.  Very serious.  He was a focused little boy concentrating on getting all the paper off.  Once it was off, he was all smiles.
Oh yeah, mini golf clubs!
He can wear them like a backpack and proceeded to do so….and got stuck in several places.  That would be Ace (or Zoe…I’m not sure) flipping off the back of the loveseat…not a dead kid…I promise.  And Liam getting stuck between the piano and the temporary home of the loveseat.
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Christmas with Ge & Granddaddy

The Sunday after Christmas, Ge and Granddaddy came up for the afternoon.  Of course, more gifts and Ge and Granddaddy to play with was pretty exciting for the kids.
 
Liam trying to wait patiently to open gifts.
 
Zoe was excited to have a digital clock for her room…and one that changes colors no less.  Every time I go in to the girls’ room her clock is a different color.
 
Ace got more “boy” books.  Which is good, he’s finally gotten up enough courage to attempt to read a chapter book.  He picked Robin Hood.  So far, I think he’s enjoying it.  We just need to get him a book light so he can read at night.
 
I just had to post this, because of Granddaddy’s face.  I think it’s inherited…sticking out your tongue while trying to work on something….the kids and I all do it too.
 
This is one of those squishy toys.  Ace has named it “Meme” and is his sidekick in battle.
 
Ceili Rain wanted to play with the wrapping paper more than the presents! 
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Celebrating Christmas with Papa & Grandmere

The kids were super pumped that Grandmere and Papa made a Christmas day appearance…not just the gifts but seeing the grandparents pretty much rocks for them!

Mark and I are thrilled that Ceili Rain is now going to someone else besides us.  She is enjoying visiting with her Papa & Grandmere more and more.

It stopped raining Christmas afternoon and Liam got to test out his new wheels…with a look of concentration.

Josiah got chaffeur service from Papa.

Zoe got a lot of one on one with Daddy as she learns to ride her big bike!

And Ceili Rain snuck in some snuggle time with Papa…before declaring herself ready to be back in Mama’s arms.

Getting ready to open gifts…closing eyes was a prereq…this year.
A big cool gift this year was a new video camera.  It’s like the Flip cameras in that it’s small and hd.  I LOVE it!  It’s small, easy to carry around, and holds a bunch of video thanks to the larger memory card Mark got me.  Oh, and it’s for both of us…not just me (so they say 🙂
Ceili Rain had to test out her new crinkly dolly toy.

Josiah got a book with a train in it. Surprised??  Nah!

Liam getting excited over his turn to open presents.

Ace checking out his new book.

Papa & Grandmere with their calendar.
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Visitng for Christmas

Before Christmas eve (that would be the eve before Christmas eve) we had our friends, Tracy and Kevin come over with Super Wy.  At four months old, he’s bigger than our petite Ceili Rain!  No joke.  I took pictures to prove it.  He’s also pretty adorable and loves to laugh and giggle.

Especially at his Uncle Mark!
And most definitely at Zoe, Ace, Liam and Josiah.
See, he’s passing our little miss CeiRai rather quickly!!  He goes to the doctor this week for his 4 month check up (I think) so I’ll compare stats since Ceili Rain is going next week…prepare to be amazed at this super growing boy…and nope, he’s not on formula!
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Christmas 2009 Recap #1

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration and this year it was just a blast watching the kids open gifts.  More importantly, it was a blast watching them grasp and understand the reason behind getting/giving gifts.

We had to wake Josiah up and it took him a long while to figure out what was going on.  He perked up when he saw his new train stuff though.

 
 
All the kids were excited over their gifts…even Ceili Rain who decided to sleep for three hours after breakfast!!  Pants made by me.  Zoe’s shirt, I appliqued.  I wanted to get a picture of them all together but just never got around to it.
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Celebrating Zoe’s “Real” Birthday

I’m aware that this comes a little over a week late but please forgive me!  A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Zoe’s real birthday.  I still can’t believe she’s seven.  Her birthday was on a Sunday.  She chose to open gifts that morning instead of waiting until that afternoon which was probably better as she had Awana that night.  We set out her big gift, a new big girl bike, without training wheels.  I didn’t get to see her face when she saw it but Mark said she just grinned shyly…which is Zoe-ese for “I like it.”  She rode it some that afternoon and didn’t do too bad.

She brought cupcakes for her Awana class and they just thought she was “da bomb” (does anyone say that anymore??).  By the way, she made the cupcakes, under my supervision but I thought she did a great job and everyone seemed to like them…and most importantly, no one got sick.

I believe she definitely had a happy birthday!
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Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to everyone!  I pray today is a day to celebrate the birth of Christ.  God’s own sacrifice to give His Son to walk on earth.

We have been preparing for Christmas this year by celebrating Advent, reading Jotham’s Journey by Arnold Ytreeide, and opening boxes to find out what God wants for Christmas.  It’s been a blessing to hear the kids (especially those who are very into presents) inform us that it’s not about Santa or flying reindeer or gifts that the reason we celebrate Christmas is because of Jesus.  They are listening!!

Yes, I made the girls outfits and they are quite adorable if I do say so myself.  Lest you think we snap perfect pictures everytime…here’s proof that we don’t!

We lucked out on that first picture!
I apologize to my .2 loyal readers who were expecting posts every day.  I’ve got what I want to post but do not have the energy nor the stomach power!  Yes, first trimester has hit with a vengence and is due to stick around for at least two more weeks.  Once I know that food will stay down and I will stay awake, more posts will come!!
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