One present came a little late!
We picked John’s glasses up Monday. He has been so good with them. He has an astigmatism just like Ruthanne (and me). So, he gets glasses too. He looks so much older yet so young, and smart! with them on!
Ruthanne riding her scooter. She gets better every day.
John on his new bike. This is called a balance bike (his is a Mini Glider). They help kids learn to balance before pedaling. Since Ruthanne is 6.5 and not riding her bike without the training wheels, I thought this might be a better way to go. John loves it! Today he was picking up both feet and gliding around. I bet he will be able to pedal a two wheeler before Ruthanne! Oh, and you gotta listen to Ruthanne in this video.
Look at what Santa brought.
Paul with his puppy from his stocking. Poor boy didn’t feel good on Christmas.
Standing with his cool walker toy.
In true baby fashion, the bows were the best part!
A very American Girl Christmas! Only one new doll but some new outfits for Ruthie too!
Opening the Bat Cave (Batman toy). He loves it!
John is especially grateful for all his new toys. He keeps saying, I just love my new presents! They have had a lot of fun, especially with the bike and scooter. I’m uploading videos of them now!
We went to Brunswick the week of Christmas to visit since we hadn’t been since this summer. We stayed long enough to see Uncle Ken, Aunt Martha, and Hannah for a little while too.
Paul especially loved Aunt Kathy.
And perhaps her crutches even more. And, that is Uncle Ken doing what he does best there in the background.
Trouble. Hannah and Ruthanne were a mess! Ruthanne spent the night at Mamom’s with Hannah that night. The next day when I went to get her she was hoarse from so much playing! They also got very little sleep that night.
Paul’s first Christmas present.
“I always wanted one of these!” said John about his Spiderman sleeping bag.
“I hope its not clothes.” or something similar is what Ruthanne said when she saw the clothing box. When she opened the box and saw there was a dress for her and a matching dress for her American Girl doll, she was happy about it and we almost couldn’t get the dress off of her after she tried it on.
This was just a crazy expression my camera caught on John’s face. Crazy boy!
Christmas Eve Eve over, now onto Christmas Eve. We made Rice Krispie treat Gingerbread houses with Hannah before leaving for home. Uncle Ken’s camera has those pictures though.
I try to have the kids make something every year to give out at Christmas. This year I painted these wooden Christmas trees and bought them sticky gems to put on as ornaments. They enjoyed making them. Here are a few pictures:
Why, yes, sticking your tongue out does help the gems stick!
Little Miss Perfect.
Oh, and this activity took about two times more gems than I planned for!
And no blogging? I'm in a rut I think. I thought I had life tackled with three kids, apparently not! Life has just seemed busy lately and with the holidays I don't really see an end in sight.
We finally put up the tree tonight. Why didn’t I buy a bigger tree after Christmas last year? I’ve always liked our little 3 ft tree. It always seemed like it fit into our home just right. Well, this year I got it out of the box and set it out and all of a sudden, we need a bigger tree. I guess since we’ve doubled our square footage we should double our tree at least. I’m afraid it will have to wait until after Christmas though, I can’t buy a tree knowing I can get one 1/2 price or less after Christmas. Anyhow, a few pics from tonight:
Paul with the lights.
Ruthanne decorating the tree.
John decorating the tree with a fragilous (his word) ornament.
Naked baby last night. He has gotten a little crazy with the tongue!
Big boy!
With Grandpa before bed.
Kids making oreo turkeys on Thanksgiving. They didn’t quite turn out, my icing wasn’t thick enough. The kids had fun eating them anyways!
Hunter especially loved the baby and always wanted to hold Paul, so sweet!
In preparation for Thanksgiving we made some placemats with corn rubbings.
This last picture is from almost a month ago soon after the new Walmart opened and the kids got free balloons. Paul loved them!
I can’t believe Paul is already seven months old. He is so big and is already into everything even though he can’t move much. I’m definitely not ready for him to learn to crawl, nothing will be safe! I’ve tried to get him on video saying ba ba ba, but not quite successful. I don’t know what it means, but it is a sound he makes. I don’t think the other kids made such a distinct sound this early, maybe he will be my early (or at least on time) talker! He has a dr appointment Friday so we will see how he is growing. I will also try to get Ruthanne on video playing a Christmas song soon, she loves the piano!
We got a digital piano on Monday and Ruthanne started lessons Tuesday morning. She has been playing non-stop it seems! These were taken Wednesday morning, she has these two songs memorized already now! I’m glad she likes it!
Mary Had a Little Lamb
The Train
Meanwhile Mr. Paul has been sick. Sick babies are the worst. John shared his cold with Paul, but John has been good now at helping John be happy. I took a picture of Paul the other night sleeping, mouth wide open so he could breathe.
We had a little fun with Paul today while he was happy. This shows some of Paul’s funny personality.
We had a couple of Halloween activities this past weekend. Friday night we took the kids on post to a Haunted House. I actually dressed them all up for this and we had time for a photo shoot!
Batman and Princess Ruthanne. Ruthanne just wanted to be a princess she didn’t want a costume with the picture of a princess on it (aka Disney princess costume). This was actually a Barbie Princess and the Pauper costume, but definitely not as well known. Its amazing she got a new costume the way she was acting earlier in the week, but with seven minutes to spare I made the purchase on amazon, thank goodness for amazon prime!
Sorry there are so many of these, but there was no perfect picture!
The next two (well really the second one) are funny.
Luke took them in the haunted house. We knew it would be too much for Paul. The kids only made it half way through the haunted house and went out the escape hatch.
Halloween night we had to wait for the rain to stop, but thankfully it did at the perfect time! Before the trick or treating.
During the trick or treating. I don’t know why Ruthanne keeps jutting that hip out, do princesses do that?
Inspecting the loot! We didn’t go too crazy on the number of houses and the kids like to pass out candy too, we lasted about 45 minutes I guess. It seemed like only 1 in about 3 houses had their lights on so it was a fair amount of walking.
This boy has the craziest expressions.
The kids already want to go trick or treating again. Sorry John gotta wait until next year! They were also sad I threw away the candy spooky house. I appeased them by saying we would do another one closer to Christmas. Yay, I got my counter back!
The tooth:
Trying to be a big boy!
The first cereal. Move those hands!
This stuff might be okay.
Being silly with John’s Halloween mask.
Cute picture playing on the couch.
Funny boy doesn’t like tylenol. He pretty much made this face during the first time with rice cereal too. Like, what are you putting in my mouth!
