Family Time

The kids and I headed for Michigan after Christmas for a visit with my family. We had lots of time with my brother and his family. The kids loved being with their cousins. One of the best parts of our trips to Michigan is watching the kids play together. They really love each other.

Jack and Patrick with Parker John


Uncle Brian let Ella Jane go for a ride on their horse. Uh, I mean dog. Zoe was very tolerant of the kids playing we her; she's a sweet dog. Believe it or not, she's still a puppy... a big puppy!

Do I not have the cutest nieces ever! McKenna is on the left and Gabryelle is on the right. Kenna and Ella Jane were adorable playing together. They were two peas in a pod.

Below is my dad, Uncle Robert, and Aunt Marcia (Robert is #8 out of the 9 siblings). Marcia spends her time at family gatherings playing with the kids. She's fantastic with them and they adore her! As a kid, I remember how great it was to have her undivided attention and now she's pampering my kids the same way.

Baba having an evening cuddle and read with her girls. These are the best moments, aren't they?!?

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas morning. We told the kids they couldn't get out of bed until 6:30 a.m., but Jack must have missed that memo. At 6:00 he was next to me jumping up and down. Isabelle and Patrick were not too far behind them. We waited until Ella Jane woke up (at 6:30) to go downstairs and open gifts. Before we made it into the living room Kevin fell down the stairs and landed on Patrick. Uh, not the way to start the morning! Thankfully both my guys were okay and once we redirected Patrick the mood went right back to pure joy!

Of course the kids had fun opening all their gifts.
Isabelle wrapped up little gifts for Kevin and I and wrote us sweet little Christmas notes.

Ella Jane was thrilled with her dress up, princess, and Dora gifts. She wore her Dora backpack all day! She had her crown on most the day too. I found this unicorn costume shortly after Halloween and thought this would be perfect for Ella Jane who is really starting to get into imaginary play and dress up.

The boys had fun finding all the little things stuffed in their stockings.

Just when they thought the present excitement was over Daddy told the kids to sit down and wait for one more surprise. Kevin surprised all of us with a Wii and Wii Fit! They kids were very excited! We've had a blast since then trying out all the activities.

After gifts we had breakfast. I have made it an annual tradition to make my grandma's recipe for sticky buns. Christmas day marked two years since her death. This is just a little way I pass on my Grandma's beautiful memory with my kids.

Kevin works so many hours in December, so by Christmas day (his only day off in 19 days) he's pretty tired. After breakfast, but before heading out to his family Christmas party Kevin took a little Christmas morning nap. He went right back to the craziness of the retail world on the morning of the 26th, but not until after we spent Christmas evening with his Mom and her side of the family. It was a lovely day.

On the left is Kevin with his mom and brother, Peter. On the left are Ramona and Tony on the right side of the camera. They are always taking lots of pictures so it's a rare moment to get them in front of the lens. Everyone had a good time celebrating at their house and eating some traditional Polish food... yum perogis and mushroom soup!

Cookies, Fun, & Friends

The kids and I spent the day with our friends, the Martins. Jen and I spent the day making about 18 dozen cookies! The 8 kids played wonderfully together as Jen and I baked.

We've decided that this will become an annual event. I think Jen and I had as much fun (or more) than the kids did. Baking all those cookies didn't seem like a chore at all with such good company to share the work. It was a wonderful day of laughs, good conversation, and lots of sugar! I made sure to bring salads for lunch to counteract all that sweet!

Nick and Jenna helping their Mom with the cutouts. I think mostly they were eating the dough!

The kids were good helpers when it was time to cut out the shapes.



Jack and Jake put together a Lego car. It's great to see their friendship. We don't see each other as often as we'd like, but when we do it's as if no time has past at all.

Isabelle is great with the little girls. Marissa and Ella Jane are both WAY into Dora! Isabelle read them a Dora book. The two little girls played so nicely together all day. Even with 8 kids running around Max, the dog, stayed near by (probably waiting for a cookie or two to drop). Ella Jane threw her arms around his neck and said, "Oh, Max, you are such a good boy". And he really is a good boy, to put up with the craziness of all the kids!

Tom has a large model train set in the basement. He took Patrick down and let him "drive the black train". Patrick was in his glory. Can you think of anything he would love more?!?! Unfortunately, I didn't get a great picture of Patrick with the train because he could not take his attention off of it to pose for a picture. When I tucked Patrick into bed at the end of the day I asked him what his favorite part of the day was and he said, "playing with Uncle Tom and his train!" AWW!


We woke up to about 5 inches of unexpected snow. The big kids headed out to play and build a big snowman. Isabelle said that he was "pathetic", but I was impressed. He was complete with celery arms and a pine cone nose.


Jack and Jake had a snowball fight!


8 kids from left to right: Jenna (5), Ella Jane (2), Jake (7), Jack (8), Isabelle (9), Nick (4), Marissa (2), and Patrick (4).

Let me tell you, this was NOT an easy picture to take. Getting 8 kids to sit still, look at a camera, and smile all at the same time... tough!

Times like this with our families together are so wonderful. Our kids are growing up together, which is really neat to watch. This friendship for all of us has been such a blessing and something we will treasure for years to come. When Tom, Jen, Kevin and I became friends none of us were married. Now look at us.... 12 1/2 years and 8 kids later!

Stars of the Show!

The kids had their winter concerts at school. Jack sang with the entire K-3rd grade. The did a little play called the "Littlest Christmas Tree".


Isabelle had her first band concert. I was so proud. I actually had tears in my eyes seeing how grown up Isabelle is. They did really well; they played 4 songs. Hit pause on the music player before playing this video. As I told my mom, it was "fantastically awful"!


Patrick had a concert also. Unfortunately, he was in the back and we couldn't really see him. But, they did a great job!

Mary, Joseph, & an Angel

Jack, Isabelle, and Patrick were all in our church's Christmas play. The storyline was of a group of students telling their teacher what their favorite part of the Christmas story was. While this was going on the Christmas story was acted out silently. The kids choir sang throughout the play and the "choir of angels" sang 2 songs in the middle of the play.

Jack was Joseph. He did great, although he did look like he might fall asleep sitting on the hay; I suppose having a newborn makes one tired!

sabelle played the part of Brooke. She was the first student, front row. She did great with her lines. We were so proud of her!

Patrick (the center angel) was adorable! The choir of angels were all 3 and 4 year olds. Too cute!! Patrick may have stolen the show. He was "that kid". You know, the one who waved, looked around and said, "hi Mommy" really loudly. He also waved and said "hi" to Isabelle and Jack. Too funny! It really was a great way to kick of the holiday season and get us into the true Christmas spirit.

First Snow

We had no more than a dusting of snow last week. Patrick and Ella Jane were asking to play in it before 7:00 a.m.! They bundled up and headed out. Both had a great time!

Patrick taught Ella Jane how to do snow angels. More surprisingly, Patrick was making snow angels. Last winter Patrick didn't even like to touch the snow, let alone lie down in it. These small things are such a big deal in Patrick's life. I told his OT and PT about it and they both were thrilled!

CRAZY Cat!

We decided to pull out the Christmas tree today. Nessa took one look at it and scaled to the top! She's insane! She was climbing into, lying on, and chewing on the branches. At one point she was even hanging upside down. It might be a challenging few weeks with a tree, a kitten, and a two year old. Unfortunately, this is one of the ugliest artificial trees ever so it needs lights and ornaments to disguise it's ugliness. We're thinking of putting only lights on this year to avoid any CATastophes.

No More Baby!

Today was a big day for Ella Jane! The past several days she's been trying to get out of her crib. Today, she figured it out! She quickly launched herself onto the floor 3 times in a row. Finally, Isabelle convinced her to stay in her bed for nap. But, I fear a broken bone and knew that this meant the crib had to come down and the big girl bed had to go up. While Ella Jane is thrilled and so excited, I am heartbroken. I actually sat and cried. This marks a very big moment for me as a mom. I will never again have a crib in this house. This is something that is very hard for me. I always imagined the season of my life where I was taking care of babies would last a long time. Now, it's been nearly 10 years since I became a mom, but in a blink I no longer have a baby. It helps to see the big smile on her face, but I still have an ache in my chest. Only time will tell how tough this transition will be. I'm sure she will be in and out of her bed several times at bedtimes and naptimes. Hopefully, it will be easier than I expect.

When the cat's away....

....the mice will play!!

I turned on Dora for Patrick and Ella Jane then went upstairs to take a shower. When I was out of the shower and getting dressed I heard a loud noise from the boys room. I called down and asked what it was. Patrick said he dumped out his bin of trains. When I went downstairs this is what I found.


They moved furniture, dumped all the trains and toys, pulled every book off the shelf and Ella Jane even colored on her face (while wearing a pumpkin costume).


Needless to say I was not thrilled. I told the kids they had to clean up and they said, "no, you do it". Uh, not quite! It wasn't easy, but we finally got the room back to somewhat of a normal state. Hopefully, the rest of the day will be better. Is it nap time yet?

Thriller Night!

Halloween, 2009 was a bit slow, but the kids still had a good time. There were very few houses handing out candy and very few kids out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We think the invasion of H1N1 kept people holed up. We, luckily, made a recovery (all 4 kids had the virus) and were able to go out. Despite the quiet night we still ended up with mass quantities of candy. I think because at many houses they were giving away handfuls to each kid so they wouldn't have left overs.

Jack was Dale Ernhardt Jr. and Isabelle was Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West from Wicked).

Ella Jane was a dalmatian and Patrick was Mr. Incredible (minus the mask, which he didn't like).


Two extra layers of clothes under everyone's costumes kept us warm.

We saw our friend, Leah who was a kitty. It was really cute. She and Ella Jane were walking down the sidewalk hand-in-hand. Leah would say "meow meow" and Ella Jane would say "woof woof". We saw Isabelle's best friend Jaci in her Candy Corn Witch costume that she sewed all by herself!