Tis the Season

It's 70 degrees and mid December!  I'll take this climate change every day of the week and twice on Sundays.  Speaking of great unseasonal weather, Thanksgiving was this awesome too.  We headed down to my Uncle Marty's and Aunt Dena's to celebrate with the Prochaskas.  It was a blast.   And it was warm too, so the kids could play outside, and boy, did they ever.  They ran and played hide and go seek and jumped on the trampoline and just had a great time.  We visited with everyone, and it was nice to catch up.  And of course the food was tasty too :)

My cousins, Lauren and Jackson

The family milling about and talking

Andrew and Emily talking to Grandma P

A gaggle of cousins with my kids: Julia, Emily, Molly and my kids

That weekend we made our annual pilgrimage to Saum's Tree Farm to get the Adam's Family Christmas Tree.  Hannah and Laura did the choosing, and I think they did a great job once again.  Don't you?  The bad news?  Well we really didn't have time to decorate it that night, since we got it on a Sunday.  By the time we got back and ate some dinner, it was late, and we were tired.  So we had to wait a week to decorate it.  The girls were none too pleased about that.  There was a lot of belly aching about it throughout the week.  But our little kitten was thrilled.  She just loves the tree - that is climbing in it!  Oh yes, she has climbed all the way up and jumped out from the center.  She is a wild little kitty.

THE ADAMS FAMILY CHRISTMAS TREE!

So the next weekend, we got out all of the decorations, and Matt and the girls put the lights on first.  Then Matt went outside to work on the exterior lighting.  Me and the girls worked on the ornaments.  I decided to not put on many of my favorite, very fragile ornaments this year, given the wild kitten factor.  There's always next year.  Anyway, the tree turned out beautiful, and we had a great time.  The girls are actually finally getting to the age that are good at putting ornaments on the tree, so I think they enjoyed it more than in past years.

This is after decorating

Crashed after decorating

This Friday was Matt's and my annual shopping day.  We always take a Friday off in December to knock out the large majority of the shopping.  It's always a fun day to just hang out together, abd we had a great time again this year.  We had breakfast in the morning after we dropped the kids off at school and planned.  We only have one item that we CANNOT find.  Emma has asked Santa twice now for a pink bunny and a blue bunny.  I have no idea where this gift idea came from; it's not from any tv show that I know of or any of character.  So of course, there are absolutely no bunnies out there right now, since it's not Easter.  We have checked in baby departments, about a dozen stores, and online.  We've even checked the dog toy section!  No shame.  We may have improvise.  Otherwise, we mostly got the rest of the shopping done yesterday.  I only have one more person and stocking stuffers to get.  Now we just need to start wrapping.  Ugg.  Wrapping is not my most favorite activity.

Last night was the Manley family Christmas party.  My Aunt Lisa babysat for us, so Matt and I could go.  It was a blast.  The Manleys are like our second family, and we had a great time celebrating and laughing with them.   In the morning I asked Hannah how the evening was, and she said, "It was good, we only a few meltdowns."  Oh lovely.  My poor aunt.  

As for the rest of the weekend, we....I mean Matt has to finish our Christmas cards.  Hopefully it will go out on Monday.  Christmas festivities are going well.  We still hope to squeeze in a few more activities: some cookie baking, maybe zoo lights, and maybe a movie, over the next couple of weeks.

I hope your Christmas Season is going well too! 

Week In My Life: Sunday

This is it.  This is the last day of Week In My Life.  I hope you have enjoyed it.  Today was a fairly lazy day.  We woke up, fed the kids some breakfast, made some coffee, and watched Blue Bloods.  We had DVR'd it from Friday night.  It's kind of become our Sunday morning tradition.  Then we half watched a couple other shows and read the paper/browsed the ads. 

The kids came down and acted out a small play with an alligator, a unicorn, and a monkey.  It was hilarious. I did something else, but I don't remember what it was.  By lunchtime, I was hungry for something good.  So I made us what I had originally planned for dinner.  I sauteed garlic, kale, dried tomatoes, and sausage, and we put it over whole wheat pasta.  It was delicious.  The kids ate it fairly well.

After lunch we got to work.  The kids wanted to do more Legos, so they hauled a bunch of them up from the basement.  Matt went to the garage to work.  And I did laundry.  That's what I did this morning - I couldn't remember!  Anyway, I continued to work on laundry and cleaned up the kitchen.  Then I helped Hannah with her Legos.  She made a stable.  Laura worked on a star wars set.  Emma was frustrated, since she is not interested in Legos.  She ended up with the ipad for a while.  Matt got the garage cleaned out and my van in it!  Yay!  He has a table set up on the one side to stage Christmas decorations.  We are preparing!

After bit, we started to get ready for church at 5:30.   Church was packed, and we had to sit in the cry room.  We used to be regulars in the cry room, but we actually haven't sat in there for a while.  It was loud and chaotic as normal.  After church, we discussed what Christmas movies we can't wait to watch.  The kids are pretty excited for Johnny to make his arrival too.  This week he comes back!  We went through Wendy's, and ate when we got home.  Then I folded some laundry and sent the older two to shower.   

Emma playing while the other girls got ready for church.

The kids attacking Daddy!

The kids headed to bed - ready for a short week!  Matt and I settled in and eagerly awaited The Walking Dead!  And it did not disappoint - Glen is alive!

For the last round of WIML 2015 - click on over to http://teamwhitaker.org/

Week In My Life: Saturday

I'm just now writing this post, since last night I was wallowing in despair...stupid Buckeyes.

Let's start with the good stuff.  We started the morning getting ready for Laura's first Reconciliation.  This is a sacrament in the Catholic Church where one goes to a priest and asks forgiveness for all of his or her sins.  The priest, through God, forgives the individual's sins, and the individual receives Christ's love and mercy.  Laura was so excited!  All the girls dressed up in their pretty dresses.

They had a nice little service prior to the confessions being heard.  Laura chatted with all of her friends prior to the service.  They all checked out each other's dresses, since they are always in uniforms!  They had nine priests.  So three stayed in the church, and six went over to the school classrooms.  There were about 60ish kids receiving their first Reconciliation.  Of course we ended up near the back of one of the lines at the school due to the "glub incident."

Gaggle of girls

Laura waiting for the service to begin.

I mentioned on Friday that we went to Target to get shoes for Laura.  Well, Hannah ended up getting some too, and Emma wanted some new glubs (gloves).  Remember the picture earlier in the week with her standing in her jammies, princess crown, and her Michael Jackson glove?  We  walked in Target, and Emma spotted a shelf stuffed with those stretchy gloves.  She dug through it till she found the perfect pair, and that's what she got at Target.  There is another funny glub story that I will tell later.  So fast forward, she of course wore her glubs to the ceremony.  Well when it was time to go to a priest, we of course could not find one of her glubs!  Oh no!  We searched under our pew, under the pew in front of us, everywhere - no glub.  So we left to get in a line - at the end of one!

Laura's friend, Julia, was next in line behind us, so we chatted with them.  We have gotten to know many of the parents in Laura's class, and Julia is one of her good friends.  In the course of talking, Julia's mom had spotted the missing glub!  Apparently Emma had dropped it on the way into church.  So Emma and I walked back over to the church to reclaim it.  Emma was so happy to have both of her glubs.

As Laura neared the front of the line, she was getting a little more nervous.  But she didn't have too much time to think about it, as the line went fairly quickly.  Laura came out literally glowing!  She was so excited when she was done.  She said she felt so much better.  We went to the cafeteria, and she received a certificate and a pin.  Then we enjoyed some punch/coffee and cookies.  It was a nice morning.

The girls after the reception

The glubs

Next we came home and got into our gameday mindset!!  Matt had recorded College Gameday, which was at Ohio State this weekend, and we watched it and cracked our first adult beverages.  I had purchased a sixer of my favorite seasonal beer, Christmas Ale.  Matt decided to try it, and he decided he doesn't like it!  Whaaattt?  Crazypants.  I worked on the Legos with Laura that she got for her birthday for a while, and we made monkey bread, also Laura's request.  Our neighbor stopped over for a while, which was fun.  The kids all played together, and we chatted and watched some of the noon games.  Then later of course, the Buckeyes came on and were terrible.  For some reason, the whole time we were only up 7 or tied, I just wasn't worried until the very end.  I kept thinking that we would go to OT.  But no.

Our first try at Monkey bread.  Yum!

Laura battling Emory.

Hannah, or I mean Katniss, taking on Darth Small (Emma)

A battle occurring behind the couch.

Laura and the finished product.

Oh well, it's Beat M*ch*gan week now!!  That's really all that matters.

After the game we found a movie on Netflix or HBO - Blended.  It had Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore in it.  I really didn't have high expectations, but it was a pretty good movie.  It had some good, funny parts in it.  Emma fell asleep in the chair.  So Matt carried her upstairs and read Hannah a bedtime story.  Laura finished drawing her picture, and then she and I called it a night.

Hannah and her picture.

Catch more WIML 2015 at http://teamwhitaker.org/

Week In My Life: Friday

Ugh!  Friday started out rough!  All three of my kids either had a tantrum this morning as we were trying to get out the door or caused me to have one.  Then I got downtown to work, which is not my normal location, and I checked my schedule for the down only to realize that I needed to be at a different location that afternoon.  I was super crabby.  Not a good way to start the day.

Nonetheless, I had a fairly productive morning at work, and my friend, Lisa suggested we go to Buca for lunch.  Yummy, bread and cheese and marinara make everything right with the world.  Or it at least made me feel better.  (Yes, food therapy.  I was working, so wine wasn't an option!)  The afternoon went well after that.

The kids had a fun afternoon too.  Matt sometimes does an event with the alumni band called Hyper Friday.  Traditionally this event was held the Friday before the MI game.  Hyper Friday is when the alumni band travels around town in a charter bus and plays music at area businesses, bars, and schools.  I rode along one year when Matt and I were dating, and it was a BLAST!  There might also be some adult beverages consumed throughout the day.  Anyway, since they moved the MI game to the week of Thanksgiving, they have since had to move Hyper Friday to the week before, which is right before the Michigan State game.  Not as cool, but whatever.  There is much more that could be said about this shift in weeks, but this isn't the blog for that commentary.  For this very long story made even longer...Matt got our school on the schedule this year for Hyper Friday.  So the alumni band stopped and played some songs (kind of like a mini pep rally) at the kids' school.  The alumni cheerleaders traveled with the band too.  Matt said the girls were both proud as peacocks!  When I picked the kids up from school later that day, the teachers commented to me how much fun it was and how much the  kids loved it. 

Emma was at daycare/preschool today.  When I picked her up, she had marker all of her nose.  The teacher said they were smelling the markers.  Nice.  My kid is sniffing markers in preschool.  She washed her face off, and we left to start our evening, which was full of chores.  Nothing fun.  But I wanted to get everything done so that we could enjoy our weekend.  So we went to Target to Laura some shoes for tomorrow.  She has her first Reconciliation.  It's a big day!  Then we went to Kroger to get groceries for the week.  It wasn't horrible since I really didn't need too much this week.  I did a pretty big run last week at Kroger and Sam's Club to restock my supplies. 

We still didn't get home until almost 8:00pm.  I unloaded groceries, and the two older girls went upstairs for a shower.  I gave Emma some food out the fridge.  Then I gave her the ipad and put groceries away.  Then I went upstairs to put laundry away.  The girls picked up the living room, and they all went to bed.  Busy night!

I wish I could remember some Emma quotes from today.  She was hilarious.  Whenever she doesn't like something I'm doing or saying, she let's out a big sigh and then says, "You're kidding me!" 

This morning Emma and Hannah were done getting ready, and they were waiting on me to finish up before going downstairs.  Well Hannah goes up to Emma and says, " Hey Emma, wanna wrestle?"  And Emma gets an ornery grin on her face and says, " OOOh Yea!" and spins Hannah around.  It was so funny to watch! 

Another week in the books.  Sorry no pictures today.  Just too chaotic.  I'll make up for it tomorrow!  Check out Team Whitaker at http://teamwhitaker.org/ for more WIML 2015.  See you tomorrow :)  Go Bucks!  Beat Sparty!

Week In My Life: Thursday

It's the end of the day Thursday, which means ONE. MORE. DAY!!  It's the best part about Thursday.  Thursday started like most days.  I got up to exercise and then got every one up and around.  We were running on time today, and everything went smoothly.

My work day went as normal too.  I contemplated taking a picture of my work area and my cube.  But who wants to see that!  Boring!  Do you all have things at your desk that "entertain" you or make your desk fun?  My desk is fairly boring, but I do have several family pictures.  And I have a Dilbert desk calendar.  I love that calendar!  Every morning I tear off the page to the current day and read the comic.  Most days it's funny, and I can so relate to it in corporate America.

After work, I picked up the Bigs, and Matt picked up Emma.  We have to split on Thursdays since it's piano night.  I take the kids through a drive thru for dinner, and then we head over to lessons.  We used to rush home and gulp down some food that I had in the crock pot or cereal or something.  But it just became too stressful.  Our kids are not fast eaters, and too often we didn't get out of work exactly on time.  So now, we just budget for those planned eat-out meals.  Tonight we had McDonald's.  Thankfully, my kids are not big fries eaters.  So they pretty much eat nuggets, apples, and milk.  It's not an ideal dinner, but it could be worse.  If McDonald's could add some veggies to their happy meals??  Right?

Piano lessons went really well.  The girls are playing Christmas music, and they are enjoying learning those songs.  Laura has 6 or 7 songs in her repertoire, and I think Hannah has 4 songs in hers.  Our piano teacher just had a baby, so I held him a little during the lesson.  Gotta love baby snuggles!  Added benefit to piano lessons these days :)  One funny thing - when Hannah was in her lesson,  I noticed that Hannah's socks were on the piano teacher's living room floor and on her couch.  I went in to the lesson room, and sure enough, Hannah was barefooted!  I think she has gotten a little too comfortable...

When we got home, I check Laura's homework, and Matt packed lunches quickly.  And then off to bed the kiddies went.  Little Emma was stylin' in her princess crown and her Michael Jackson gloves.  She announced to me that school was not good because Lasia did not want to be her best friend anymore.  I have a feeling Emma might experience this more than once as she gets older!  (She's probably too bossy!)

Sorry for the lack of pictures today.  For more WIML2015 go to Team Whitaker at http://teamwhitaker.org/

Week In My Life: Wednesday

I'm exhausted!  And I didn't even wake up early to exercise this morning.  I've been looking at data and reports all day; I think I'm mentally tired.  And it's rainy and dreary in Ohio, a perfect day to stay under the covers.

Wednesday was fairly normal around here.  Wednesday is a Grammy day, so we only had to get the two older girls up and out the door this morning.  I was thankful too.  Emma didn't feel good this morning.  She felt warm,  but she wasn't running a temp.  The whole time that we were getting ready, she just laid on the bed.  That is VERY unusual.  That's how I knew she must really not feel well.  Mom said that she perked up later that morning, so who knows what was going on. 

Laura practiced her math facts this morning before we left for school this morning.  She has timed math tests on Wednesdays.  She has to do 25 problems in 2 minutes.  This has been a struggle for her this year.  So we have been trying to lots of extra practicing using various methods. 

Laura practicing her math facts

Poor Emmy - not feeling well

H eating her pancakes in a bag

The work day was typical.  Nothing new to report there.  I changed out my picture of Emma at my desk.  We got her school pictures back yesterday.  I always love pulling out all of the old pictures in the back of the frame.  I can't believe how much she grows each year!  My baby is getting big :( 

Matt picked me up from work today, and we got the kids from after school care.  Traffic was terrible - because it's raining in Columbus.  Heaven forbid there is any precipitation!  Anyway we got home a few minutes later, and mom had squash ready for dinner!  This is one of Laura's favorite meals.  My dad grew some of the squash.  They were delicious.  My mom halves them and then bakes them in the oven.  Then she brown's hamburger with peppers and onions, and we eat that over the squash. So good!!!

Laura eating her favorite dinner - squash

Emma was her normal difficult toddler at dinner time.  I keep waiting for the fighting to end at dinner.  I was definitely not fighting with the older two at this age every. single. night.  The only time we don't fight with Emma at dinner is if we are having spaghetti or mac and cheese.  So maybe we should just have that every night!  Just kidding. 

Then began the rig-a-ma-roll of the rest of the evening.  Homework, lunches, piano, etc.  Matt did lunches tonight, and he helped Hannah with piano, while I helped Laura with homework.  So that expedites the evening a little.  The kids had about 20 minutes of free time before bedtime.  We have recently stopped allowing them screen time during the week.  Normally they would each grab a screen for those 20 minutes.  But instead Hannah and Emma are involved in some pretend play, and Laura is drawing a creating a book on a notepad.  Much better use of their time!  Don't you think?

Another day in the books.  Only two more days till the weekend!

See more WIML2105 over at http://teamwhitaker.org/

PS.  The linky finally got fixed late yesterday.

Week In My Life: Tuesday

I started my Tuesday by exercising at 5:30am.  (I did it Monday too but didn't mention it.)  I have to set the alarm for 5:00 and wake up gradually.  Oh how I hate it!  I don't mind exercising, but I do not like doing it in the morning.  I just really don't have a choice at this time in my life.  Evenings are really busy, and I don't have the option of doing it during the day, which means mornings are it. 

At about 6:15 I normally head upstairs to rouse the gang, but this morning I was running a little late.  I didn't actually start exercising until about 5:45 because I was messing with this blog!  So I didn't end up back upstairs until about 6:30.  That means our whole morning was rush, rush, rush ,rush.  The kids get in their uniforms, brush hair, and brush teeth while I take a shower.  Then after I'm out and dressed, I get Emma ready.  On Tuesdays Emma goes to daycare/preschool.  This morning while I was in the shower, one of the kids yelled, "Mom, Emma's naked chasing the cat!"  Typical.  That was pretty much the essence of the morning.

Once we had everyone ready, we came downstairs for a quick breakfast.  Hannah and Emma ate pancakes in a bag.  They love them!  They are these little bags of Pillsbury pancakes that are microwavable.  You don't add syrup.  You just open the bag, and the kids eat them with their hands.  They aren't sticky, and they are super quick.  I love them for days like today.  Laura is somewhat of a picky eater, in that she won't eat these yummy treats.  So she ate a granola bar and an apple.  While the kids ate, I put the lunches together and made coffee. 

Then out the door we went. I dropped everyone off at their respective places this morning.  Matt had a meeting in Delaware this morning, so we drove separate.  After our days at work, I also picked up tonight.  Matt decided to work late, so I was on my own.

Loading up in the morning

Nice Hippy Hair Emma!

When we got home, Laura and Hannah immediately went upstairs to shower, while I cooked dinner.  We had Kale Pizza tonight.  It was Hannah's choice.  I got it from the Real Simple magazine, but don't follow it exactly.  I use store bought whole wheat crust and regular mozzarella cheese.  And I don't make the crusts in the skillet, I just bake them by the instructions on the package.  It always turns out really good though.

Emma watched ipad while I cooked dinner

After we ate dinner, it's homework time.  Laura started on her IXL, a math application, and Hannah practiced piano.  They are working on Christmas music right now.  #loveit  Then Laura worked on her other homework, Math and Religion tonight, and Hannah did IXL.  Laura didn't get to piano tonight - maybe tomorrow night. 

Laura working on IXL

Hannah practicing piano

At 8:00 , they headed off to bed.  I finished up some chores - packed Laura's lunch and loaded the dishwasher.  And finally I sat down to write this! Whew!  Rat race is over for another day.

Check out Team Whitaker for more WIML 2015.  The link up didn't work for Monday's post; maybe we'll have better luck today!