Coming Out of the Christmas Fog....

Sorry for the absence!! I was recovering at a Christmas overdose facility!! Ha!!

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST HAS PICTURE OVERLOAD!!

Our family had a wonderful Christmas and the kids were evidently on Santa's nice list because they got some of the things they asked for!!

Christmas Eve with Papa Cheese and Grandma Strawberry - Rocco played Santa

Santa without pants.....That boy was crazy Christmas Eve. Its like he went a little nuts realizing he could rip into that paper and find a present. He ripped all kids of presents that weren't even his!!! He was sooooo wired!! This is him belting out "Santa Claus is coming to town" by Bruce Springsteen. (That's his favorite Christmas song - he also will play the sax in the song). Hilarious!!!!

He still does not have any pants??? He loved climbing under Grandma Strawberry's tree to find more presents.

He got a golf set so now he can golf with Poppy and Daddy!!!

Jillian got Rapunzel!!

Christmas morning at our house - The kids woke up at 6:00 am. Grammie and Poppy and Uncle Bill-Bill and Aunt Mashure were not coming until 7:00 so we watched Snow White upstairs until everyone was present and accounted for!! The funniest thing happened....we couldn't get Rocco to come down the stairs. I think he was a little startled that everyone was over and watching him. Finally he decided to come down when he heard Jillian going bananas!!

KK was busy crunching the paper!!

Hadleigh got a present!!! She looks thrilled right??

Rocco got a train table!!

Jillian got a lot of princesses!! In her words, "just what she wanted!"

A Buzz Lightyear umbrella!!

A Belle dress up costume (with accessories)!!

A Buzz Lightyear dress up costume with power wings!!!

Then he changed into his new Woody pajamas!! (Please ignore the pink sparkle shoes. Those did not come with the pajamas. Those are Jillian's.)

We went over to Grammie and Poppy's for lunch! Hadleigh and KK were playing so well together.

Until Hadleigh got very rough with poor KK and bopped him over the head with one of her toys.

Rocco spent the rest of the day in his Buzz Lightyear costume and opened more presents!!

Jillian spent the rest of the day in her Belle costume and showing off her new furry vest with tattoo!!!

And don't forget a pink sequin purse to go with it!!

A Buzz Lightyear to go with the "real" Buzz Lightyear!!! (do you see the BL obsession we are having at our house??)G & P got her a mini-castle to go with her mini-princesses (do you see the Princess overload we are having at our hous) :-)

Finally, the day after Christmas, Roy and Gavin arrived!!!

Hadleigh wanted to play with paper and goldfish!!

Rocco got a superhero cape and goggles!!

Not to be outdone, Jillian got a pink superhero cape and goggles!!!

And we are DONE!!!!

Thank you to Grammie and Poppy, Mashure and Bill-Bill, Papa Cheese and Grandma Strawberry, Uncle Matt and Aunt Lisa, and Aunt Kelly for the wonderful presents. We are lucky to have you!!!

Saving $$

This post is dedicated to Summer!!! She gets so annoyed when I save a lot of money!! This year with the birth of baby #3, I quickly learned that it takes a lot of money to run this ship. So even though I did use coupons before Hadleigh, I really got serious about consistently using coupons for everything - groceries, diapers, clothes, toys, restaurants, etc. Everybody has coupons. You just have to take the time to find them and then use them!!!

The other day I scored a deal at BRU - when you bought 2 boxes of diapers, you got $35 in giftcards plus they will let you use coupons on the two boxes of diapers. That is a great savings and I can use the $35 to buy more diapers or whatever.

The deal that I got this morning was unbelievable. When my body failed me and poor Hadleigh, the doc put Hadleigh on this formula.....normally around $20 depending on the store. I use 1 big can a week. Add it up and that is a lot of money every month on formula!!!

This morning, my Mom called me and said hang on to your britches, you are not going to believe this but the sign says the formula is on clearance for $4.99!! What?????? Could this be right???? I high-tailed it over there and yes, she was right and I bought every can on the shelf!!

Here was my savings this morning!!! Isn't that awesome???

I always take a picture of my receipt and send it to Bryan so that he knows just how much money I am saving him and how much he should appreciate my hard work!! Ha ha!!!

Here is my record-setting receipt....back in November I saved $86.58. That was a lot of coupons in combination with our HEB discount!!!

Yay to saving money!!!!

Great Investment

Since my children had their first Christmas, they have been fascinated with nativity sets. Both my Mom and Bryan's mom have beautiful nativity sets in their homes.

My Mom's nativity looks a little like this. The figurines are very child-like.

My mom also inherited my Dad's mom's nativity set which is just gorgeous but I couldn't find a picture on the internet to do that one justice. It is VERY breakable with jewels and sparkles on the wise men. Very appealing to young fingers.....

Bryan's mother has a gorgeous nativity that looks like this....

What do all of these ladies' nativity sets have in common?? THEY ARE VERY VERY BREAKABLE. And to my children, this is just irresistable!!!! They are obsessed with baby Jesus!! Rocco will take the baby Jesus and hide it so only he can look at it. This drives my Mom and my MIL crazy!!! I worry everyday that one of my kids will break one of the pieces to the precious nativity sets!!!

So this year, I dropped $50 on the best invention ever!! Fisher Price's nativity set....My kids have played with it nonstop!!! Even Hadleigh is getting in on the action and fights Rocco over baby Jesus. Jillian is more interested in playing with the angels (anything with wings)!! But really, it has been such a great thing in our house because we talk about Jesus and the story of his birth everyday!!!

Cousin Pics

Sooo, a couple of weeks ago, my sister and I took our families to get their picture taken. Mom and Dad came too. Summer and Mom both wanted pictures for their Christmas cards and we do an annual cousin pic but everyone looked so stinking cute in the outfits that we coordinated that we jumped in for pics too.

Obviously with 5 children 5 and under (plus Roy but he is old enough to handle himself), we were worried about getting the babies to smile. Evidently the person we should have worried about is me. Seriously, in the group shots all 11 other people in the picture are looking at the camera and smiling. Not me, I am looking down in one and in another I am looking up. I don't know what I was doing??? Sigh...

Our family shot turned out pretty good...

Here I am with my sweet girls....

My handsome boys.....(isn't Rocco cute enough to eat in that tie??)This is the best one we got of all the cousins. Seriously, should we not be paid spokesmodels for Crazy 8??? Each one of them...totally adorable!!!! Look at Gavin's smile = awesome!! The black, red and grey look excellent in the pics! Again, what I am doing with my life that I go to law school then become a teacher when I really need to be professionally buying clothes for the rich and famous' children????

The studs....

The sweethearts....

One small craft....

This week I have soooooo enjoyed all of the blogs I read posting their holiday house tour however it really embarrasses me about how little decorating I do. Oh well. We have our tree up and our mantle decorated but that iis it......Maybe more next year??

Bryan is always in charge of the lights outside our house and he always goes a little nuts. This year he borrowed his brothers computer music box and the box makes the lights blink to the holiday tunes. He also created a christmas tree in our front yard by hanging the lights from our tree. The neighborhood contest was Monday night and Monday afternoon it rained. The music box got wet and the fuse blew. Bryan lost it. He raced all over town to find a replacement fuse and "fixed" it just in the nick of time but was very disappointed when he was awarded 3rd place. (Last year he got 1st.) He was really wanting a back-to-back championship. He is already planning how he will capture 1st next year.

Anyways, the kids do a lot of art at their school. I have been wanting a cute way to display it for months and just can't get my act together. But finally, I did and I think it turn out pretty cute

I try to display it with a theme (I know, I know.....me and my themes). Here is their Christmas art using their hands and feet for December.....

Here was my first month of art. They all did cute turkey projects for November!!

One more....

I am waiting for my note from the teacher as Jillian's hair fell out of the bun and out of the headband after tap and before ballet. She definitely had messy hair!!

But there was another girl who did not have her hair up all so at least we were one step ahead of that!!!

Ballet again...

Her main dance is too long. It is not letting me upload the video. Oh well.

These little snipits are pretty funny....

The ballet portion....

The ballet portion was my favorite part.....she knew a lot of the moves and sang her heart out!!!

The Tap Portion....

Last night was a total success!! Jillian is learning sooooo much!!! We were so proud of her. I got an explanation of the costume.....her class is only doing a tap number in the recital. Oh.....I grew up always doing a tap number AND a ballet number so her costume is for tap only. That makes a little more sense to me because that costume does not scream ballet.

Back to last night...... She was quite the ham. She was really more interested in singing the songs than doing the moves!! The hair is still an issue but she wanted to borrow Grammie's 1980s headband to hold her bangs back. Here she is ready to go for tap....

A little shuffle hop step....

I have been waiting for this day...

I think back in August I told ya'll about Jillian's desire to stop Little Gym and try ballet. We talked about it all summer and her story remained the same. She wanted to go to dance class. We enrolled her in a dance school right by our house. It is a pretty strict school (in my opinion). The girls have to wear a uniform (black leotard with pink tights) and their hair must be up. We have gotten several notes over the semester that Jillian's hair has been messy. Tsk, tsk. If they only knew how hard it was to get her to wear her hair up in the first place, I think they would be more understanding. Pretty ridiculous that they send a note like that anyways considering she is FOUR, but whatever. This is one of the reasons I say they are a little strict. Note the "messy" hair....


The other MAJOR issue I have with this school is that it is a parent-free zone. Seriously!! You drop your kid off at the dance studio and that's it. Bye! Bye! There are no parents allowed in. There are no windows or double-sided mirrors to glance in and check on your sweet tiny dancer. Jillian could be in there learning chess and I wouldn't have a clue!!! She is like Fort Knox when she gets out of class. I have to pry anything about class out of her. When I ask her to show me something she has learned, this is what I get.....

PATHETIC!!!! Since the school has a no-parent policy, they have a winter showcase and tonight is the night!! We'll get to see if Jillian is learning fly-fishing or ballet!!

Also, we have been waiting to see pictures of her recital in June. Again, Jillian has been sooooo secretive and would not tell us a single word about the costume. Finally, last week, all the pics of the costumes were up in the hallways. Honestly, I was a little taken aback when I saw this...........

This does not say sweet tiny ballerina. Where is the simple pink sparkle tutu??? I mean this looks like Minnie Mouse as a floozy (this is my nice word that I am using as opposed to something rhyming with "looker"). I do not think I am over-reacting. Isn't this a little strange for a four year old's first dance recital?? I don't know?? Obviously, things have changed in 25 years since my ballet dance recitals.......maybe I will post an old pic of my dance costumes and let you pick which is more appropriate?? Ha!! That would be funny!!

Of course, I'll let you know how she does...with pics!!!

10 months old

I cannot believe I am writing my 10 month post for Hadleigh!! Really, this year is a blur!!

A lot has changed in a month.....Hadleigh is doing a type of drag/scoot on the floor. I definitely wouldn't call it a crawl but at least she is getting somewhere. We have a PT/OT evaluation set up for January 11 (that was first available). We go the doctor again today so I'll see what they say about her "progress."

She is still the happiest, easiest baby on the planet. She has not gotten anymore teeth but I think we are close to getting a molar. She is now into size 3 diapers. Because of her length, she can easily wear 12-18 months pants but they just won't stay up!!

I love this dress!!! I have been holding on to it from the baby days of Jillian!! Sooo precious!!!


I have posted before about the importance of the baby curl. My mom puts a lot of importance on the baby curl. Poooor Jillian - we waited and waited for the baby curl and got NOTHING!!!! Her hair is as straight as an arrow!!!

Rocco was the first one to get the curl and now Hadleigh-boo is following in his footsteps. This picture is so similar to Rocco's that I could have easily mistaken it for Rocco's hair. Same color and everything. If I could predict, I think there will be a lot more to come. Here is her first baby curl.....


When I was preggo with H, I always dreamed of another little girl that looked just like Jillian. Maybe because I couldn't imagine anything cuter??? But really this two girls do NOT look alike. Hadleigh's face is long, hair is darker and her eyes are bluer. Jillian had a very round face with blue eyes and white blond hair.

Jillian

But when they smile, they look like TOTALLY DIFFERENT!!! (I do not remember Jillian having that chubby round face??)

When they smile, Hadleigh looks very much like her brother Roc. At school, the teachers have nicknamed her "Little Roc." Ha!!!

He cracks me up!! This weekend, instead of tattling on Jillian like he usually does, he was pretending to call Santa.

Rocco: Hello, Santa?? It's Rocco. Jillian is frowing a fit.

Jillian: I am not!! (screaming and crying)

Rocco: Yes, Santa. She should not get any foys cuz she cyin'.

Jillian: I am not playing with you anymore!! (more screaming and crying)

They crack me up!!!