Many years ago, I spent a fortune on the greatest Christmas present ever.  The complete collection of Calvin and Hobbes. I bought them for my dear husband- who has never ever read them.  Friends and family alike have drooled over our collection while they sat lonely on the shelf.  Finally the collection is getting the love and attention it deserves… all the time!

And just for fun because she’s so dang cute….

If you look really close (and expand the picture) you can see her pearly new tooth.

To all our adoring fans, I apologize  for my lack of posts in recent months.  We have been very busy at our house and I just haven’t had time to write.  But you can all feel better, as I do, that there haven’t been any catastrophes for which I need to write about   to find the humor, thereby saving myself a trip to the psychiatrist.  In our case, sometimes no news is good news!!!

We’ll start with Ladybug. She is growing so fast! 

Strawberry Shortcake

Ladybug had her first cold last week at exactly 7 months of age.  Pretty darn good considering that she has 3 germ covered, adoring brothers.  Everyone else had been sick so I couldn’t avoid it forever.  She had a constant faucet of the nose and mouth , a yucky croupy cough and even a fever for a few days.  There’s nothing more sad then a sick baby.  What is really pathetic, is that her mother did not even notice until she was all  better that during that week of suffering, she also cut her first tooth!  I feel horrible for not catching it sooner-something I can only blame on the number of children I have now and the fact that her real cold hid the regular symptoms of a tooth.  She is still a very happy, easy going baby, content to sit on the floor and chew on her tag toys.  She is infinitely patient it seems, for which I am very grateful!  We’ve started calling her Mini Go Go because she looks identical to him as a baby and everywhere we go people are amazed at how alike they are. 

This funky little towel was a gift from a friend that we like to call her Princess towel.

Next is Blue Jeans.  He has recently learned the benefits of friends-probably because his brothers are gone all day at school now.  He has started asking me every day if we can play with “our friends today”.  He has really enjoyed his little playgroup this year. 
Two weeks ago when he was sick, he called out to me in the middle of the night.  When I came in to see what he wanted he said, “Mommy can you kiss my ear, it hurts.”  Needless to say we got out the Tylenol-after a kiss on the ear of course.

Go Go is very much into drawing and math right now and I do believe he has a talent for both-excuse me while I dote for a minute.  We taught the boys to play monopoly recently and he is a better/faster banker then me!!!  Rock has started doing math problems with the boys at the dinner table and Go Go is proving to be a pro just like his brother and Dad.  When he has free time in school he chooses to do math.  Personally, the thought of doing math for fun gives me the shudders, but I’m thrilled he’s taking after Dad on this one!

Mr. President had his first Cub Scout Pack Meeting (finally-thanks to his father volunteering to be the Cub master)  where he earned his Bobcat

Today at his Cub scout activity he got to watch a python swallow a rat.  He LOVES scouts.  He has also gotten into Pokémon of late, to which I was remiss to allow, but oh well, right?  Now there are Pokémon cards strewn all over my house almost as much as LEGOS.  I don’t know which is worse.  Ok, Pokémon cards don’t hurt to step on-it’s true.  And speaking of which, here is his latest massive LEGO creation. These things keep getting bigger and bigger.  Who needs the $50.00 sets when you can make your own?

We are finally seeing grass for the first time since the day after Christmas.  It’s as brown as the trees, but at least it’s not white!  Spring can’t come fast enough! 
We recently rearranged our house, swapping the hardwood floor family room for the carpeted dinning room and I feel MUCH better about this house.  We are much more comfortable on the carpeted floor and the kids can drop their food on the hardwood and Mom doesn’t freak out!  We are thinking we may stay here for a few more years now, rather than move to a different rental and so I finally got out all the rest my decorations and I’m feeling much more at home in this house.  It feels more like it’s mine, rather than someone else’s.  Yes, I know, I should have done it long ago.   For those of you who have been here, here’s the finished product.

New family room

New dinning room
I want to point out the fact that Rock came up with the great idea of making a mud room behind that bookshelf.  So now we have all our cubbies and shoes back behind there and we love it!  I know most of you haven’t even been to our home, but it’s a cool change that I wanted to share.  And those little pink things you see all over are from our Valentine’s day heart attack.

So Happy Belated Valentine’s Day to all of you!

My children have started waking up in the morning and instead of saying, “Good morning, Mother dear” they groggily say “Is it another snow day?” We have had a full snow day, a late start or an early release from school due to snow almost every day since 2011 began. This time it was “just” an ice storm instead of 2 feet of snow. Not too bad as ice storms go-we still have our power- but we got a snow day out of it. The trains into New York were blocked by fallen trees and ice on the wires so Dad got a snow day too. We knew that might happen when he had to scrape a 1/4 inch of ice off his car to pry it open before driving it home from the train station last night. When we asked Mr. President to help shovel the driveway again, he claimed he couldn’t do it because he found a new use for the ice on the driveway.

This year I got snow for my birthday!  Well, actually, we’ve had at least a foot of snow on the ground since the day after Christmas.  We just got the latest dumping on my birthday, the 26th.  Newark (ie. us) got a record 19 inches that day! It was amazing. 
Here is Mr. President shoveling the driveway the day after.  Doesn’t he look thrilled to be working this hard!  This is only the second foot of snow.  We spent my birthday shoveling the first foot, otherwise we would have had 2 feet at once to shovel!  And yes, in case you’re wondering, we are going to invest in a snow blower.  We are tired of watching the neighbors all come out with their nifty snow blowers and zip up and down their driveways clearing them in 10 minutes flat,  while we look on in envy, sweat dripping down our faces.
Blue Jeans was thrilled to be out in the snow (because he wasn’t shoveling).  He’s standing in front of the snow drift next to our driveway.  The drifts at the end of the driveway were taller than ME!  And today for the first time in my life, I actually watched a bulldozer come and move the snow on the corner of our busy street as it was piled taller than Rock.

Our bed of snow.

In other news….

Blue Jeans and Ladybug had their 3 year and 6 month checkups.  Ladybug is in the 90th percentile for her weight… no surprises there!  And Blue Jeans is, though not nearly as chubby, very healthy.

Ladybug is sitting up, and starting to roll over.  She’s a very calm, pleasant happy baby.  A blessing to her mother in all ways! 

Mr. President now says “ARnge” instead of Orange.  It’s time to move back West.  QUICK!  Before he starts saying “wudda” for water.  And there’s no hope for Blue Jeans.  sigh. 

It is not yet even 8:00 and our little chillins are already in bed. Yes, you can say it. We Are Good. We got in all the special Christmas Eve traditions from the Nativity to the Eggnog and The Night Before Christmas all by 7:30! Woohoo! Now we just get to wait……….. till they actually fall asleep!

So while you’re waiting you can check out our evening.

Go Go spent December 24th in shorts making more LEGO creations

We finally got our Christmas pictures taken….

The Nativity

The Baby Jesus covered in, I mean laying in the hay.

Shepherds and Angels

The Narrator Joseph

And last but not least, the real star of the nativity this year…
The Camel (his choice of part)

The PJ’s

The Jump shot

The Force

Superman

The Night Before Christmas

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight! May Santa bring you everything you hope for tomorrow! And may your children fall asleep before midnight!

Today was Mr. President’s Christmas concert at school.  The school conveniently chose 9:00 in the morning (the time at which I am usually in the shower because I’ve just spent all morning getting everyone ELSE ready and out the door) to have the concert.  So, I raced around trying to get myself AND all four children ready before 9.  After getting both the older ones out the door and the little ones dressed, fed, coated and shoed, we finally made it into the car at about 8:59.  The school is not far but it is cold enough that I was not going to walk that far.  However, by 9:00 the streets surrounding the school were already packed and I still had to hike, well, really I was running by this point, over rivers of ice and through the woods in 24 degree weather to get to the school.  Luckily there’s no snow yet.  Poor Ladybug in her stroller got the bouncing of her life as we ran over the uneven sidewalks and Blue Jeans had to run to keep up with mom as I dragged him along.  His little fingers were cold, but it is so hard to get gloves with fingers (as opposed to mittens without fingers) on little hands that I didn’t take the time to do so before dashing from the car.  I told him to put his hands in his pockets and he thought I meant his pants pockets, so he ran the whole way being dragged by one hand and trying to keep his other hand in his back pocket.  If I hadn’t been in such a hurry I would have laughed at how funny he looked.  Instead I kept pulling and prodding to get us all there before we missed the concert.  We made it into the school and raced down the hall to the gym, throwing off our heavy layers that had suddenly become stifling in the heat of the school.  We entered the gym only to find that there was standing room only at the back.  We are very short, Blue Jeans, Ladybug and I and standing behind all those people was not going to work.  But stand we did, looking at the backs of everyone who was slightly less late then us until Mr. President’s class filed in.  We only didn’t miss him because the school band played first.  I’d forgotten what an elementary band sounds like.  It was painful, to say the least and I was suddenly grateful for all the years my parents spent not only listening to the painful practicing, but all those painful concerts too.  Whew! 

We managed to find a spot along the side where Mr. President could see us and know that we were there.  That’s all that really matters, after all.  Who cares if you can’t see very well, or have to stand for a long time in a really warm room while holding a baby and trying to keep a toddler quiet.  The important thing is that your kid knows you’re there.  And he did.  I got a big dimpled smile and a wave for my efforts. 
But I barely had time to catch my breath.  Mr. President’s class sang a grand total of two songs and then left the stage.  Two songs.   It was so short I didn’t even have time to get the camera out!  We were inside the gym a total of 10 minutes before we had to turn around and repeat the over the river and through the woods part again to get back to the car.  On the way back Blue Jeans did a twisting 360 on the ice…while I was holding his little hand.  It almost looked like we’d planned an ice dance, but the stroller gave it away to all the cars waiting for us to cross the street. 

So that was Mr. President’s Christmas concert.  5 minutes.  I risked life and limb and the ‘lifes’ and limbs of my two smallest children just to see Mr. President sing Jingle Bells and shake a bell.  Oh the things we do for our children.  As we drove away I imagined what it would have been like had it just snowed and I said a small prayer of thanks that we hadn’t actually needed a sleigh with bells to GET to the school.  And just think, this is only the beginning.  I have years and years ahead of me to enjoy such concerts. 
Thanks Mom and Dad.

Last week at the dinner table Rock and I were discussing whether or not we were going to do something and Mr. President (as usual) wanted to be involved. He started butting into the conversation and giving his two cents worth. Rock informed him that this was not his decision. To which Mr. President thoughtfully replied, “How can I get into the decision?”

Earlier this week Go Go brought home a pattern for a Christmas ornament from Denmark that he could not wait to put together. He kept asking for help all afternoon until finally I had a moment to help him with it. He wanted me to look up the directions online as there were no directions with the pattern. When I looked at it and discovered it was very simple and that I could tell him how to do it without the internet, I told him so. To which he replied in amazement, “REALLY? You used to live in Denmark?!!!

Blue Jeans has taken to racing down the stairs to beat whoever may be coming down after him. Yesterday he raced past me down the stairs and when he reached the bottom exuberantly called, “You lose, and me win, ok?!” Rock has also informed me that whenever he does race someone and they say, “I win!” He still happily calls, “I Lose!”
May he keep that good sportsmanship all his life.

Last night as I was tucking Blue Jeans into bed I sang him the song I am a Child of God. This is something we do every night but for some reason last night he paid more attention to the words. After I sang the line, “Teach me all that I must do to live with him some day.” he got a very thoughtful look on his face and said, “Momma, we go see Heavenly Father?” I answered, “Yes, someday we’ll go see him.” to which he replied, “We drive there?” (which came out We dwive there?) to which I replied, “No, it’s too far away to drive. Heavenly Father doesn’t live on this earth.” His little brain still working, he said “We walk there?” and I said, “No, it’s too far away to walk.” Determined not to give up, he said, “We walk and walk and walk there?” Finally, becoming aware of the bedtime hour I said, “Maybe someday, Blue Jeans.”
Aren’t primary songs great?!

Then this morning Mr. President was asking us if we knew where his ball was. When Rock started questioning him about it-where did he put it, where was the last time he saw it, Mr. Pres said, “Well, it’s not lost, I just don’t know where it is. It’s complicated.” Ah. Now I see.

Rock took the day off today and Blue Jeans enjoyed hanging out with Dad.

Man’s best friend

And just to get you in the Christmas spirit…

As you’ll remember from Thanksgiving, Blue Jeans specializes in split personalities..

Come join us for a reenactment of the Grinch who Stole Christmas and Superman Saves Thanksgiving… (with a sword…).

Ladybug is the first in more ways than just being the first girl. She is also the first of my babies to actually stop nursing to look up and talk to me. She is the first of my children to have a dirty diaper blowout (requiring a change of clothes and LOTS of stain remover) almost every day. Believe it or not, my boys didn’t have blowouts at all. She is also now the first of my children to attempt and succeed at the feat of spitting up down the inside of the sleeve of my long sleeve shirt. To the elbow. Can’t wait to see what else she’s first at. I really hope it doesn’t involve more stain remover.

Imp