Monday, February 23, 2009

Would You Think I Was a Bad Mom?

Would you think I was a bad mom if you knew that I put off Tate's bedtime routine for so long that I went in to find this?



What if you knew that the exact same thing happened the next night?



Does it make things better or worse that both times he was "reading" himself the Jesus Storytime Bible? Who can fall asleep during the Christmas story?



Should I not have taken photographs as evidence of my motherhood crime? Should I not have called Kevin in to see both times? Should I not have told the girls to get out of bed and look? They thought it was hilarious! Tate cracks up when he sees the pictures too, so maybe no long term damage was done. ;)

Sweetest Song I've Ever Heard

I am downstairs working on uploading pictures I've taken lately and putting together a video of our Disney World trip. (Don't worry Kev, I'm on my third load of laundry, I've made the bed, deep cleaned in the girls' room, put away the folded laundry, and stripped some beds to wash the sheets later... and it's only 9! ;) ) Anyway, I'm sitting down here and Tate is playing upstairs on the landing singing sweetly to himself. This is the song I hear:

We so happy.
Papa and Mama and Tate
We so happy. Yay!
Tate and Vivi (Lily) and Sophie and Dulian (Julian).
Cause we at our dom and nyet at detsky dom.
We so happy. Yay! We so happy. Yay!
Papa 'zat work. Our kids are at school.
We so happy. Yay! (x35)

What a little sweetie, huh?

Along the same lines he told me the cutest thing last week and I wrote it down because I just love the way he says things. We were playing on my bedroom floor and I scooped him up and was talking to him.

I said: Tate, I'm so glad you live at our house now and not at detsky dom anymore.
Tate: Yeah. 'Specially cause I had no mama and I need a mama for me.

He is a charmer, that little guy.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Storm

I was just working on uploading pictures and watching some HGTV when the light rain turned into a big thundershower. I unplugged the laptop and decided there was no point in trying to go to bed just yet. Yep, I just saw Julian make a quick dash from his bedroom to ours!

I am hoping to spend the next few days updating the blog. Today was Sophie's birthday so I have that and tons of other pictures to post. Stay tuned!

Disney World Weekend Part 1

We surprised our kids (and ourselves, really) and planned a last minute trip for a long weekend in Orlando. We have a bigger trip planned in June for 13 of us. We weren't sure if that would be a bit overwhelming for the kids(or ourselves) so we decided to make our first trip as just a family and see how the kids did. True to form they did great. We stayed at Magic Kingdom from the opening ceremony to the closing song. They tackled any ride they were tall enough for and walked all over the park without complaining. They were even troopers in the car.

We're off!






First we dropped Keaton off at the dog hotel. He got a little nervous and peed on my leg right when I was dropping him off. I changed at the next gas station. I had dressed everyone in comfortable clothes for the day in the car and I ended up in jeans instead of my velour pants. :( Don't really know why I felt the need to add that into the blog, but I was looking at the pictures and the memory came back to me.


I filled their backpacks with some of their car friendly toys and coloring pads, sticker books, etc. while they were sleeping the night before.


They slept on and off a bit.



We had lunch in the car and then later stopped at a McDonald's in Georgia to let the kids run around on the playground and use the restroom. Then I broke out the clipboards filled with surprises to keep them occupied on the rest of the trip. Kept them busy all the way home too!

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Snow Day!

A couple weeks ago we got a fun winter surprise! No school for these kiddos, not with our inch or two of snow. Because snow is so rare here everything basically shuts down for just an inch or two.

I was the mean mom who made my kids walk around the snow and stand in front of the house until we got a decent picture before I let them run through it. I knew it wouldn't look so pretty once they had enjoyed it. I was right. The house looked so pretty with a blanket of snow on it. It would have made a nice Christmas card.


Of course Misha had to join us. Good thing Aunt Maya made him that scarf for Christmas!







Keaton had as much fun as his brothers and sisters. We actually had to take him in the house to defrost twice because he got huge buildups of ice on his paws and could hardly walk. He played like a puppy though.


This was the beginning of Sophie's snowman. Keaton ate him later that afternoon.


Julian in action. He was throwing a snowball.


Misha makes a snow angel.


Lily still manages to look adorable in the freezing cold.


She is so proud of her snow angel.


The birdhouse would have looked even more perfect if only a little red bird would have been perched on it.




We sled on our hill all year round. This was the first time any snow was involved though. All our neighbor kids and kids we had never even seen gathered in our backyard because we have the best hill. I loved having so many giggling kids in the backyard.


Before


After. The after actually makes me smile more than the before.

More snow fun:







Around noon we went in to warm up. Hot soup, "snow angel" sandwiches, and homemade chocolate chip cookies did the trick. The kids watched a movie while their clothes were in the dryer and they were back out to play with what was left of the snow in the afternoon.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Backup

Oh boy, did I get behind on my blogging. On Wednesday we started talking about taking our first family trip for the weekend, meaning two days later! On Thursday we confirmed that we would leave the following day and drive down to Orlando for a long weekend. How's that for last minute? The kids had a four day weekend (well, they ended up having a snow day makeup on Friday) and we wanted to take advantage of their time off and have some together time.

We didn't tell the kids. We put them to bed early like any other school night on Thursday night, woke them up in the morning at the same time as usual, and sat them down to breakfast. We asked them if they wanted to go to school or if they would rather go to "Mickey Mouse's doma." You can guess what they replied and after we finished getting ready, we dropped Keaton at the "dog hotel," and we were on our way. After we arrived we had dinner at IHOP. Ha, ha. We told the kids how special it was to have breakfast for dinner.

The next day, which was coincidently the 6 month anniversary of the kids being home, we went to Magic Kingdom. It wasn't very crowded, the weather was perfect, and we stayed from opening to closing! Let me tell you what troopers our kids are! No complaining on our 9 hour trip down to Florida, slept crammed in a bed together, and walked all over Magic Kingdom. They rode anything they were tall enough to ride too. Tate, who cried when we put him on a swing 6 months ago, and had never really left his detsky dom, rode Splash Mountain and the Haunted Mansion with a twinkle in his eye. He is one changed kid.

I will try to post a six month update sometime soon. The kids are just constantly amazing us with their growth, progress, willingness to go with the flow, and zest for life. Lots of answered prayers in this family. We feel so blessed and thank God for all the gifts in our lives daily.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

One Cold Weekend

We have had some very cold weather lately. All last week was pretty cold and the kids spent very little time playing outside, like usual. We tried to come up with some fun activities to keep us happy and busy this weekend.

On Saturday I took the girls to see "Hotel for Dogs." I thought it was pretty silly, but cute. My dog-loving daughters thought it was the best movie ever.






Has anyone else noticed that there is a huge majority of children's movies that are about orphans? Kevin and I have noticed it lately. We don't really have the kids watch TV at all but we love watching movies and I think at least 10 of the movies we have watched have an orphan as part of the story line.

Sunday night they slept upstairs in the tent we gave Kevin for Christmas.





On Monday we brought a picnic lunch out to the lake to eat at Kevin's parent's property. We had lunch on the dock since they were working on the house and then we checked out the progress of the construction. Cold, but fun!














And today was a snow day! More pictures coming soon!