Sometimes We Wear Matching Clothes

Before Emma was even born I bought some things for us all to wear to be matchy matchy at Christmas.  I don't usually do that, so I don't know what I was thinking.  I bought Emma a size 0 to 3 dress.  That was before I realized she would be so tiny (she is still in newborn sized clothes), but the dress kind of fit.  Maybe a little big.  I had bought her some little shoes, but they were way too big for her.  She couldn't even fill out her tights (Scott said they were "looses").  And I'm not a big hair bow person, but I found one for Emma that I didn't think was too girly.

Here are Anna and Emma in their sort of matching dresses.  They both looked so cute.

 And all the girls together

This was sort of in the middle of getting ready for church
Matthew took the picture for us
Emma's dress was lace all over and Anna and I had lace on just the bodice of the dress.

Everyone (minus me).  The boys all had matching ties.  And I realize you can't see Scott's tie, but he had one too.  Getting John and Grant to wear church clothes can be a bit of a challenge sometimes, so I was just happy to get them in the ties at all.  You can see John's socks don't match.  I'm not ashamed.

 And I swapped out with Scott

And all the girls again.   I think Scott took this.  Anna always wants to hold Emma.

Here's Emma after church.  She was a little fussy at church and Scott ended up carrying her around a lot.  But he got lots of compliments on her cuteness.  When she got home she was ready to get out of her cute clothes though.

And here's a special bonus photo

Emma with a huge flower on her head.  Like I said, I'm not a big bow person and my friend, who is a professional photographer, offered to take some pictures of Emma for free.  I just let her do whatever as far as props and she took a few huge flower photos for me.  I like the w/o flower pics better, so this may be the girliest you ever see Emma as a baby.  :)  She looks cute.

Santa and His Reindeer

We went to a local nursery to see some real reindeer this weekend.  Scott heard about it from a co-worker and it seemed to be a well kept secret.  It wasn't very crowded, which is nice.  Here is Matthew saying hi to one of the reindeer.

 And Grant saying hi to one of them

 I don't think I've ever seen real reindeer before so it was fun.

 Everyone enjoyed seeing the reindeer

 We also got to see Santa there with the reindeer...and no line!

Anna told him she wanted a bike and bike helmet.

 Matthew told Santa he wanted a computer.  Oy!!

Grant wouldn't go near Santa at first, but then saw that Santa was handing out lollipops and had a change of heart.  He told Santa he wanted a train.
John wouldn't go near Santa period.  But he had remorse later when he realized he was the only kid without a lollipop.  :(
We had fun, it wasn't crowded and free!  Beats the mall any day.

Christmas Break!

Friday was the last day of school before Christmas break.  The kids were very excited for their school holiday parties and to give their teachers a Christmas gift.  Anna wrote this on the outside of her Christmas card for her teacher.  She drew pictures of things her teacher likes:  Charlie Brown, the Cubs, and Diet Coke

The kids had a half day at school that day so I told them I would take them to Burger King for lunch after a trip to the library.  Here is Emma in her fuzzy bear suit, ready to go.  She could breathe in it.

John was checking on Emma

He is the most sympathetic to her crying.  When she cries he will run over to me and say something like, "Uh oh!  Emma cry.  UP!!"  Most of his communications with us are one or two word phrases.  But I can understand a lot of it.  His language skills are really improving.

After a trip to the library we went to Burger King, as promised.

Matthew had pajama day at school and I let him wear his jammies the rest of the day.

He loved it.

After kids meals had been mostly eaten, we got ice cream cones.

The kids thought it was the best day ever.

John dropped his ice cream cone on the ground but after scooping off some of the floor-dirtied ice cream we were able to salvage it, and all was well.  I wish they made ice cream cones that were about 1/3 as big.  That would be a better size for this crew.

Emma slept through the trip to the library and Burger King, but cried a lot on the way home, as is her custom.  At home we finally rescued her.

Library day is fun because the kids usually sit quietly and read the new library books for a while after we get home.  And then they even worked together to build a giant block tower, with only a little fighting.  That's me steadying the tower while holding Emma in my jacket.  Her little polka dot feet are peeking out.

Emma was just looking cute.

We're ready for Christmas now!!

Extreme Close Up

 Anna and Matthew have been eager to take pictures of Emma with my big camera.

So I had to take pictures of them taking pictures.

 John offered up a car for her to play with

The camera they are using does take better pictures.  I should probably use it more often.

Here is a picture of Emma with my not as good camera.

 And here are the pictures the kids took

Very close up and such a clear image.  And they caught her right as she did a little spit up

 You could even see her tears and eye goopies

 Extreme close up

She looked cute.  Good picture taking guys.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Matthew got the part of Santa Claus in the 2nd grade play this year.  He really wanted a speaking part and was excited to try out, and even more excited when he got the part of Santa.  He found out back before Halloween that he got the part and I practiced his lines with him a lot.  Because of the baby being due during that time I was afraid I might forget about practicing his lines and then he'd be the one kid who didn't know his lines when it came time for the play.  I was also overly paranoid that I was going to completely forget about his play and forget to take him to it that day.  I kept asking Scott to remind me about the play.

See the video of Matthew's play HERE.  At about 22:25 you can see Scott get up to take Grant out.  We are famous!

 

Matthew got his lines memorized pretty quickly but we still went over them a lot.  And even though I have been very scatterbrained post-baby, I did not forget the night of the play.  So all was well.  Matthew goes by "Matt" this year at school because there was another Matthew G. in his class.  It's still weird to hear his teachers and classmates call him Matt.

 And here's Matthew in the big red Santa suit.  I think it was an adult suit, so he had to hike it up a few times, but it was still good.

 He insisted on bringing a pillow from home to make himself extra Santa like.

The school provided the suit and we provided the wig, beard and glasses.

I had to give the beard and wig a haircut because they had a ridiculous amount of white Santa hair.  After a little trim it was better.  Here's Matthew/Santa doing his crazy Santa dance during the performance.

Matthew had many lines, all of which he recited perfectly for the play.  Here he is saying some lines with Mrs. Claus.

 And Matthew and Mrs. Claus after the show

 Matthew and Anna

She was proud to be Santa's sister

I tried to take a close up picture of him.  Imagine this beard with about twice as much hair!!  It had a crazy amount of hair and long beard ringlets.  Those are gone now.  I think it looks better.  After I trimmed the wig I thought it looked a little too Ronald McDonald.  But the hat covers it most of the time.

A blurry picture of Santa and John.  John was afraid of him at first (it's a toddler's prerogative to be afraid of Santa) but then was only slightly weirded out when he realized it was Matthew.  Matthew did a great job in the play and had a lot of fun being a part of it.  And all the kids and parents wanted to take pictures with him after the show.  I should have brought candy canes for him to pass out!!

The New Normal

We're getting used to having a family of seven.   SEVEN!!?!  My mom helped us out a lot by being here while I recovered and rested these past few weeks.  The kids have helped me a lot too.  Things have changed and are changing and we're adjusting, little by little.

Here's Emma having story time with Scott

She growing and changing each day.  And I think she is growing into her long arms.

I wanted to have Grant potty trained before the baby came, and we had been working on it.  But, SURPRISE!!  Baby came early.  But after we got home from the hospital we eventually started trying again and Grant is doing great!  Except for the occasional potty training strike he goes on, he's pretty much there!  Good job Grant!  And he spends most days in just his underwear.

John is talking more and more.  He loved having Grandma read him stories while she was here.  Now that she is gone John isn't getting quite as many stories read to him, but we're still reading a lot.  RAWR is one of his favorites these days.

Anna and Matthew are also helping read stories to the younger boys.

Our new normal for morning time.  I have to get the kids fed and off to school but Emma only wants to be held.  On this morning she fell asleep.

Anna likes math.  She also likes counting her money in her piggy bank.  Maybe this is some finance/accounting genes she inherited.

Emma grew big enough to fit in the Baby Bjorn.  Yea and hooray!

She seems to like being held in there.

Anna, Grant and John all helped me make a chocolate peppermint cake this week.  The cake was a big hit!  Here's Anna putting the final touches on the cake - crushed candy cane pieces.  I've had more energy the past few days than I expected.  Resting a lot has helped.  And Emma has cooperated enough for me to make dinners all week...and cake!

 Emma snuggling with Scott

Her cheeks are chubbing up.  She's getting more plumpy.  She's a good eater.

Emma is filling out her newborn sized clothes now.  When we first brought her home her little arms and legs would get lost inside her clothes.  She's growing bigger.

And here's a bonus picture of Anna as a newborn.  She was quite a bit bigger than Emma when we brought her home, but they look a little alike.