Skype Fun

We were skyping w/ my parents last night and Chase held this mask up to their heads and it was the perfect size and just cracked me up. Captain Cody Dad.

Captain Cody Mom.

Surviving more sick days!

We have had our fair share of sickness in this house. I seem to have a cold weekly, and last week was, well, hell. Me and all 3 kids had strep throat. The sick stomach, sore throat, hacking cough kind. We were all miserable! Since the kids missed school most of the week and I was a grouch we got creative in keeping busy. Eliza spent some quality time in the broom closet. She calls it her jail and will sit and drink a sippy cup and hang out for 10 min. stretches. ha!

Dried split peas make for good construction vehicle play. Man it was a mess-but worth the quiet time! Plus the vacuum sucks it right up.

Little sick rosey cheeks.

The boys had a battle like no other. They're dressed for school b/c I kept thinking they felt better and sent them to school only to have them come home a few mins (literally) or hours later. I wasn't using good judgement at all b/c I wasn't feeling well and wanted to sleep all day. Woops!

Chase came to me one day and said he wanted to make a pirate ship from a banana. Go for it dude. It was really cute. Ty in the background? Not so much.

He insisted I take a pic of the jolly roger he drew. Cute!

Eliza and Dolly

Eliza has suddenly become very interested in her dolly's. Here she is w/ her "baby bjorn."

Feeding baby.

Woops! I'll have to teach her about neck injuries. But really-it's so fun watching her instinctively take care of babies like a mommy. Love it!

Farewell to the crib

In mid-December I was washing the sheets to Eliza's crib and they weren't done by nap time. So I said she could sleep on the full-size bed that's in her room for guests. She was thrilled and she did a great job. She didn't leave her bed at all. So then that night she wanted to sleep there again. And she has since then. So after Christmas we took the crib down. It was really sad b/c it's been up since 2003, but her room is so big now!

All 3 of my babies slept in this crib. cue tear drops...

Chase was a great helper unscrewing.

Christmas

This year we spent Christmas w/ Phil's mom in her new house in Doylestown. We had a great time and she spoiled us all. It's nice to have her live right in town. So we spent some time at the Doylestown Bookstore. Here's Chase chilling in the magazine section. He's looking at a bunch of women's mags. Great.

Ty, Eliza and Hunter chilled in the kids section reading and doing puzzles.

Chase finally found a kids book!

Chillin'

Christmas Eve in their cute jammies!

We forgot to bring "Twas the Night Before Christmas" which is a tradition, so we read it on the internet.

The stockings hung by the family photos with care.

Christmas morning! Santa came!

Eliza got super girly stuff from Santa.

The boys got super sport stuff!

A hideous monster and her children coming down the stairs. For the record I got sick and literally didn't sleep that night. Gag.

Eliza checking it all out.

Ty loving his new Phillie's hat and jacket.

Her Rapunzel doll she calls "Tangled."

Phil was sooo excited to give the boys NFL Sticker books. They love them!

This kills me. My sister Jackie found this costume months ago and I was so excited to give it to Chase. He loved and still loves it. He wore the hat to school the other day. My awesome aviator.

Looking at baseball cards.

Another ridiculous gift that made him so happy. JoEllen was afraid it shot something, but it doesn't. Just a solid wood gun that has a trigger. That is so solid I considered using it as our burglar weapon should we ever need one.

look how serious he is about it.

Christmas Jammies

This is Christmas 1980 w/ all of my sisters but Jackie. My mom made us these jammies and whenever I think of Christmas jammies this is the picture that comes to mind. So this year-knowing Eliza could actually wear a nightgown-I asked mom to re-create the dream. And she rocked it!!

The flannel fabric has holly on it and everything! She also made the boys fleece jammies too and they also loved them.   And on a side note: The photo of me above might as well be Eliza. The pic of her looks kind of funny b/c she's being cheesy, but I've never really thought we looked that much alike until I saw this pic of me. I'm also making a weird face (shocking) but it's kind of insane! I love it!

December Misc.

A bunch of cute kids taking a break to watch a show. It's always so nice and quiet...

Phil takes the boys "Deer Hunting" at Mercer County Park. They go early in the mornings in search of herds. This time they had binoculars. Apparently this time they got a little too close and it freaked them out. Ha!

After getting into trouble-so long ago I forget what he did-Ty felt remorse and made our bed, cleaned the house, etc. It was great. He also left this note on our bed which made us laugh. (his goal I'm sure!) This ugly doll is one Phil made in sewing class as a kid and we all call it "little Phil." Eliza is terrified of it, and Ty calls it an alien-hence the message.

It says, "Hi mom and dad. Do you like me. From alein. Hee hee!"

A kids Nativity

Our church asked the kids in our ward to dress as any nativity appropriate character for some pictures. These pictures were then made into a slideshow that was shown at our church Christmas Breakfast. It turned out really great. Here is Eliza w/ all of the other angels. She was miserable-but it worked out for her. B/c there was a darling pic of her crying-they called it a "Crying Angel Production" and had her pic. Kind of cool! 

The boys chose to be wisemen.

Here they are bringing gifts to the "Baby Jesus."

The angels singing Hosana! And in Eliza's case-bawling her eyes out!

The Wisemen traveling from a distant land.

And of course Chase fell of course. Oh, well!

"Mom always said-don't play ball in the house!"

I always think of Carol Brady telling her kids that on the Brady Bunch when I tell the boys to stop throwing the flipping football in the family room. And by boys-I mean Phil AND the boys. I tell them they're going to hit the lights, the t.v. or me. So tonight I was sitting on the couch minding my own business when Phil and the kids started throwing that dang football around. I was trying to ignore it even though they were being loud and obnoxious and falling all over me. When I was about to lose it Chase throws a pass to Phil, hits the light (breaking the light bulb) and it bounces over and hits me in the face. Done and done. (Unfortunately it missed Phil's precious t.v.) And as Phil said later, "only Chase could have done that."
Luckily it was bed time. Phil coming home at 7:30, I'm still feeling sick and then this. I was DONE-ZO!!!
Coming from a family of 5 girls did not prepare me for this madness.

That moment when...

You're at the library looking on the computer for a book. You find it and dig through your purse for a pen and hold it in your hand for a few moments while you look at the screen for info. And you realize that you're holding a tampon in your hand that's come out of the packaging and you only realize that after a stranger next to you is looking at you in shock. Oh, and I forgot to mention the tampon was hot pink.
Yep-that just happened.

She makes me laugh

This morning Eliza looked out the window and yelled, "Gooses!" and so I said, "Oh, you see some geese?" She looked at me w/ that teenager glare and a totally annoyed voice said, "no-gooses!"
She told me!