December Randomness

 This is how Emmie is when I put her down and am not touching her.  To say she is a mama's girl is putting it mildly!

 After a bit of whining, a sibling will typically come along and try to cheer her up.

 Dress up time!  Y enjoyed this spider man shirt and he was deeply saddened when they all misplaced it.

 Y quickly learned how to flip on the couch.  No lessons in that.

 While traveling for Thanksgiving, our front grille met an untimely demise via a carpet square on the interstate.  We praise God that it was only the grille that broke.  Mark was able to order the replacement on line, search youtube on how to install it and replace it in less than 30 minutes.    My hero.

 How Mark found Ace one night.

 Determination

 Feet are a glorious thing

 Y's first day.  So much fun to see that language couldn't keep our kids from all enjoying each other.

 A trip to the mall, Y and all the kids enjoyed watching the man decorated a cookie cake.

 But seeing Santa and having Santa actually wave to him....Y was in awe.

 Emmie just building up her muscles.  A girl has to work to look this good.

 Giant tower with giant blocks.

 And some bunny ears and photo bombing!

 Y and Emmie!  Instant bonding.

 Our sweet Y enjoying some movie time with Ceili Rain.

 Mark was working on replacing the fireplace and all the kids were piling on each other pretending something or other.  Y was just watching and a little unsure.  When I told him what they were doing, he joined right in!  There was a pile of kids and I couldn't make heads or tails of them for awhile.

 I think Y thought that all it did was rain here.  We had some pretty serious rain for a couple of days and our creek flooded.  Mark took the kids for a walk to see the flooding.  They just had to get in it.

 Everybody eats snacks this way, no?

 Liam received a snap circuits for Christmas.  But everyone loved it.  Ace and Y worked on it for over an hour one day.  So much fun to watch.

My playdoh creations during another rainy day.  Baymax, a train, Mr. Potato Head.  I may have a future in playdoh creation.  Smirk.

Cookies!

What better bonding time than making ginger cookies,, decorating and devouring them.

Happy 9th Birthday, Liam!

Yeah, this is the only picture I have of Liam and his cake.  He wanted Revolutionary War soldiers on it.  Easy peasy for an over tired mama!

 When we visited Ge and Granddaddy, Liam was able to open presents from them.  So, at least we have a few of him opening gifts.

On birthday day, we took the whole crew to the movies to see Big Hero Six.  It was definitely a treat for all.  It was a very fun, good movie!

Merry Christmas!

I'm just a bit sick when I think about these next pictures.  We realized at the end of January that we have some how deleted a lot of pictures.  All of our Christmas day present opening chaos pictures are gone.  We had a tinsel fight after we decorated the tree.  Those pictures have disappeared.  And, even sadder, Liam's birthday pictures are gone.  So from here on through almost the new year, most of these pictures are from our phones so please be patient.

 Zoe and I not only made pants for all the kids, Zoe wanted to make pants for her and Ceili Rain's American Girl Dolls.   She did an amazing job!

 Christmas Day!  I was so excited I got to make some cute embroidered shirts for everyone too!

 We finally did it.  We got Mark a coffee maker!  And it's a pretty red.  It has definitely been used quite a bit since then.

Christmas Breakfast and Y's first time eating hot fruit compote and my homemade biscuits.  He approved.

 Meal time is always quite entertaining in our house.

 We got Y a rubber band bracelet hook and bands.  By the time he left he had over 15 bracelets made and they almost made it to his elbow.

 We found out pretty quickly that Y LOVES cycling!  He would have been riding every single day, no matter the weather.

Okay, we worked hard to make sure Y not only tried a lot of American food but that he had some that was rather familiar to him.  He did not like borscht even though his brief description said he did.  But cucumbers and radishes and any kind of meat...that was perfect for him.  A veteran hoster had mentioned a blog called Natasha's Kitchen and testified that her recipes were pretty authentic for Eastern Europe.  Every time I made one of her recipes, Y was super excited and would quickly give me two thumbs up.  For Christmas supper, I made meat piroshki.  Oh my, we won't even discuss how unhealthy these things are all fried up.  But the taste.  Ahhh, they were amazing!  This may be our new traditional Christmas supper.

Looking a Lot Like Christmas!

 Traditionally, we purchase our Christmas tree the week after Thanksgiving but since Y was coming, we wanted to let him in on the experience.   So, we waited.  It proved beneficial.  He really enjoyed seeing  the trees and  hiding from us and jumping out saying, "Boo!"

 Thankfully, Mark was able to explain what we were doing when the guy came to cut the tree down.  There were plenty of times that we forgot to explain what we were doing or going to do and he was so confused for a bit.

 Decorating ornaments for the tree.  I love how I caught Emmie cheesing for the camera.

 Our gingerbread train.

 I finally ran out of the fabric I had purchased for stockings some years ago.  Since I needed two new stockings, we decided to do new ones for everyone.  I absolutely love these and the pattern was so easy and beautiful.  They are fully lined and took less than 30 minutes to complete.  And, my combo machine meant I could embroider all of our names on them. I loved seeing all these stocking lining our fireplace, er, I mean, where our fireplace used to be.  Christmas season was the perfect time for us to start converting our "fake" fireplace in to an actual functional gas fireplace.

And the front yard decorations this year!