Out With the Old

Thank goodness 2013 is over!  Besides adding Heidi to the family, 2013 wasn't my favorite year.  It was probably my third least favorite (moving here in 2009 and losing Grandad in 2011 beat 2013 as worse years).

I have spent the last few days (you know, when I'm not feeding the baby or changing her diaper or changing my shirt because she spit up all over me again) thinking about the New Year and all that resolution stuff...wondering what I'm doing with my life...wishing I had more sleep...and packing away the china in the picture above.  The china belonged to Mark's mother.  It has been sitting in a cupboard in the school room in reach of toddlers for years.  Time to move it up to the attic and make room for board games!  I hope whoever inherits the dishes uses them.  You can find replacements for all pieces easily and cheaply on Ebay (I checked, just in case).

Sometimes it's easier to sleep on the couch

I think my resolution for this year will be not setting myself up for failure.  I have a great habit of dreaming over my morning coffee about all the fun stuff I'm going to do... especially in the homeschool... and then I never do it due to (fill in the blank with any reason or excuse).  I'm going to take each day as it comes.  This way if I bring home a 30 pound box of frozen strawberries with the intention of mass-producing jam and the baby happens to be extremely fussy and won't let me put her down for six hours and I end up having to make jam until midnight because I can't fit 30 pounds of strawberries in the freezer, well, I won't be too hard on myself.  Especially if I only sleep for five hours and let the kids play video games all day the next day.  And don't ask why I use this as an example (strawberry banana jam...yum....)

Tomorrow, my one and only goal is to get the stuff off the tree.  You know your tree isn't as lively as it was a month ago when the lights start sliding off the bottom branches.  Our tree is now nice and crispy, just as I predicted!  Next year, we will remember to water it.  Really! I mean it!

Who me? Make messes? No!

Oh, Lula.  I gave her a bath after her yogurt treatment...but she did the exact same thing with a strawberry smoothie she snatched off the counter just a few hours later.  I think she did it on purpose!  But at least she smells yummy.

The picture above shows our traditional New Year's Eve dinner: Seven Layer Dip.  Only this year? I made it to only five layers before I gave up and we started eating.  And since we were supposed to learn the layers of the earth but didn't, well, I couldn't call it Earth Layer Dip.  But that's okay.  See? I'm already sticking to my resolution! Yay me! And Happy New Year!

Charlie Comes to Visit

We had a special visitor today!  I haven't seen Ami's family for so long.  Little Charlie isn't so little anymore.  He out-weighs Lula easily!

They look related.

Lula, who already has to deal with competition from another baby, had to share me with her nephew.  She wasn't too happy and spent a lot of time frowning at him.

Kissy kissy kissy! Giggle giggle giggle!

Charlie is a sweet boy!  He wasn't used to SO MUCH stimulation and other small people.  After an initial shock, he melted right in with the group. 

Three generations

Now that he has experienced and survived the madness of his grandparent's house, I'm hoping Ami will bring him down to play more often....

Eight out of Nine again...someday, someday, we will get all nine at once...

Next Christmas, I'm going to ask Santa to reunite all the Downen kids under one roof, just for one night... Hey, I can dream, can't I?

Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas... a few things went wrong, but it wouldn't be real life if the baby slept peacefully through the night or the septic tank didn't back up or the dog ate politely and kept all his food in his tummy...

Double Piggy Back

Christmas Eve found the kids excited...except Daniel.  He was just tired.  So tired, in fact, that he said that he would throw a rock at Santa and throw all his toys in the garbage because he just wanted a lump of coal.  Within ten minutes, he was found like this:

No visions of Sugar Plums for this kid!

Every year on Christmas Eve, we watch The Polar Express.  However, this year, we've moved our DVDs to a hard drive...and The Polar Express had copied in French instead of English.  We had to watch a 1977 version of The Christmas Carol instead.

Lula, after eating Santa's cookies!

Fiona was worried about falling asleep, so Mark told her all about Santa's magic dust.  He sprinkles it over the children who are still awake and they immediately fall asleep.  She was out in five minutes!

Ninja Penguin (and his sidekick/little brother)!

Ian was the first up.  This always surprises me because on most mornings, we have to threaten him with the loss of computer privileges to get him out of bed.  The three boys nicely played with Ninja Penguin until the girls finally got out of bed around 8:00 AM.

Morning Snuggles

I was sure that Daniel wouldn't be able to handle this major disruption to his normal routine.  But he took the massive load of presents in stride and didn't melt down until the next day...

Tools: The best gift for a Working Man

 Our favorite terrible toddler-zilla enjoyed...the candy.  What else? That's my favorite part too!

 Before chaos:

 This is my favorite picture of present opening:

 Fiona got a BARBIE!  I don't have a favorable opinion of Barbie and I'm never too sad when Jack chews them up and we have to throw them away.  Fiona, my fancy girl, loves Barbie and was SUPER surprised to receive one for Christmas.  This Barbie is more health-oriented with her bike and puppies than fashion-oriented, so she can stay.  For now.

"A Wii U controller? We don't even have a Wii U! What a waste!"

The other BIG DEAL was the new video game system.  I don't have a favorable opinion of video games either, so upgrading our 15 year old system for the latest system was not my idea.  One of the kids asked for a new controller for our old system, so when Shane opened a controller for a the new system, he was understandably confused.  I said, "Oh, well. Might as well put that away with our other controllers," knowing that he would have to see the big shiny box that held the new Wii U system.

He walked right by it

Shane missed the box completely.  But Ian saw it and it didn't take him long to put two and two together...

...and now the kids have completely forgot about every present they have except for the Wii U (and the Leap Frog Leapster-a hand held "educational" gaming device for the little kids).  The boys spent the entire day playing Mario yesterday.  And they were so grumpy that I banned them from the Wii for 24 hours.  Tonight we are going "Sabbath" on them and pulling the plug on screens.  Family Board Game Night will commence, complete with Doritos, as soon as someone asks to watch a movie or play a video game.

My two favorite moments this Christmas were Heidi turning one month old and starting to smile...

Mark with eight of his nine children.

...and Laura coming to visit.  We wish Ami could have come too, but Charlie has the chicken pox.  Poor little guy.  Maybe next year we will be together... I'll ask Santa!

The Night Formerly Known As Christmas Adam

As to not confuse original sin with Christmas, I have changed the name of our annual "Christmas Adam" tradition to a simple Hot Cocoa Party Night.  Although without original sin, we never would have needed Jesus.  But that is a discussion for another day...  We spent the day making Christmas cookies at Grandma and Grandpa's house...

 ...with my sister and her three kids.  Fiona managed to get herself into trouble twice.  First she got herself locked in the bathroom.  I don't know why.  We have the same locks here, but I guess she doesn't use them.  After that, she went off to play with her cousin's toy power tools...

 ...and while "listening" to the toy pictured above, which Mark tells me is a grinder...she got her hair stuck in it.  Both my sister and my dad had to work together to save Fiona's hair from the scissors (while I stood by helplessly taking pictures).  My sister wisely commented that some girls just shouldn't use power tools.  Fiona, the girliest of my girls, is one of those girls.  Once I gave her Kinex, a building toy similar to Tinker Toys, and she made jewelry out of it.  That is one of the things I absolutely love about her.  This morning, she kept crawling in front of the vacuum cleaner.  She almost got her hair caught in the brush roll! 

After our cookie making party, we joined back up with Ian (who was delivering food to shut-in senior citizens) and had hot cocoa.  I was inspired by a blogging friend and added extra toppings to our cocoa this year: marshmallows, whipped cream, coconut, sprinkles, and candy canes!!!  Even the dogs got cocoa after Daniel spilled his all over the floor!  Most of us didn't even make it through our first Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street.  I know I didn't.  Only Evie was still awake for the beginning of It's a Wonderful Life, but she didn't last...when she finally fell asleep, I'll never know because I punked out and went to my bed about the time George Bailey realizes his dream of traveling will never come true.

I'm Dreaming of a...Green...Christmas

I got a few more Christmasy things "wrapped up" over the weekend...

I pulled out my "green" wrapping supplies and got our presents wrapped!  Throughout the year, I buy Christmas themed fabric at the thrift stores and I use it as wrapping paper.  I absolutely hate the idea of buying wrapping paper and spending all that time taping it into place just to stuff it in the bin a few hours later.  My Christmas fabric also cushions our decorations while they are stored for the year.

I also use reusable tags on the gifts.  I used to use stickers, but I like these much better.  Instead of the tags having a "to" and a "from," we just do a "to" and leave it at that.  With 150 tags in the box, I don't think I will ever run out!

Shane breaks a board with a back hook kick (let's hope he asked Santa for new socks!)

While I was busy wrapping, Mark and the three older kids were busy administering/taking their first test at Mark's new Taekwondo school!  He has been teaching Taekwondo at the YMCA for the last few months.  Ian and Shane earned black belts a few years ago at their old school, but they were out of practice and Mark didn't want to start them off so high.  Yesterday they tested into the brown belt level and Evie tested up to green.  Fiona will stay a white belt for a few months (if not longer).  The best part of the test came when Shane was having trouble punching through a board.  He tried three times, his knuckles getting redder and redder with each punch.  He was so embarrassed and you could see that he was holding back tears.  Mark had him stop trying the punch and had him switch to kicks.  He kicked his two boards with no trouble and wanted to try the punch again...and he did it!  Mark was so proud of him for not giving up.  "That's black belt perseverance!" says Mark "That is what I want my kids to get out of Taekwondo."

Beautiful "Lulu"

Last night, the four older kids (plus Heidi) and I attended a Christmas party hosted by one of Ian's friends from Boy Scouts.  We had such a good time.  The host family purchased presents for all the kids who attended and also hired a Santa Claus to surprise them!  The Santa was pretty creepy; the kids and I had a good talk about stranger danger and the difference between the real Santa and his helpers that work at the mall and creepy guys that dress up as Santa to earn extra money at parties.  The take home message was, if Santa tells you how pretty you are and wants you to sit on his lap twice, watch out!  This Santa even asked if I would take my sleeping newborn out of her wrap that I was wearing her in so he could hold her.  Um, no.

The girls got matching hats and scarves, Ian got a headlamp, and Shane got a Lego set.  Even Daniel and Lula got gifts even though I refused to bring them to the party.  So although Santa was creepy, the company was good and we all had a pleasant time.

Time for a nap!

I'm feeling pretty good about what Christmas items I've been able to check off my list this year!  I though for sure that having a newborn would hamper things; instead I use my sleepless hours to plan what I'm going to accomplish each day. I'm normally pretty stressed out and grumpy about Christmas.  It is my least favorite holiday, I'm sad to say.  But this year isn't going too badly.  It helps that we've had a budget and haven't run out of money for necessities and at the same time, maintained our savings and never used credit.  And it also helps that Mark picked all the presents and I didn't insert my opinion (too much).

Today I made cookie dough for tomorrow's cookie party at my parent's house while Evie, Fiona, and Daniel made a few ornaments.  The girls are making beaded Christmas trees...the kits are easy for Evie and challenging for Fiona.  Fiona is still working on hers...

Daniel made Shrinky Dinks, courtesy of my friend Crystal!  She gave us this kit last year and I saved it for a perfect rainy day...today!

He was pretty cranky today and had a hard time following directions and allowing other people to have authority over him.  He even threw his presents from last night's party into the garbage...and then cried because he threw them away and wanted them back...and cried again when he found out that I already took them out of the garbage and wanted them put back in.

He insisted on being the person to put the Shrinky Dinks into the oven, but his arms just aren't long enough.  But watching his ornaments shrink right before his eyes was awesome and he has been carrying around his project all day.  We'll see if he is able to give them away as presents...

Snow Day {sorta}

Never tell a determined bunch of Downens they can't possibly build a snow man with less than an inch of snow...

...because they will go build themselves a snow rabbit, just for fun!

Heidi's First Bath