Happy 10th Birthday, James!

No doubt this is a very memorable birthday for James!

He is accompanying his dad on a business trip to Notre Dame, Indiana, for this whole week.  Bunny made this same trip one year ago.  Marcus booked first-class (!) plane tickets to Chicago for Monday, then he and James met up with grammae's sister Patty and her family for dinner.  A quick dip in the hotel pool before driving to South Bend on Tuesday to stay with family friends Bob and Linda.  I hear they already had one Polish feast, with more to come!  A tour of the campus is a MUST, of course, and they did that yesterday.  Best of all is the great daddy-son bonding that has occurred on this very special week.  :o)

Here are some pics that were sent to me this week via Marcus' iPhone:

homework on the plane (History reading)

Aunt Patty and family, with James

Chicago-style pizza, yum!!

Mommy's old dorm :o)

"First Down Moses"

daily Mass at the Basilica

warming up in the art museum

in front of the library (with the
"Touchdown Jesus" mosaic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAMES!!!

More Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve dinner is pure crazy-ness!!!

Mrs. D held Celeste while I tended to the other
kids and took photos.  :o)

Dance Party!!!

James' present to Fr. Juan

Marcus made Sedric open his "boring" gifts before moving
on to the exciting ones….

Trains!!  After this, Sedric was "all done" and wanted to
go home to try out his new trains on his tracks.  :o)

Chaos!

Marcus and I took 2 cars so that I could leave a little earlier with the 3 youngest ones.  They were almost in bed by the time Marcus brought the 3 older ones home.  It worked out well.  :o)

Then, sweet dreams until Christmas morning….

Christmas Eve 2014

With all the holiday baking done and the kitchen cleaned, we were ready for a nice Christmas Eve.  My Christmas angel (Mrs. N!) came on that Wednesday morning like always, and it was great to have her there with the littles while I did various holiday prep.

Sedric is becoming more manageable, so Mrs. N spends
some time holding Celeste for me each day.

 In the afternoon I sent the kids for nap and then got ready for the annual Christmas play:

Fr. Juan came straight from the airport to
concelebrate Mass

 The Christmas play went well!  I didn't take many photos, since I was the "director" of the play.  I sat up front, on the floor in front of the pews, to help signal to the kids if they forgot their lines or missed their entrances/exits.  It was a fun job to do, and I thought it was just perfect for me--after all, I order kids around all day at home, so I had lots of practice in that.  :o)  All the kids did great, so I was able to snap a few shots:

James was Joseph :o)

Bunny was a shepherd and Mariposa and Gemma were sheep.

One of my favorite parts of directing was hangin' out with little Brylee, the smallest angel in the photo above.  She was nervous about leaving her mom and staying with the other angels, but she was very comfortable being around me.  So, I had her sit with me on the floor, and I sent her up on "stage" when it was her turn.  Then she scuttled back to me to wait 'til the end of the play.  I had little Princess stickers for her if she did a good job (thanks for sharing, Gemma!).  It was so cute!

Gemma was up to her usual antics…luckily I didn't notice at
the time since I was concentrating on the speaking parts.

In all, I really enjoyed being a part of the Christmas play in this new role as director.  It was a challenge to piece together entrances and exits (they weren't specified in the script) but once that came together, they whole play went smoothly.  I'm looking forward to helping again next year!

After Mass we went to Grammae and Papa's house, as is tradition:

I've decided that it's impossible to get a
picture where everyone looks good….

spending time with Uncle Rick

sibs :o)

Holiday Baking Championship

Our favorite TV show this past November and December was the Holiday Baking Championship on the Food Network!!!  We started watching it after Celeste was born and recorded every episode so we could watch it as a family.

 When it came time to make Christmas cookies in mid-December, I suspected it would be a difficult project for me.  I needed to choose the cookies, and how many to bake, and then actually bake them with an infant and 5 other kids around.  Then, just before Christmas, I had an idea:  what if we had our own "Holiday Baking Championship!"

So I had each child choose a cookie to bake:

Sedric didn't really choose his cookie--
that was all me.  I LOVE Russian teacakes!

James was the first to get started (after I made a double-batch of the Russian Teacakes, that is).  We worked together to get the peanut butter dough ready, then he rolled them into balls:

Sedric helped with unwrapping, and surprisingly he did not
eat any chocolate until I offered it!!

 Later in the evening, the girls got baking too:

Bunny is chopping walnuts for baklava, and Posa is
mixing the gingerbread dough.

Bunny, James, and Mariposa needed very little help from me.  They know where all the baking tools and ingredients are located, and they know most of the techniques.  I did make sure to double --triple!-- check all their ingredients as they were adding them.  None of us wanted to go through all this work only to find we mistook the tablespoon for the teaspoon!

Gemma was ready to go--I had made her dough myself to
save some time and to let Gemma get straight to the fun part!

At this point, it was bedtime and I was "done."  But through the grace of God I kept my patient, positive attitude for a little longer.  We set a timer for the decorating (which easily could've taken hours) to make it just like our TV show.  When the 10 minutes was up, I had the kids throw their hands up in the air, just like the contestants had to do!  :o)  Then, straight to bed for the littles so I could clean the kitchen to have it ready for Christmas Eve.

Bunny still had to pour the honey mixture
on her beautiful cooked baklava.

All in all, this little project was a HUGE success and will most definitely be a new tradition in our house!  We had cookies to munch on all week and even had plenty to give away and take to parties.  YUM!!!

'Twas the week before Christmas….

Here's what we did the Sunday before Christmas:

Visited my friend's horse farm

played trains with papa and cousins

went to 2nd annual soup dinner at grammae and papa's

(Seddy loved Ana Maria!!)

Ana Maria comes to visit

We were THRILLED to host Fr. Juan's sister Ana Maria for a day!

with James and his coin collection

 This was Ana Maria's first time to visit her brother in Oregon.  We've met his mom, other sister, and other relatives, but not Ana Maria, so we were super-excited to spend time with her.  Unfortunately Fr. Juan had to be gone on a trip during some of her 3? week visit, but that was GREAT for us as we were able to spend a full day with her.

After Christmas play practice on a Saturday we picked up Ana Maria from Roy and took her to our crazy house for pizza lunch.  I packed up the older kids and Celeste and we went back north to the Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals.

We love the Rice Museum and especially love teasing the youngest siblings about "all the different types of rice we would be seeing…" 

Ana Maria thought her brother would like this flat, pinkish
one that looked like ham…  ;o)

fluorescent light room

in the gift shop--for kids, this is better than the
actual museum!!  ;o)

 We loved walking around the Rice Museum and enjoying all the beautiful specimens.  We are very very lucky to have such an amazing display in our backyard.  After the museum we made our way to Red Robin for dinner:

This was our worst service at Red Robin, ever.  :o(  The whole procedure was over 2.5 hours!  But at least that meant more time with Ana Maria, which we very much enjoyed.  And I enjoyed my quiet time with her on the drive back to Roy.  I hope we can travel to Mexico and visit her sometime in the next few years.

Haircuts before Christmas

As I was getting my now-regular pedicure at my little Korean shop on Main Street, Marcus took Celeste and the boys a few shops down to visit some honest-to-goodness barbers:

Both my little spa and this barber shop are just what you would find in any Main Street in any Small Town, USA.  :o) 

 After getting to a point in September when I could no longer see my toes, I decided to get a pedicure.  I fell in love with my new Korean friends and now plan on going regularly!  (In fact I just went in yesterday ….)

Sedric reminded me of little Joey.  ;o)

 And these barbers…they seemed to be a hoot!  They were the real deal, for sure.  They were busy on this Friday afternoon before Christmas, so Marcus had time to chat.  I asked him what they thought of Celeste and he said they didn't really notice her.  :o)  Such men!

The barbers did a great job and if I'm ever loosing patience waiting for Marcus to do his haircutting duty at home, I'll take James and Sedric in here instead.