Our Christmas Story - Part Two

Our holiday started with David, Kerri, and baby Lane's arrival on Wednesday. When Jerry got home from work, we went over to mawmaw and pawpaw's house for dinner and visiting with the family (including GG or Great Grandma). They were all enjoying a quiet evening, until our arrival of course. We tend to bring a lot of noise and activity with us everywhere we go. On Thursday, I spent the day at home with the kids and after their naps Jerry and I dressed them all for Christmas Eve Mass... My Mom cried with joy having all her kids and grandkids together for church services and Christmas celebrations. During Mass we told Kaylee she could go see baby Jesus in the manger after church if she was good, so at the end of services we walked her over to see Baby Jesus, but the manger was empty. Apparently, they weren't going to put him in the manger until Christmas morning. She was in tears.... but we got lucky. On the way out of the Church we saw baby Jesus tucked away for safe keeping and sneeked in a peek. After Mass, we loaded up and headed to Mi Rancho for some Mexican food. Addison insisted she sit by Aunt Kerri and Jadon by Uncle David. Upon leaving, I overheard another table comment that we had a lot of kids, then a few minutes later asked if we had triplets.... "yes, they are triplets. Yes, then we had another one. Yes, They are all mine, except the new baby which is my brothers." The standard spiel.

Addison and Pawpaw


Kerri and Baby Lane


Addison & Kaylee


Cody, our little drummer boy


Baby Lane


Addison sings Jingle Bells


Jadon sings Santa Claus is coming to "THE" town


If you have 6 1/2 minutes to spare, here is our Christmas morning..... from waking to stockings.

Our Christmas Story - Part One

Loved one's have gone home, the gifts are all unwrapped, and we are once again settling back into a routine (as much as possible with the upcoming move on Saturday). But, I have to say it was a perfect Christmas!!! David & Kerri have a beautiful baby boy and this was his 1st Christmas and the triplets are at an age that Christmas is magical. It's that short time when they truly believe in Santa Claus, flying reindeer, and a naughty and nice list. An our little one Cody hung in with it all, never missing a beat. Magical!!!! Rather than one long post, I'll post our Christmas with pictures over the next few days.

All dressed up for Christmas Eve Mass... Jadon was soooo proud of his outfit.... "Look at me...I got a tie...."



My brother David and his precious baby Lane...


Kaylee goofing around with PawPaw and MaMaw...

OH NO!!!!!!!!

Today, I cried.... Addison got a hold of some scissors on my bathroom sink and cut her hair along with her Ariel doll's hair. I first notice a small piece of hair on the floor and when I picked it up, I knew it was Addisons. I then began examining her hair and pulling out more and more pieces of hair entangled in the uncut hair..... Fear took hold as I tried to ascertain the extent of the damage. My fear turned to anger and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach which has yet to go away. Yes, she cut her hair.... but, fortunately it's not terrible.... well, not as bad as it could be. She will be wearing a lot of pony tails and barrette on one side until her hair grows out. I am trying to tell myself I should be happy this is the worse thing I'm having to deal with.... if this is our greatest problem then I give thanks to the Lord. And the damage is not noticeable to the average person, but I will notice everyday when I cannot put her hair in pigtails.... ARGGGG!!!!

Once again I pray.... "Dear Heavenly Father, Please give me the strength to cope with my blessings."

In the photo, I brushed the cut hair forward... you can see it doesn't fit into the ponytail, but brushed back with a barrette it will be ok. It could have been worse. I have to say Ariel didn't fare so well.

Nothing New

Well, Christmas is purchased except for the stocking stuffers and I continue to work on the move little by little each day. The biggest struggle is keeping the house somewhat under control during the move. Our official move date is January 2nd, but we aren't moving a lot of our furniture. We are leaving a lot of our furniture in the old house for "staging" until it's sold, so we will be camping out in the new house a while. Cody decided to help pack and cleaned out the bookshelf. What a little helper....

EDF Christmas Party

Jerry's company had a Christmas party on December 4th (the earliest snow in Houston history that night) at the Westin Galleria with a pre-party at Del Frisco's restaurant. We had my parents babysit all night, so after the party we were able to walk back to our hotel room rather than drive 45 minutes to get home. It was a great party and a great time.

Sippy Cup Patrol

We learned early in our house the importance of sippy cup control. I make four sippy cups of milk every morning, when the milk is gone, I clean the four cups and refill them with water for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, I wash out the cups and put them in the dishwasher. When we 1st started using sippy cups, I would make the cups, then my Mom and/or Dad would come over and make a cup, then Jerry would make a cup. Now, imagine one of those cups finding it's way into a drawer or under a bed and what it might look like a couple weeks later when found..... We now make four cups and ONLY FOUR CUPS so that at the end of the day we know when a cup is missing and right now, one is missing. It was lost yesterday. We looked and looked and will continue looking for that rogue cup until it's found TONIGHT!!!!

UPDATE... The missing cup has been found under a box in our bedroom.... we are moving so lots of boxes....

O Christmas Tree

Thought I'd share a picture of our tree and some of our memorable ornaments.... I'd like to say I have Christmas under control, but honestly I am still buying gifts and haven't wrapped one of them yet. It will all come together before the big day I am sure....

Santa came to our neighborhood....

The local golf club hosted Santa Claus today and we thought it be fun to let the kids see him again, so we decided to make an appearance. After all, Jerry was working when the kids got their picture taken with Santa a few weeks ago. We got up and got everyone ready. We started at 7:30 and left the house at 9:30. It typically takes us 2 hours to get the 6 of us ready. We headed over to see Santa, took pictures, and left about 10 minutes later. A lot of work for a few pictures with Santa, but the pictures were worth the effort. The kids were soooo excited to see Santa again.... but once we got there, Kaylee was too scared to get real close.... and the others were too scared to give smiles... Typical!!!

Merry Christmas to all.... & quick moving update

Well, the kitchen is moved!!!!! Man, we have a lot of dishes.... but it's done. Yippeee!!!

Not enough on the plate... now we are moving....

The only time Jerry and I can talk without constant interruption is when we load the kids in the car with a dvd. So often we load up when he gets home from work and talk about our day while the kids watch a short video. As a result, we have gotten to know our neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods very well. I also get emails from Houston Association of Realtors when new homes go on the market to keep up with the area. As a result, we found a deal we couldn't pass up. One of the builders in a new subdivision next to ours is going under and dropped the price on a newly built home to try and sell it prior to foreclosure. The price was good enough to peak our interest. We looked at the home on Sunday, made an offer the next day and were told we had to close the following Monday or the home would go into foreclosure. So, one week later we closed on a new home. YIKES!!!! The home is beautiful and we are excited, but still a bit shocked. Now, I have triplets plus one, Christmas, and a move "Oh My"...... Lions and tigers and bears, Oh My!!!! Oh yea... I also have a home to sell.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful and getting cold

Last night we went outside and put up our Christmas lights and the neighbors joined us. Ann Marie who lives next door gave all the kids hats which her mother had made and they are adorable. The kids love them and have worn them ever since. They wore them until baths last night, then put them on again this morning while we put up the Christmas tree and just took them off for naps. They are sleeping now and I'm enjoying the quiet. I am soooo excited the Christmas season is upon us. We drove around after dark last night and let the kids look at lights while listening to Christmas music. It was magical and perfect!!!!

Santa Photos

With Thanksgiving tomorrow, I thought it was a good idea to take the kids over for their Santa photo before the mall gets too crazy. We were there at 10:00 and 3rd in line, whew!!! And all went great. The kids were super excited to see Santa and tell him what they all want for Xmas. Jadon wants presents and the girls want angels. I'm not sure where they came up with angels. As we got closer to meeting Santa, excitement started to turn to trepidation, but they were troopers and no one cried, but they sure weren't comfy enough to smile, so here is the final result.

Cody's Eyes Update

Cody's tubes were removed Tuesday with little trauma. The doctor grabbed the 1st tube with tweezers and pulled it out before Cody even new what had happened. He didn't cry, but rubbed his eyes like "What just happened... that felt weird." He wasn't so willing to let the doc pull out the 2nd tube. He fought and cried cause we were holding him down, but it was just a minute then the 2nd tube was out. So far so good..... we are hopeful this worked!!!

Lane's Baptism (Revised - New pics just added...)

Things are finally starting to settle down so that I can get a post completed. Friday evening we began packing for the trip to Dallas for my Nephew's baptism. Clothes for Saturday morning, the baptism, and Sunday.... ok, 3 outfits for 4 kids and myself... 15 outfits total.... dress shoes, casual shoes, hair accessories, socks, toothbrushes, 3 sleeping bags, 1 pack & play, pajamas, baby food, oatmeal, sippy cups, comfort toys.... the list goes on..... all for an overnight trip. We left at 8:00, made one stop and got to Dallas around 12:30/1:00. After visiting with David, Kerri, and meeting by beautiful new nephew Lane for about an hour we drove to the hotel to check in. We proceeded to get drinks for everyone, potty everyone, undress and redress everyone... put a few in timeout as the new environment tends to get the adrenaline going so they feel a need to scream, run, and hang from the drapes in the hotel room. Finally, we loaded up once again and headed to the church. We were the 1st to arrive to a beautiful and deathly quiet church with a tile floor so that each sounds echos throughout the quiet and holy venue. I felt like each shush noise I made was heard by all. While I have to say I was stressed afraid someone might go off and have to be rushed out of the church... they were all actually very good. The baptism followed the Mass and was perfect. I was a very proud Aunt. We left the church, loaded back up and headed to David & Kerri's for a reception. It was about 6:00 at this point and I was afraid after a long day with no naps the kids would be a terror, but they were great and we all had a great time. My guess is it was about 8:00 when we left and headed back to the hotel. We undressed everyone, pottied everyone, PJ'd everyone, set up the pack and play, and the sleeping bags... throw in a few timeouts... and off to bed. We woke at 7:00 the next morning (repeat previous steps... dressing, brushing teeth, feeding kids, shoes, timeout, etc.) and met the family for breakfast. After breakfast Jerry headed to Oklahoma (we bought David & Kerri's car for Jerry's Mom) with a new car for Barb and I loaded up to drive back to Houston. Mom rode with Me and GG with Dad. We all got home safe and exhausted and entertained kids until their bedtime.... it was a fun trip, a quick trip, and a tiring trip.....

Here are some pictures of Lane:




And a few pics of the kids:

Just goofing around

Just Me and Cody

Today the triplets were at Mom's Day Out, so Cody and I spent some quality time together. If you've been following our blog, you'll remember Cody had his tear ducts probed at 9 months(didn't work)then had tubes put in his eyes a few months ago due to blocked ducts and chronic eye infections. He gets the tubes out this Tuesday, so pray the ducts remain open, but look at these beautiful clear eyes. GORGEOUS!!!

You can look at the photos in previous posts to see what this poor little guy has been through....
Posting for when ducts were probed...
Posting for the days tubes were put in.....

Relax???

Why am I always behind??? I have to clean out the kids clothes AGAIN... what have the girls outgrown, what can Jadon pass down to Cody and what has Cody outgrown. Then I have to swap out the summer clothes with winter clothes. I have to wrap my nephew's baptism gift. I have to burn our videos to discs (way past due) and make copies for grandparents. Time to balance the checkbook again. Planning to mulch flowerbeds myself due to unreasonable quotes we received for this service. Laundry... nothing to be said here as it always needs to be done. Need to clean photos off camera so I can take pics of the upcoming baptism and some photos of my brother's new baby. Need to order checks as I'm on my last book. Bought an Ipod holder which turned out not to fit which needs to be returned.... the list goes on. All this being said, I thought this cartoon was funny.