Post Christmas Update

I love the days following Christmas!  We have all had so much fun spending time together and playing with all the new toys.  Before the big snow storm, we were able to get some outside time with the new bikes and cozy coupe.   Hannah got a new bike, (which she repeatedly asked for) but once she got it, she wanted nothing to do with it-she decided that she likes the cozy coupe that Ben got better.  This has caused all sorts of fights.  I'm thinking about exchanging the bike for another cozy coupe!

She has also reverted back to riding her little bike:

....which she used to hate!  Admittedly the new bike is a little bit too big, but she will eventually grow into it so I'm not all that worried about it. 

Today has been a little too cold to go outside so we decided to stay in and bake.  Caitlin got a cupcake set for Christmas and wanted to make cupcakes, so I let her go with minimal supervision.  She did really well at following directions-I got some pictures of the process:

Matthew decided to help too.  You can see how much help Caitlin thinks he is!

Preheating the oven

Checking the recipe

Scraping the bowl

Carefully measuring

Pouring the batter

Hannah had the very important job of sampling the batter

Matthew helped too

Icing with 'from scratch' icing!  Caitlin wanted to make it green.

The finished product!

And finally time to taste- They were yummy!

It was a great way to spend the afternoon, but we did make quite a mess.  I think we'll wait a few days to try out the brownie kit!

One of Hannah's favorite presents is her play-doh set.  She loves to get it out and make the animal shapes:

I've taken so many pictures with my new camera...but this is one of my favorites.  One of Ben's latest tricks is knocking on the door (which he gets to practice a lot because the big kids are constantly closing doors on him).  Daddy was outside grilling and Ben wanted to come out:

I'm off to make dinner...more soon!

Merry Christmas!

Blogging just got more fun thanks to my amazing Santa husband:

My own brand new awesome camera!!  (please disregard the morning hair/clothes/breath.  It was early)

So much fun!

So far Christmas has been great!  We went to Mass last night and then came home and let the kids open one gift (Despicable Me) which they then watched 'til bedtime.  We hoped this would help them to relax before bedtime...but they were still pretty excited about Christmas:

Eventually they did go to sleep though, and then it was my favorite part of Christmas..playing Santa!  We got to set up everything for the morning (which included assembling a CozyCoupe for Ben.  We way underestimated the amount of time, tools and temper involved in that.  Let's just hope Santa was not watching.)  However we got it done, stuffed the stockings ate the cookies and milk and were ready for Christmas.  We knew the kids were going to get us up early so we told them they could not get us up until 7am.  However we did not anticipate the 4:45 wake up from Ben, who decided it was time to start Christmas NOW.  That or time for a bottle, either way.  We opted for the bottle and crawled back into bed until Matthew got us up at 6:59:59.  We were a bit exhausted from the late night CozyCoupe assembly/Ben's wake up, but of course seeing their excitement made it all worthwhile-

First look at the tree....

Here's what they saw

Excitement!

Pea's new bike!  (eye's closed for the picture...she is her mother's daughter.)

Ben investigating the CozyCoupe

Already texting and driving...

Caitlin with her new American Girl doll Josephina

Matthew got a (you'll shoot your eye out) Red Rider BeeBee gun.  Daddy's pretty excited about it.

Signed Michael Montgomery print of Uga...my favorite gift to Matt this year.

MY NEW COOKIE PANTS!  Thanks Gin.  I love them!!

Life Without School

After two long years I can't tell you how good it feels to say that I am DONE with school!  Given the job market for teachers right now, I'm not necessarily sure that it was the right choice, but hopefully things will open up soon and education will become a priority in the budget once again.  And while I would love to start teaching right away, I'm also not sure if its the right time for Ben and Hannah.  Hannah never really warmed up to the whole daycare thing, and while Ben did just fine, I think his behavior suffered a bit.  So while I wait for a job, I'm really quite content taking care of my babies.

I'm sitting here at the table watching Pea color and Ben try to figure out how to open the door (please, Lord don't let him figure it out!) and listening to Matthew (who is a little bit sick) play the DS.  Last night and yesterday we had a few snow flurries and the coldest weather so far this winter.  Needless to say I am grateful for my warm kitchen! 

I don't have too much news to report overall...once I get back into the groove of things and start taking pictures I'm sure I'll have more to say.  For now I'm going to post some randoms that I've taken since the last time I posted pics.

 Student teaching!  I do miss it :)

 Random one from our trip to Edisto...Pea, Pat, Betty, Art & Reese

Daddy and TheBen.  Ben spent a lot of time the backpack...he loves to be carried around. 


Thats all for now.  Computer battery dying!