Basketball

Tate and Garett are signed up for sports through the YMCA. Garett has a class that teaches them how to play basketball, soccer and t-ball. Tate is playing basketball on a little league. Their team name is the "Gators". Marissa is just so darn cute holding a basketball that I just had to snap her picture.

Kevin's birthday

Kevie's birthday. The kids enjoyed ice cream cake and giving Kevin mocasins and gumballs and steel cut oats.

My semi-new chair.

This chair I bought at Salvation Army for 18.00 and recovered with brown linen floral fabric. I like it alot. I need to make a pillow for it and get a little table with a lamp to set next to it. But this is the general idea of it.

Garett's invention

Garett worked very hard this morning making a contraption with the clean dishes he unloaded from the dishwasher. Wouldn't it be awesome if we all had this much fun doing chores?

Hot Chocolate

Garett has been making me hot chocolate every day. At about 2pm, I think he gets a little craving for chocolate and he'll make a huge cup of hot chocolate and hunt me down. After I drink a bit, he downs the rest of it! This hot chocolate he loves is a mix from Aunt Laura. Laura, we finished all your hot chocolate mix!!! We need the recipe to make some more!

Tate's birthday cookie

Again, we still do not have an oven. Soooo, Tate got a birthday cookie from the bakery instead of a homemade birthday cake. He did not seem to mind, as you can see from the picture.

Football

Kevin made sure that Tate had plenty of sports-related birthday presents. Whenever we have gone to Costco, Kevin and Tate end up in the sports aisle playing football. Kevin bought him the football for his birthday, and when Tate got it he RAN to Kevin, jumped in his lap and gave him the biggest hug I think he has ever given anyone.

Garett's present

Garett gave Tate a Lego airplane that he spent his own money on. He was super proud of this present!!!

Breakfast in Bed

Tate called this birthday his "Golden Birthday". It was the only birthday in his life where he would celebrate the same number (age) as the date of his birthday- he was turning "7" on January "7"th.

Tate's tower of birthday presents

Medieval Times- January 6th, 2007

We celebrated Tate's birthday by taking him (and the rest of the fam) to Medieval Times. Lots of eating with your hands, watching jousting and being a part of the "King's Court". It was cool. The Knight we were cheering for happened to win. Tate really liked it.

Medieval Times

PTO

I went to my first PTO meeting tonight at Cotton Creek. I have felt so lame about not going yet but have been swamped getting adjusted, getting the house under control, taking on a church project or two, getting some furniture, etc. At any rate, I finally went tonight. Now, I did not expect a hundred people. I learned from Connecticut that these types of organizations are fabulously run by few in number. Yet, I was shocked to be only 1 of 8 parents attending. It is hard to manage getting there- in our situation it is difficult getting Kevin home in time to make the meeting. Yet, Cotton Creek next year will have 700 students. Does that shock you?

Wicker

My third chair for our family room is the coolest mahogany colored wicker rocker from Ethan Allen. The stain is actually a darker color- one that is the same as the finish on the other chair. I couldn't get a picture of the rocker, but this is basically the same thing, just imagine it as a rocker in a darker stain.

My new Genevieve Chair

My new chair is sooooo beautiful. I cannot wait to get it. I poured over whether to buy it or not. I must have gone to Walter E. Smithe 10 times. They finally felt sorry for me, so they gave me a box of Vintage Cough Drops that inside was a GOLD CERTIFICATE for $500 off a custom piece of furniture. My designer, Diane, said that she had never seen anybody get one of those before!!! I seriously think it was planted to get rid of me once and for all.

Our new sofa

This is a picture of the sofa I created at Bassett. You can pick your arms, legs, fabric, attached or semi-attached pillows, boxed, pleated blah blah blah. So, although this looks rather boring, the chair I ordered from Walter E. Smithe is BEAUTIFUL and I am so excited for 4-6 weeks to come (when they come in.).

Hot Tubbing at Momo's house!

Marissa loves on Baby Skylar

Meeting Baby Skylar for the 1st time

Great Grandma pictures

Garett's new Christmas things

Tate's new Christmas things

Marissa's new Christmas toys

Green and Red Eggs and Ham

Kevin's fabulous Christmas breakfast. Normally we have a yummy egg casserole but since our oven broke the week before Christmas, we have had to do a lot of improvising. For breakfast, we had red and green eggs and ham with homemade waffles. For Christmas dinner, we had ham (again!) and mashed potatoes and stuffing and broccoli. No Christmas cookies!!! I tried to make fudge twice but it failed- maybe because I tried to quadruple the recipe?!?

The Gator

Santa was good...

Tate, Garett and Marissa were on Santa's "nice" list. Marissa got a little kitty cat, a Princess castle, and a play makeup set. Garett got a Marbleworks toy, Operation Shrek, and Knock it Down Blocktown. Tate got a drum set, a coat and a Memory Game. Their big present was waiting outside in the yard... more pictures to follow.

Birthday Wishes

Last year when we asked Tate what he wanted for his (5th) birthday, he said, "An American Express card". This year I asked him what he wanted, "An XBox 360". I had no idea he even knew what that was! So I said, "Tate, what is that?" He said, "I don't know but Michael (his friend from school) has one and he says it is cool."

Santa

Marissa told Kevin in a very endearing way and she meant this as a total compliment, "Daddy, I love you. Almost as much as Santa."

An early Christmas package!

Drums

If you thought spoons and pots were for toddlers you were wrong. This has become a new old favorite. The only problem is we are much stronger than we were at age 2 and we have broken 2 of Mom's spoons!

Christmas Cards

If you are wondering why your stamp was in the middle of the page or your address was a little crooked, I had lots of help this year with assembling the Christmas cards. We had tons of fun!

My amazing Christmas lights!

Okay- so I had a little help with the evergreen, but all the rest of the lights I succeeded in putting up myself.

3's

Tate passed his 3's today!!! He takes a "Math Minutes" test about every day and has to add 3's to other numbers 25 times in 1 minute in writing. He passed today so now he is on 4's.

Two hundred nineteen

The number of times Garett can jump up and down without stopping.

Happy Juice

Over Thanksgiving we were taking a walk and Marissa was ahead of us on her bike. A car came around the curve and she happened to be in the middle of the street! I screamed "Marissa" and we all started running toward her. She, fortunately, got over in time. When we got up to her she had tears in her eyes. We talked to her for a bit about I screamed at her and how important it was that she keep herself to the side of the street. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and told her dad not to worry, she was just wiping away the juice. So this morning at breakfast I look over at her and see that she has tears in her eyes and asked her about it. She said it was "happy juice" this time.

Tate loves the Rockets

Tricks from the basement

The haircut

Nice hairdo, huh? Garett helped by cutting her hair on top.

Garett says that if we are tired of calling him "Bomb" it would be okay if we called him "Arrow".

Tate's Santas

O Christmas Tree!!!

Fondue Night

If you're wondering what the weather is- we have one in a snowsuit and 2 in underwear- we celebrate all seasons and weather in our home!

Cut-Your-Own-Christmas-Tree

Here we are trudging through the snow to chop down our own Christmas tree. Good thing we had our gun to shoot down anything that got in our way of our all important mission!

Garett's own creation- his hairdo

Garett's name change

Garett told me while we were driving that he wanted me to know that he would prefer if I did not call him Garett anymore. He would rather me call him "Bomb". He said he realized we could not call him that on an airplane so when we were on the airplane, we could call him "Kilroy". But most importantly, no matter what we called him- to not ever call him "Baby" but if I really wanted, I could call him "Pumpkin Pie". These were his words exactly!

Garett's bath

Garett decided to go the unconventional route with his bath- he hopped in the sink!!! When the boys had come in from playing outside their feet were so cold that we had soaked them in the sink in lukewarm water. We turned around and Garett had gone al natural. Bathing in the kitchen sink is not just for babies I guess- it can be a bathing alternative for 4 year olds!

My new chairs

I found these darling chairs at a shop in McHenry but there was one problem- they were RED VELVET. So, with a lot of coaching and help from Linda (she basically did one and then I did the 2nd one) I've got 2 really cute chairs for my living room! I am going to make a little lumbar pillow to sit in the middle of each chair with a stripe pattern and put ball fringe around it.