Can't Wait!

It is the night before Christmas Eve and I am every bit as excited as I was 20 years ago. This year I am excited to watch my kids open their gifts! I promised myself we wouldn't buy to much that we would get the kids used to being raised in a big family. I wanted their gift from Santa to be a trip to the Great Wolf Lodge to enforce spending time together. I wanted all their presents to be educational tools. I wanted to have a day that we spent together not running from house to house, but to let them enjoy the day in their jammies playing with their toys. Christmas will not be what I had decided it should be. We got a little over excited when we went shopping. We bought a couple educational toys but most are toys. Santa did not bring a trip to the Great Wolf Lodge, we will be doing that anyway. He brought a Nintendo DS for K (who quite possibly would not live to see a single day past Christmas without one), a V-Motion for T and so on. I want to teach my kids not to expect too much on Christmas but it is a hard cycle to break. Although I don't remember it there are stories of a Christmas when I was little I had so many gifts to open I had to take a break. On the positive side it looks like we will not be leaving the house all day on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day! For the first time ever our babies will stay home and play and enjoy the day. We will relax watch movies, eat junk and play with their toys with them. From our family to yours Merry Christmas!!!!

Soon!

As of yesterday it will be no more than nine weeks until we meet Jonsen. Since they are inducing at 39 weeks. With Hudsyn I only made it 38 weeks. No one can say when he will be here but he is coming soon. I am getting very excited. I can't wait to hold him and love on him. I missed quite a bit of Hudsyn's babyhood with my mom being sick. She started not doing well in January so my memories become quite foggy. After she passed in February I remember even less. I think I started coming out of the fog around May and remember her babyhood from about that point on. Tristin and I were laying in bed looking at the pictures on my laptop of the last year or so. I barely remember taking the pictures, which I know I did. I didn't realize then but that is how I see it now. It breaks my heart now. I remember trying to make sure that she didn't know. I still held her quite a bit of the time but for me I wasn't as smitten as I usually am. I am very excited to be moved and settled. Having five kids sounds like a lot and looks like a lot in a picture but it doesn't feel like that many. I am really starting to understand why people say that when you have a big family the older kids help with the younger ones. Kaitlynne is a toss up, she may help or she may cause the biggest arguments. Tristin is becoming quite the helper. He plays with Bell all day, they play all sorts of imagination games. He likes to make himself and the little girls PB&J's get their snacks and drinks. Get diapers and wipes. He tries to explain things to Bell and teach her what he is learning in school. Which she picks up on her own for the most part. We are really enjoying homeschooling. I am so glad that I went ahead and tried it. I was really afraid that it was going to be too much or I wouldn't be disciplined enough to do it. Turns out to be so much easier and more fun than I expected. I love spending the time with him and watching him learn new things. He learned to read his first book on Thursday. It was so exciting. I see how families that homeschool are so close. T and Bell have such a great bond. They enjoy each other company so much. It is such a blessing to see. I can't say enough how much I am enjoying homeschooling this year! So glad we went ahead with it. This post was all over the place but I figured I would put my thoughts into writing.

I'm Back

It's been a month and a half since I last blogged. It has been the craziest time in our life. We bought a new van, which took a long time to find so I was without a car for a week two. That was interesting, try finding a car when you can't go out and look! We were blessed to have friends let us borrow their car while we searched. We bought one we love!!! It looks like a church van! Perfect for a family with lots of kids and tons of space in the back for storage. We got a crazy good deal on it. I couldn't be happier with it. Then we moved. That's right, again. I intend on never moving again. Seriously. We took over my parents house. My Dad moved out when he got remarried. It is nice to be here. It feels like home (obviously).

We enjoyed Thanksgiving here. It felt weird without my Mom here but comforting at the same time. We made our first Thanksgiving dinner and enjoyed the day alone with the kids. We have always tried to divide the day between both our families which is nice but not easy. I felt like we were rushing around and yelling at the kids and scarfing down food only to run to the next place. We had a very relaxed day this year, we even got a nap while we were waiting on the turkey to cook! After dinner Chad and the kids wrestled on the floor and then we watched the Santa Clause. We are blessed!