Christmas 2007

Well it is the day after Christmas and I can't believe it is over. What a busy and exciting few days. On Sunday we went to Jay's mom and dads house to celebrate with the Jeeninga's. A great time was had by all. Here is the best picture we have ever gotten of all 5 kids!!
And this is a shot of the kids enjoying the awesome gift from Grandma and Grandpa Jeeninga
Oh yes it is a full size air hockey table. The kids love it. Jay and I like it too. On Sunday night Jay and I stayed up quite late playing.
On Monday we went to my Grandma's house for our Christmas celebration with my family. This is always the greatest day of the year. All of my cousins and their families are there as well as all aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents. It is a full house but so much fun. This is the only time of the year we are all together with our children. Here is a picture of the boys before we left the house

Here they are waiting patiently to open presents

This is the only time I will ever put a picture of me on the blog. Here is me with my cousin Lisa. She has been my best friend since birth and now I love to see our children playing together. She has 2 boys and then she went and had a girl in October. Not too sure what to do with her:) I am the one in purple for those of you who have never actually seen me.




On Christmas morning we actually slept in a bit. Jay, Jacob, Tyler, Camden and I were all up by 8am waiting for Sam who strolled out of bed about 8:30. After opening our stockings, each of the kids had one present under the tree. Jacob and Sam opened theirs but Tyler didn't have one. He looked a bit concerned for a moment, even fought back the tears, when Jay ran down stairs to get the video camera ready. Once ready he called Tyler down. Ty found a large blob covered by a blanket with a large bow on top. We told him to open his present and this is what he found....




I can't believe I actually bought drums to keep in my LOUD house of boys, but there is something about finding that perfect Christmas present that tends to send all reason out the window. He was ECSTATIC to say the least.
Here is the baby on his first Christmas....



I had 3 different baby's first Christmas outfits for him to wear for each day of our Christmas's but apparently I never took any pictures of him while he was wearing them. Since he pukes a gallon every 3 minutes, none of the overpriced outfits lasted too long. At least I got him in the bib.
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas, and if you didn't, at least it is over:)


I know you are all proud of me finally adding pictures to my blog. I FIGURED IT OUT!!!!! Now I need to learn how to upload videos, but don't hold your breath-it took me almost a year to get a handle on the picture situation.

Questions

I know, I know, its been a while. Seriously, I mean to keep up with this blog and then before I know it, it's been a month. I am having a bit of writers block lately or maybe it is the children induced brain drain, either way I haven't been able to come up with much to write about. So today I pose to you, the reader, some questions. Some of these are my questions, others have been asked by my kids and I do not have an answer.
1. Mel, can you send me the recipe for that dip you made for mops? I am still dreaming about it!! Any other appetizer recipes would be appreciated. I have lots of "events" coming up in the next few weeks that require my bringing something and you can only bring spinach dip so many years in a row before everyone gets sick of it.
2. What's sex? This question was, of course, presented by my children. But it was delivered with such a shock effect, that I had no answer for them. I fell back, by default, on the "go ask your dad" answer, but I am not sure his answer was much better than mine. All I kept thinking was, "why do you need to know, your 6" but I figured Dr. Dobson taught me better than that, I just couldn't think of anything in that moment!!
3. Why is it that when boys play anything it includes sound effects accompanied by obsessive amounts of spit? The better the move, the more spit. Seriously, I don't get this one. Every time I play whatever it is we are playing, even uno, I end up covered in spit!!! And while we are on this one, why do I always have to be the bad guy?? And how come when you do the jump, kick, spit move, you kill me, when I do it, you magically put up a force field at the perfect time which sends it back to me and again I am down?????
Ok that is enough questions for today!


An update on the kiddos:
Today is the last day of school for 2.5 weeks and honestly I can't wait!! I love having my boys home with me. Sam will be SO excited to have his brothers home which means less spit activities for me:) Camden is 5 months today and he is doing great!! He is such a good baby. He NEVER cries unless he is hungry. He is rolling over and trying very hard to be a thumb sucker. I just keep pulling it out and giving a Binky. Gives me a feeling of more control.


Well that is all I have for you. Merry Christmas to all of you!!!!!

Just a bunch of stuff

Now that the comment situation is remedied I can quit obsessing about it and get on with life. Things have been CRAZY busy around here. On Saturday a group of people from church came over to help us with jobs around the house. I am so blessed to be a part of such an awesome church!! We painted our living room, dining room, hallway upstairs, hallway downstairs, foyer, the whole lower level, kitchen, and boy's room closets. In addition to all of that painting, windows and blinds got cleaned, gutters cleaned out, leaves raked, garage organized, and a bunch of electric thingys changed. It was a busy and exhausting day for all, but the results are AMAZING!!!! We have lived here almost 3 years and had never painted anything. The walls were a yucky antique whitish color originally painted about 30 years ago. So it was time. I also must confess, I have never cleaned windows or blinds. I daily clean off the fingerprints, but the whole inside and outside and screens have NEVER been done! What a blessing this was to me!!! I didn't realize but I love clean windows! Probably not enough to try to fit it into my "cleaning" but enough to say the one who did it is my new best friend! So now I am on to the business of putting my house back together. I figure it is time for the Christmas decos to come out anyway, so I will use all of the open space for that purpose.
We are approaching my favorite weekend of the year!! After a giant dinner on Thursday, my kiddos will sleep over at grandma's so Jay and I can wake up before the crack of dawn to SHOP!! We love it! We map out our route on Thursday night and hit the ground running! I should be done Christmas shopping by about 8am on Friday! That is if I can fight off the other crazy moms for that sweet new transformer on sale while nursing a 17 pound baby! This ought to be interesting this year with baby in tow. It has been a few years since I have had to whip out the (lets be pc out there for my male readers) "baby feeding devices" at Kohls at 4:00am while surrounded by 100's of other people. But lets face it, I can currently nurse, take out the garbage, clean up spilled milk, cook dinner, and paint my toe nails all at the same time, so Kohl's should be childs play! Then it is off the buy the family Christmas tree. I dive into full egg nog mode on Friday and continue on it straight through Christmas day. I am a nut about Christmas. I love everything about it. The sights, the smells, the food, the Starbucks choices, the movies, the music, the weather, and most of all the fact that MY SAVIOR came as a baby! I will never get over how amazing that is! I am awestruck every year at the humble way he came into this world. He could have easily descended on a cloud surrounded by trumpets and thunder and lightening, but no, the God of the universe came the same way the rest of us do! Often times I find the things I think are incredible about Jesus are more so what he didn't do. Oh the scene he could have made, deserved to make, but he didn't. Leaves me speechless (something I rarely am)!
So, in closing, welcome back commenting friends. My house is clean, er I mean painted. The kids are good, providing no humorous stories for you but sanity for me! Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!!

OK try this

Although I was absolutely in love with my layout and colors, I decided to change it to something else to see if it help my comment situation. So let me know if this helps, if it doesn't I am going back to pretty.

So much to blog, so little time

I would love to make this a nice long post but time is not my friend lately. So I will quickly hit a few points.....
1. about an hour after the previous blog entry, Tyler began throwing up!! So much for the underfed or emotional issues diagnoses. Just the plain old repulsive stomach flu!
2. computer issues solved!! Pictures will follow as soon as I learn how to do it. Apparently it is easier to solve to issue of a new computer than it is to resolve the stupidity of the user.
3. Why is it that when I wait 15 minutes for a good parking spot, just so I don't have to walk alone with a baby through a dark parking lot at night, that I forget where I parked and end up spending an extra 15 minutes wondering around said dark parking lot alone with baby trying to find the van that is parked right in front of the exit??????

I am MOTHER OF THE YEAR!!!!

No matter how hard you try to figure out your kids, they will ALWAYS surprise you. I learned this lesson again today while dining at McDonalds with some gals from my mops group. A great time was had by all. There were about 10 kids between the 4 of us although it seemed like about 25. Us ladies were busy gabbing, while ignoring the chaos around us when my cell phone rings. Normally in a situation like this I would not answer the phone as it is loud and it looks really bad when your kid is running nuts and you are on the phone. Today though I did not recognize the number and thought to myself I better take this.
This is the interesting part. On the other end of the phone is Mrs. Kitchenmaster (yes that is her real name) the school nurse at my kids school. I knew immediately this call was pertaining to Tyler because Jacob NEVER goes to the nurse. She begins to tell me that Tyler has a stomach ache. I said ok, should I come get him? Here is where it gets funny..... She says, " well Mrs. Jeeninga, he says that he has been having stomach aches every morning and that he doesn't get breakfast. We, here at school, offer free breakfast and lunch to all kids if you are having trouble. I will send home the application for you with Tyler today. We gave him some cereal this morning and have also offered him some lunch." At this point, I am having a hard time holding my composure. I explained to Mrs. Kitchenmaster that my children are offered a quality, high protein breakfast every morning and a lunch is packed for them every day except Friday when they buy lunch with the money put on their lunch accounts. While I can appreciate her acting on the information provided by my now grounded, attention seeking child, really we are doing ok and are fully able to provide food for our children. And then it goes on....." have their been any problems or changes at home in the past weeks that could be causing this. Because you know often times stomach aches are just a cover up for deeper emotional issues. Or maybe he is having trouble with someone at school? Have you discussed this with him?" "Not as of yet" I replied," but I have every intention of TALKING to him when I see him. In fact, how about I come pick him up now and see if we can get to the bottom of this while it is still fresh." So off I go to the school to pick up Tyler. Now I am angry, embarrassed, and finding all of this a little bit funny. I am doing my very best to temper my sarcasm and act like a grown up now when I enter the school. Camden had just cried himself to sleep when I pulled up in front of the school so I decide to leave him in the car while I run quickly in to get Ty. Samuel follows me in and as I am opening the door, I realize he has no coat on and no shoes because he took them off in the car. Normally I would not care too much about this, but my ability to provide for my children has already been called into question once today and to be honest with you, once a day is plenty for me. So I try to run back to the car to get his shoes at least, when the secretary hit the button and inadvertently buzzed in Samuel. I saw this occurring and turned to run back and catch the door before it locked but I was late. Now I am on one side of the locked door and Samuel is on the other. Bad, very bad. He takes off like a maniac down the hall. I am finally buzzed in when he hits a corner, turns to look at me, and makes the wrong choice. I honestly could hear what was going on in his brain at that moment. He has been wanting to be let loose in that school for 1.5 years now and he saw his chance. In his looking back at me, he knew he shouldn't, but the sinner in him won and off he went. SO at this point, I have a baby locked alone in a car, a shoeless, coat less 4 year old running like a banshee through the halls of the school, and a 6 year old who has convinced the school nurse I don't feed him. I am having a great day. I finally catch up to Sam, who by the mercy of God, must stop at every drinking fountain he encounters. Definitely slows him down a bit. We walk purposefully back to the office to get Tyler, all the while I have a death grip on Samuel's arm. I am busy signing him out, when in comes Mrs. Kitchenmaster. She kindly tells Tyler she hopes he feels better, greets Samuel, informs him it is too cold not to wear a coat ( thankfully she didn't look down at his bare feet) when Tyler asks where Camden is. I try desperately hard to avoid answering this question until we are outside, but it is not one of those days. Samuel (loudly) replies, "Oh mommy locked him in the car" At this point, I do not even bother to reply. I simply gather up my children and head out to the car. Once in the privacy of my car, I began this buffet of emotion. Even the kids asked me if I was crying or laughing, angry or happy. I could not answer this for I was unable to talk. I beelined to Starbucks, got a grande pumpkin latte, and came home to pretend this day never happened. Miraculously, Tyler's stomach ache is gone shortly after arriving home. I have a feeling this is not what the psalmist meant when he said they will rise up and call me blessed!!!

Help

Ok I need help. Ever since redoing my header and layout only about half of my blogger friends can access my comments and links. The odd part is that some can, but others can't. Does anyone know how I can fix this??? I have no problem getting to my links and comments but many others can't. If you can help me but can't tell me because you are one of the ones who cannot comment catch me on myspace or facebook or email me. Thank you for you immediate attention to my computer stupidity:)