Happy Birthday Vivien!

Every year I make the goal to get birthday cards out on time and then Vivien's birthday sneaks up on me and I fail at the beginning of the year! Sorry Vivien! We're thinking of you and your card will be in your hands soon. :-)

Another one of my many goals this year is to spend more time outside with the kids. So, Zach, Kate, Noah, and I went out this morning to enjoy all the snow we have. It was still snowing lightly when we went out. I think this was Noah's first time playing in the snow!

Zach tried to follow me down the hill to get the sled, but it was hard to move in the deep snow. Here he is sitting down to take a break.
Kate loves to be pulled around in the sled instead of having to walk through the snow. I would too if the snow went past my knees!

Noah liked the sled until it started to move. I got him out, so Zach and Kate could do some sledding.
Zach helped me build a snowman. He worked very hard at it!
Noah and Kate watched from the sidelines. Noah is sitting in the sled and Kate is sitting in a beach chair.


Kate was crying to go inside at this point. Noah was cold and ready to go in, too. Zach and I would have liked to work on our snowman more, but it was time to go inside.

You gotta blog about this

It has been snowing here since Thursday. We made it to church today along with 17 other members. There were 13 children and 12 adults in attendance for Sacrament meeting. We all sat in the first few pews, which left the middle to back pews empty. Noah decided to be a rebel and sit by himself toward the back. I let him because he was being quiet and reverent. During the Sacrament, he sat as reverent as could be on the pew and waited for the bread. The tray was put in front of him and he took a piece of bread and ate it. He remained seated and waited for the tray of water. The tray of water was placed in front of him and he took a cup, drank it, and then put the cup back in the tray. This was done all by himself. It was so cute! Zoe leaned over to me and said, "You gotta blog about this!". Noah looked extra cute and grown up today in his white shirt, tie, and sweater vest.

Zach wore his new tie that he received for Christmas. Handsome boys!

Happy New Year!

I rang in the new year watching "Twilight". I enjoyed it this time because I had lower expectations and just tried to enjoy the story of the movie instead of expecting it to follow the book. Earlier in the evening, Matt and I went to see "The Blind Side" at the Alamo theater. Now that is a great movie! If you haven't seen it yet, go see it!

It is 2010, so Use it or Lose it is in full swing. Yesterday, I got rid of a few Christmas things that didn't get used this Christmas season. I am happy that Matt is taking this New Year's resolution as serious as I am. When he went through his clothes, he got rid of a ton of ties that I have been trying to convince him to get rid of for years now. He would never wear the ties, but he couldn't seem to part with them. His tie rack looks great now with only the ties that he wears. :-)

Eleanor lost a tooth last night! She put her new tooth fairy pillow to use last night.

Eleanor was so happy to finally lose this tooth!

Her permanent tooth was already growing in behind the baby tooth.

We have finally named our fish. Maher-shalal-hash-baz a.k.a. Marshall Hashbrown. I wanted to name the fish Red, but Zoe said that was a boring name. I pointed out that we have a boring fish, the name fits perfectly. Our fish has barely moved, he never eats, and he is losing his fins. Matt suspects he is sick with fin rot. When the Wilson kids were here, they kept asking why we have a fish bowl with no fish in it. The fish hides in a corner where we can't really see him. So, Matt and I were surprised last night when the fish was moving around a bit and he picked at the flake of food that I gave him. I watched from a distance as he was swimming around this morning, but when we are close to him, he goes back to his corner. We hope that he will fully recover from his fin rot. It is much more fun to watch a healthy, active fish.

It is quieter here today

I forgot to mention when I wrote my Christmas post that Zoe and Emily received #3, #4, & #5 of the Harry Potter movies, so they slept over at my parents' house on Christmas to watch them. They had a great time! Zoe just finished the 7th Harry Potter book today. Emily is reading the 6th book.

My friend, Courtney is getting her house ready to sell since her family is moving to New Mexico in a few months, so I watched her 3 kids yesterday. Courtney and her husband, Matt were able to have a productive day around their house. We don't get to see the Wilson kids much besides at church because of distance, so the kids had a great time playing together! I got a picture of the entire gang before lunch.

We have 8 chairs, so we made Spencer his own table from one of the American Girl doll boxes and he sat in Noah's new camp chair (which is another one of my sweet Goodwill finds - $1.99!).


Emma enjoyed watching Zach play on Webkinz.

The girls played school and Barbies. They also watched Eleanor's new Barbie Three Musketeers movie.

I didn't put Noah down for his nap, so he crashed at dinnertime. One minute he was awake, and the next...


It was a loud, busy day, but it was a good day. The kids played well together and Eleanor was able to get a play date in with her best friend during vacation. :-)

I am down to 4 kids now. Zoe and Emily left about an hour ago for a sleepover at Caitlin's and Cassidy's house. What a difference from yesterday!

Would be snow day

It snowed throughout the night last night, so we woke up to about 4 inches of new snow. Everything is so white and beautiful outside! I'm glad it snowed because it had rained on Sunday and most of the snow was gone. The kids didn't play outside today as much as I thought they would, but they did go out for a little bit this afternoon. It must have been pretty cold outside because usually Zoe lasts a lot longer out in the snow. She came in complaining that she couldn't feel her fingers. I sent the camera out with Emily and she took this picture of Zoe. No wonder she was cold!


Yesterday, I started thinking about some red felt that was in our closet and I wondered what to do with it. I then realized that I have flannel board figures that have never been cut out and will need felt on the back when they are cut out.

I spent a little bit of time yesterday cutting out these flannel board figures and gluing the red felt on the back of them. I have more to cut out, but I focused on this set yesterday. Seeing these flannel board figures inspired Eleanor to use some other figures we have that were already cut out for her FHE lesson. Yay, we used our flannel board and figures that we haven't used in awhile! I like it.

I cleaned the kids' room today and cleaned off their dresser, which I haven't done in awhile. I decided that we didn't need to hang on to these trophies any longer. I took a picture of them and told Zoe that we now have a picture of them and I am going to get rid of them. They are trophies that she received after participating in the basketball programs in Bucksport and Orland over the last several years. We didn't really have room for them and they were just collecting dust. Goodbye trophies. For the record, I did keep her softball trophy that she earned this past Spring. I'll get rid of that one when she earns a new one. I would care more about these trophies if they were meant for Zoe specifically for a certain achievement, but they are generic trophies that everyone received.


Here is a record of Eleanor's artwork that I simplified today.

Can you imagine the amount of artwork we would have if I didn't have it in me to simplify most of it?!

And here is a picture of Noah using one of his Christmas gifts. I love this Goodwill find! So cute.

1000th post!

I feel like this post should have something special in it. So, along with our Christmas happenings, I will let you in on our plan and motto for 2010.

Use it or lose it!...2010
The idea is to use everything this year that we own. What we don't use or know that we will never use, we get rid of it. Do you have items in your home that you keep because SOMEDAY you may use them, but when an opportunity comes to use them, you don't. One example for me is keeping disposable decorating bags. I used them years ago, but now they just take up space and I keep them because I may decide SOMEDAY to use them again...although I haven't used them for several years. I am determined to keep them, so now I need a plan to actually use them. My plan is to use them for Valentine's Day goodies.

Another item that is on my mind is Zoe's picture frame that she received several years ago after her baptism. We have yet to put a picture in it! We need to put a picture in it or get rid of it. I will get Zoe's input of whether or not to keep the frame and if she does want to keep it, then she needs to decide what picture to put in it, I will get the picture printed, and we will put the picture in the frame.

I mentioned to Matt that sometimes I wear items of clothing just because I have them, but I don't love them. So a question to ask ourselves is, "Do we use an item just because we have it or do we really love it?" This thought motivated Matt to go through his clothes this morning and get rid of the items that he doesn't love. This motivated me to do the same. Matt took a large garbage bag of clothes to the dump this morning. :-) The clothes go in a clothes bin for other people to go through and take what they want.

I'll keep you posted on our progress. Use it or lose it!...2010.

Now on to Christmas...every gift we received, we will use! This is not a problem because we received awesome gifts. :-) As I give gifts this year, I will keep in mind the usefulness of the gift. I don't want my gift to be clutter or have little meaning.

I will start my overview of our Christmas happenings on Wednesday evening when Eleanor and Zach went over to my parents' home to spend the night and I took Emily shopping, so she could buy Zoe a gift. While Emily and I were gone, Zoe made Emily's gift. This is the first year that a child of mine has come up with a gift idea for someone on their own and carried it out, which was nice. Zoe was excited about making the gift and having Emily open it. Since Zoe was making Emily a gift, we decided to have Emily give Zoe a gift, Eleanor and Zach exchanged gifts and Kate and Noah exchanged gifts. The kids have so much fun shopping for each other and opening their sibling gifts.

Christmas Eve morning was super busy as I made applesauce cookies (Matt's favorite) and sugar cookies (my favorite). When the cookies were done and Matt came home from work, we met the missionaries to go caroling at the Foster's, the Tyne's, the Daigle's, Mary's, the Noonan's, the Leeman's, and the Brown's. Zoe, Emily, and Noah came with us while my parents watched Eleanor, Zach, and Kate. It was fun to see our friends on Christmas Eve and at the last home, we were sounding pretty good, I think. :-)

We did some last minute shopping in town and picked up Chinese food before coming home. I took Christmas Eve and Christmas day off from dieting. Matt and I noticed, though that we crave a lot of yummy food while dieting, but we didn't crave anything when we could eat whatever we wanted to. It was still fun to eat whatever we wanted and it tasted yummy, but food is more appealing when you can't have it. That's the way it is with a lot of things isn't it. Anyway, while I was enjoying my Chinese food, the kids watched, "A Christmas Memory" and Matt went to the post office (which had just closed) after talking with one of the post office workers about picking up a package that could not be delivered that day (one of Kate's Christmas presents) because we weren't home. The worker said she would stay until Matt got there, which was so nice! However, the worker couldn't get to the package after all because the room the package was in was locked. My mom and I had a backup plan in case this package didn't arrive in time, so it worked out anyway. We'll save this gift for Kate's birthday.

Kate and Noah started fighting over a book, so I suggested that Kate read the book to Noah. She thought that was a great idea. I captured this cute picture of them in the chair together.


We watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", which is our Christmas Eve tradition and then we sent the kids to bed. Matt and I stayed up to watch "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", which has also become a tradition. We watched it one year after flipping through the channels when we had cable and now we borrow mom's copy to watch. The movie ended at 1am and we made it to bed around 2:30am. The kids woke us up at 6am.

We had a great Christmas! My parents and my grandmother came over in the morning. We let the kids open their stockings (we have new stockings this year thanks to Sunshine!) and they opened one gift before we ate breakfast.


Santa was very generous this year. Emily got a bed for her AG dolls, Emily & Nikki.

Eleanor got an AG doll, Ruthie (who she frequently calls Rudy) and Kate received Fancy Nancy.

Zoe received Julie's bed. Julie & Josephina share the bed.

Zach received a Thomas the Train set and Noah got a big box of legos. I don't have pictures for them, though. My camera battery died soon after we started unwrapping presents, so I only have a few pictures. Here are a few more pictures that I took.

We have a fish! A very lazy fish if you ask everyone. The fish does not move. We keep expecting to find it belly side up. The fish came in a small container, so we wonder if it just got used to being still. The kids are bored of him already. We're thinking of naming him slug or some other lazy term.

We find more enjoyment out of Zoe's swedish fish aquarium that she made for Emily. The swedish fish moves more than our real fish!

Noah became a pro at unwrapping presents. After awhile, when we would hand him a gift he would exclaim, "Yeah!" Then he would find a spot to sit down and unwrap his present. So cute!


Zach was very pleased with his coloring book and crayons from his Primary teacher, Sister Liza.

He chose to color in his coloring book instead of eating breakfast.

Matt took pictures of us eating. I am so glad I was able to make our traditional egg sausage casserole this year. I can prepare most of it on Christmas Eve and it is so yummy!

Zoe wanted us to try to make waffles again (we tried last Christmas, but failed), but we stuck with pancakes. Delicious!


All of the kids, except for Noah, received a new webkinz. Now Zach has a webkinz cat of his very own.

Zach really loved this cat until Eleanor received a Fur Real puppy. He wanted to claim the puppy, but we wouldn't let him. He was very mad about that! Now we know what to get him for his birthday.

Zoe is excited to go ice skating!
Kate was the only kid concerned about getting her wrapping paper into the trash bag when she unwrapped her presents. When she received a present, she would move close to the trash bag. She would tear a piece of wrapping paper off her present and then stick it in the trash bag. We loved it! Her example didn't catch on, though.


Zoe, Emily, and Eleanor received earring trees. I may be more excited about these gifts then they are. I love the organized earrings! Now they can pick a pair of earrings to wear without searching for a match. Eleanor received her first pair of earrings for Christmas and she got her ears pierced today! She was so nervous, but she did it and she is happy that she did!



Her earrings are emerald flowers. So pretty!

We went over to mom and dad's for dinner on Christmas. We don't usually have a Christmas dinner, but we just had to plan a delicious dinner while Matt and I had the day off from dieting! We took some pictures with grammie before dad brought her home.


We're glad you spent Christmas with us, grammie!

Is that a long enough post for my 1000th? It's probably a good thing that my camera battery died while opening presents!

Okay, so I have a few more pictures. Noah is such a cuddle bug. We love it!



And here are Zach and Matt building one of Zach's new lego sets this evening. Zach loves the legos! He got to stay up a bit past his bedtime to finish his lego creation. :-)


Did I mention that I got the Twilight series for Christmas? Use it or lose it...it's time for me to go use this gift. :-)

Naughty or Nice?

This little boy was naughty today.

He broke Eleanor's red ball ornament that had her name and the year she was born on it. Now I have to make her a new one. I don't need extra things to do, Noah!

All of the kids were nice last night while we were at Jerry and Judy's home with the Barrett family for FHE. Sunshine read us the Christmas story from Luke and then all of the non-dieters ate Judy's delicious baked goods. LUCKY! Maybe last night should have been our night to pig out instead of Christmas day.

It is so nice to have all of the wrapping done! I went over to my parents' home this evening to wrap presents with my mom. It is so wonderful to have someone to wrap presents with!