Part 2: Christmas 2010

I'll tell you what, I am so behind on posts! My plan is to work backward, so here is part 2 of Christmas and then we are going back to Thanksgiving, then back from there until I am all caught up! Not that I have any requirements to post or anything, but what can I say? I have a lot of my dad in me!

A tradition that has carried on from my childhood is that the first Sunday of the month of December we make gingerbread houses at my mom's house. It has become a serious endeavor for her since growing up we just decorated one house. Now she makes a large house for her, large houses for my family and each of my two brothers' families, and little houses for each grandchild. For those of you doing the math, that is 4 large houses and 7 small houses.

Everyone hard at work!



Quinton working on his house.



My nephew Caleb and his dad, my brother Carter, working on his house.



Isaac's house in-process.



Carter Paul working on his house.



Domenic eying the candy table!



I had to take a close-up of Caleb's finished house - check it out!!!! Santa going down the chimney - and even his bag is full of toys. INCREDIBLE!!!!



Carter and Carter Paul helping me out with Domenic!! It is great to have so many people willing to hold him when we get together as a family. Despite Carter's pleadings, I didn't let him feed Domenic marshmallows! (not that I have anything against feeding my kids sugar - but I am against feeding them food they can choke on!!)




The final products and their proud designers!


The boys Christmas morning before we opened any presents. And, yes, Roman does look a bit of a mess!




Roman diving right in to play with his big Santa gift - a car garage.



Quinton's big Santa gift - a workbench. Since Grandpa and Grandma were in cahoots with Santa, their gift to Quinton was a box of wood and bolts, as well as a vice that had been kicking around at my parent's house for a while (when I say a while, I mean that the wood turned legs you see, are from the first year my parents were married!)





A table that Quinton made with his workbench. He and Roman had a tea party with his "Quinton bear."




One of the most miraculous things about this year's Christmas was that it actually snowed on Christmas day!!! (remember, this is Georgia!)

Adorable Roman. Hard to believe that last year's pictures of snow were with Quinton in this jacket! Little Roman is really growing up.



Quinton and a neighbor friend. Patrick is 3 years older than Quinton, but they still play together pretty frequently. The problem with Quinton being so big for his age is that people (and kids) think he is older than he is, but he definitely doesn't act any older than 5, which can sometimes create problems when he and Patrick play.




I love to have everyone over on Christmas Eve - usually after dinner we sing carols while I accompany on piano. This year my parents surprised us with musical pipes they made for each of us. We played several carols with the pipes - each person being in charge of one "number." Quinton loved it so much, I helped him set them all up on the broom handle so that he could play songs by himself. After he practiced, he put on a "show" for us and demanded that we sing along!

Part 1: Christmas 2010

One of my favorite Christmas traditions growing up was the advent calendar my mom did every year for us kids. As a matter of fact, she continued the calendar for us up until each of us were married. I am so excited to be continuing the tradition with our own children. The boys rotate days, and I will admit it was very difficult to come up with 8 special things for Domenic. He had several "stay up an hour late" options, which of course was completely irrelevant to a 7 month old baby, but gave Quinton and Roman the idea that Domenic did get something special. One of Quinton's advent days was to go to the Children's Museum of Atlanta. It has become a sort of tradition in and of itself to go to the museum every December. Here are this year's crop of pictures:

Playing with the moon sand. I have to say, the sand was really neat! It holds its shape, although it is not "wet." I am not ashamed to admit that I really enjoy doing a lot of the "kid" activities with Quinton. They are still super fun to do as an adult!



At the train table with a fellow train aficionado:






We really lucked out in that the weekend we went, there happened to be a HUGE model train on display. It was quite amazing - there were all of these buttons every foot or so that you could push and it would make a electrify a little scene along the track. Quinton basically parked himself in front of this particular button which controlled a RR Crossing Arm. He took the responsibility very seriously to raise and lower the arm every time the train came around the track. Luckily for me there was a nice big beanbag chair positioned just perfectly to sit and watch since he manned his station for quite a while!



And of course, where we spent the lion's share of our time: at the ball factory!



Well, the whole family got really sick the week or two before Christmas. First it was a stomach virus, then some sort of flu-like virus with fever, etc. Needless to say, I got really behind in my Christmas plans. A piano student gave me these beautiful cupcakes. Because of being sick, I didn't get to my Christmas cookie baking when I had originally planned, so I didn't have the cookies that I was originally going to give Quinton's teachers. I know this sounds terrible, but I regifted the cupcakes to his teachers. I went out and got cup holders and gift cards for Dunkin' Donuts and put together these gifts.




Quinton's school Christmas party. It was fun and well-organized, but boy, was it LONG!! Two hours, which may not seem long, but when you have your other 2 children with you and are trying to keep them out of the festivities, it was about an hour and a half too long! I usually don't take the other kids with me when I go to Quinton's school activities, but I am always asking friends to watch my kids for Roman's doctors' appointments, that I didn't want to ask yet again for someone to watch the kids. Several other parents bring their children with them, but whew! I think next time I'll risk asking another favor and have a friend watch the boys!

Pizza for lunch.

Roman pointing to something which I don't remember.

A snowman pinata.


A "snowball" toss game.


Another sibling of a student - she was very sweet and was very attentive to the boys!


One of several crafts the children made.


The night of Quinton's Christmas program for school he got sick. He threw up in the early afternoon but he told me he "felt good." So he got all dressed and in my infinite wisdom :-), I brought a bowl with me in the car. We didn't even get out of the garage before he threw up again. So we came back in the house and called his teacher to let her know we weren't going to make it. (This was the beginning of the stomach virus that made its way through the family before the flu-ish virus made its way through the family) He looked so handsome, though, that I took his picture before he changed back into his pajamas.



I did finally get around to making the cookies. It was very tempting to just not bother with it since I had so much to get done in such a short period of time, and I was still feeling pretty exhausted even after the fever and aches went away. But, why is it that there are SO MANY gifts to give at Christmas time?? The visiting teachers, the visiting teachees, the home teachers, the home teachees, close church friends, neighbors, etc etc etc... Well, cookies was my plan for all of these people, so if I didn't make them, I'd have to come up with something else. Plus, I really love to make the cookies, it is just that this year I was feeling a little overwhelmed. Luckily it went pretty smoothly and I was able to get them all done with few problems.

This year's sugar cookies.




Quinton helping put coconut gumdrops in mini fluted cups. He was quite proud of himself after he filled up the whole tray!



The "cookie factory."


Closeups of the cookie trays. Each tray had 8 sugar cookies, 4 caramallows, 12 gumdrops, 5 lemon cranberry crunch cookies, 8 mexican wedding cookies ("snowballs") and 10 ginger chewies.




I have lots more to share from Christmas, namely Christmas day, but I am going to do that in a separate post because I am tired!!

Kids

One of Roman's most striking features is his big brown eyes.


Although his smile is awfully striking, too!



Quinton's fantastic smile!



Domenic and Roman



My three boys!



Oh my goodness! I actually was able to post a video!! I am coming up in the world!
Now to see if I can post that video of Roman from a previous post.

Quinton's Birthday

Quinton turned five on September 23rd. His birthday fell on a Thursday, so we had a family party on Thursday night. Saturday he was allowed to invite one friend to go to the train museum with him and then to McDonald's for lunch where we were meeting up with Grandma and Grandpa.

As I mentioned earlier, I definitely have an incorrect setting on the camera because every single one of these pictures is blurry. Stink!

Quinton is a keep-it-simple kind of kid. He likes chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and that's it!



Blowing out his candles.


A pack of playdough.



There is a store that I go to all the time called Kid to Kid. It is a consignment store where I buy the kids clothes as well as toys for birthdays/Christmas. Recently there was a Groupon for a $30 gift certificate, but it only cost $12. I got such a steal on a huge GEOtrax set complete with battery operated train and controller. He has literally played with it all day every day since he got it!



Roman is also becoming quite the train aficionado like his big brother. Although he likes cars and trucks just as much, if not more than trains.



Quinton invited his absolute favorite friend, Athena, to go with him to the trains. They are a great pair. Athena is a great influence on Quinton; they have a lot of fun together, but she helps temper his craziness.

Fun at Home

Antonio thought that Quinton looked like a thug in his hoodie, eating rice, while drinking mate. I thought it was pretty funny, so I took a picture. Quinton and I are mate buddies since Antonio won't drink mate with me. He thinks it looks illegal and used to say he'd be deported if anyone saw him drinking it. However, now he is a citizen, and still thinks it looks too shady to drink!



After I gave the boys haircuts, Quinton decided he wanted to give a haircut, too. Here is his keeping his teddy bear looking sharp.



Quinton showing off his cuteness! Although I am forbidden from calling him "cute." He is "cool" or "awesome," but never cute or handsome. On Sundays - the one day I insist he comb his hair - he always protests: "but I don't WANT to look handsome!"


I get the Betty Crocker recipes magazine (which I love), and last month's issue had cake pops on the cover. I absolutely had to try them. I happened to have some purple candy melts that I wasn't going to use for anything else, so I made little purple boys and girls. They were really fun to make.

Roman's Birthday

Well, I must have a setting off on my camera because all of my latest pictures have turned out blurry despite my efforts to keep very still while taking them.

Roman turned two on August 10th. His face has really thinned out over the last few months, and he looks like a little boy instead of a baby.

One of his very first words was "Doggie," so it seemed appropriate to make a doggie cake.

Sorry Dad, but this picture of Roman was so cute, even if I did catch you in the middle of saying "wow!"



Roman's cousins were able to come to the party. Here is Isaac playing with the pretend phone with Roman. We are really lucky that my nephews are very patient with my kids and are always super helpful. It takes a lot to be patient with my boys sometimes!


Grandma and Grandpa relaxing after eating some doggie cake. Mom is holding Domenic.

WARNING: This video clip is pretty vulgar, but I had to post it because, frankly, who hasn't thought the same thing while watching this infomercial???

http://www.hulu.com/watch/143264/saturday-night-live-shake-weight-dvd