A Very Merry & Crazy Christmas....

We were all so excited for Christmas this year. The kids especially couldn't wait for Santa to arrive. Christmas morning we fully expected the kids to wake us up at 5am but amazingly they slep until just past 6:30. We all headed down to the kitchen and the kids waited for us to make our coffees before heading out to the family room. Of course, their faces were all pressed against the French doors trying to make out what the presents were under the tree. Sitting on the kitchen counter was a half-eaten pixie stick...... apparently Santa was hungry while putting treats in the kids' stockings and decided to help himself. (Kaitlyn still asks why Santa ate their candy).

The kids punced down the stairs as soon as we opened the doors and they couldn't get to the tree fast enough. The girls' instantky zoned in on some make-up cases sitting on a new vanity and Ethan spotted Spike the Dinosaur under the tree. The race was on..... they happily ripped into one gift after another and their favirite gift was apparentky the next one to be opened (or in Kaitlyn's case, the one that someone else was playing with). Emma was of course more interested in the wrapping paper and the big kid gifts more so than her on but after a while she did sit down and open a few gifts herself.

It was a crazy morning with wrapping paper flying through the air and the assembling of toys...... Why every toy is secured to it's box with 20 twist ties is beyond me!

Pictures to follow soon.

Random Humorous Moments

Yesterday morning when I heard the kids stirring in their bedroom, I called to them to start getting dressed and that their clothes were all laid on their dresser. After a few minutes of shuffling around, it was apparent that Kaitlyn & Ethan had not yet even started taking their jammies off. Determined not to have to get out of bed yet, I called again to them to get dressed and asked if there was a problem. Kaitlyn called back "Well I had my clothes in my arms but then they just hopped away"..... Then Kylie replied "My clothes just went poof and disappeared". JP turned to me and suggested that we stay out of the kids' room because there was obviously something strange happening in there ;) Eventually, Kylie got dressed completely on her own and joined us in the bedroom. Kaitlyn & Ethan continued to complain about not being able to find their clothes. Still not wanting to get up, we bribed Kylie with a cookie before breakfast if she'd go help Kaitlyn find the clothes that hopped away. She did and she returned. Ethan was still having problems so we offered Kylie 2cookies if she'd go help Ethan. She looked at us and said "no that's ok, I only need 1 cookie, thank you". And so I got up to assist.

Last night before dinner, Kaitlyn and Ethan were getting under each other's skin in the play room while JP and I were preparing dinner. At one point Ethan burst into tears and came running into the kitchen saying that Kaitlyn had thrown a toy at him. At this point I was sick and tired of hearing bickering and complaining and fighting so I simply replied "Well, then DUCK" (as in if she throws another toy duck away to avoid it). He left the room and a minute later came in and said "I called Kaitlyn a duck but she still threw another toy at me....." JP and I looked at each other and burst into laughter.

Underwear Stashing?!?!?

Occasionally, I find a pair of underwear under Kaitlyn's pillow at night when I'm tucking her in and she says that she's "saving them for tomorrow". Well, this morning when I was making her bed, I found 3 pairs of underwear under her covers. When she got home from school tonight, I asked her why she had so many undies in her bed and she replied- "Well, they're all kitty undies((Hello Kitty, that is)) and I like kitties. I don't want no one else wearing the kitties". How can one argue with that? Someday Kaitlyn will be one of those little old ladies who stashes away so much food in her pantry in case of an emergency that it all expires before she can use it...... And don't ask her to share any of it with you.

Who Needs Toys to have Fun? Not Emma!

I always get a good laugh at the things that amuse kids. All of these pictures were taken in a matter of minutes as Emma cruised around the family room:

Boinging the door stops:




Violently shaking our light:



Trying to escape??? Already????




Pushing our side table around the room:



Opening and shutting the one non-childproofed cabinet:



Collecting any remote control or phone that she can get her hands on:



And when she's in her play area, her favorite thing to do is to throw all her toys out as evidenced here..... All her toys had been inside the play area earlier in the day:

The Ice Storm......

In the past whenever there has been mention of icestorms- I've thought- big deal. We'll lose our power for a few hours, the ice will melt and all will be fine so long as we stay off the roads.

Such was not the case on December 11, 2008. The ice began falling around 8:00pm. The lights flickered on and off for a couple hours until finally going off for good at 10:30. After reading by flashlight for a short while, I rolled over and went fast asleep.


At 1:30 Friday morning, I was awakened by a loud crash which shook our house. It was just the first of many crashes, crunches and booms that were going to occur for the next 6 hours. These were the longest and darkest 6 hours that I can ever remember. I pride myself on being able to sleep through anything but the sheer terror of what was falling outside our house was enough to keep me awake all night long. A half hour after I woke up, JP stirred and got up with me so we could assess any damage we might be able to see through the dark night. The crash that awakened JP was a huge part of our neighbors tree falling across our street. We saw headlights approaching down the street and then turning around as the street was impassable. A short while later a police officer arrived and assessed the situation. While he was there, he crunched through the 2" deep slush on the side street pulling tree branches and debris to the side of the road as that street was impassable as well. From what we could see from the windows thanks to the shining blue lights and the police spotlight, two sections of our picket fence had been crushed to the ground by a 10-12" caliper tree branch that broke off one of our Silver Maples (which was just one of the 5 trees we would have liked to have cut down this past year if we'd had a few extra thousand dollars lying around). Mother Nature had decided to do some pruning for us instead.

We looked at a clock at 2:30am and I couldn't believe it was still so early in the night and that daylight was still hours away. Kylie joined us in our room for a while and eventually she and I moved to Emma's room because her tossing and turning was keeping JP awake. I knew there was no chance I'd fall asleep with the continuous crashing outside. I just lay awake wondering which tree had fallen and what it had hit. Each time the ice covered branches struck the ground, all the ice shattered which made the damage sound much worse than it really was as I realized once daylight of morning finally arrived. After quickly surveying the damage from every window of the house, thankfully it appeared that most of the damage was superficial. We will definitely need to have all the Silver Maples taken down now as there isn't too much left of the 70' tall trees except bare trunks and a few branches. JP ended up having to cut down most of one of my favorite trees, an 80 year old Crabapple at the top of the driveway as it was split and was blocking the garage. Ironically, just the night before this one, I had awakened and sat bolt upright after a terrible nightmare that my stepfather had cut down this very tree and I was fuming that he would do such a thing to such a beautiful tree! We also lost a really large Burning Bush outside the play room which I'm hoping will somehow manage to grow back as they are now prohibited to plant in Massachusetts but I love them all the same. Other than that, despite the fact that every square foot of our yard was buried in trees, tree branches and debris, we manage to weather the storm ok.

Our once beautiful Crabapple which blocked our exit from the garage until JP chopped part of it down.....





Our newly "pruned" Silver Maples:



The view into our side garden:



Our family room was 52 degrees when we woke up and JP quickly made a fire to take the chill off. The kids couldn't understand why the TV and the lights wouldn't work. Fortunately, we have a gas stove so we were at least able to make a hot breakfast for everyone and some coffee for us. I called my parents to see what the news was saying about the extent of the damage so we could figure out when power might come back on. The news was not good. A State of Emergency had been declared and they were guessing that it could take at least 2 to 3 days for electricity to be restored. Sitting at home with 4 kids under 4 without any heat or electricity for that long a time was out of the question. I packed everyone up and we evacuated to Norwell..... JP stayed behind to begin (and finish!) the clean up and to protect the house.

Here it is now, 8:00 Sunday night and JP is still home alone without any power. He mentioned that the family room was 46 degrees this morning when he woke up. Brrrr...... I'm hoping tomorrow we can head home but not until we hear that the heat and electricity are back on!

Edited Tuesday, December 16:

I'm glad to say that we made it home yesterday. Power came back on around 7am. The house was still a bit cold at 3pm yesterday but it takes a long time to warm up a big old house that had cooled off to a chilly 42 degrees!

Driving around the streets in our town and the surrounding towns is eerie. There are downed trees and branches along every roadside and piles of branches everywhere..... Crazy!

Today I spent some time picking up off the ground shattered Christmas ball ornaments that had been hung on the garland along the fence. I tried to restring the garland the best I could but one set of lights had been snapped and although I thought the other set was ok, tonight when we tried to turn them on they didn't work so I'll try to figure that at tomorrow. Tonight they are forecasting snow which I will take any day over ice.

It's the Great Christmas Tree, Emma Lynne!

To say that I go all out when decorating our house for Christmas is an understatement. I LOVE to deck the halls with garlands, and lights, and ornaments and beads and anything else I have on hand (or that Michaels sells...). My mom always decorated our house so beautifully during the holidays with several Christmas trees and lots of little decorations and greenery everywhere which I just adored. I always knew that I would do the same for my family one day because it just made Christmas that much more magical.

I'm so excited that the kids have the same reaction to our house all decorated, that I had to my house when I was little. Kaitlyn loves our Dickens Village and declared that it was "Beautiful!" when I was setting it up on our family room shelves. Kylie everynight asks me to turn the people on- meaning turn on the Village lights so that she can watch the little people dance in Fezziwigg's Ballroom. Kylie also raced around the house after she got home from the Cape "oohing" and "ahhing" in every room. It melted my heart to see how excited she was!

Emma, too, is fascinated by all the Christmas accroutrements. At every meal, she points to the garland over the kitchen French doors and mumbles one of her many incomprehensible phrases until we plug the lights in and then she breaks out in a huge smile and points to the garland over the kitchen window until we plug those in as well. Yesterday, she toddled over to the Christmas tree and stood just a few inches away from it and slowly lifted her head gazing at the tree until her eyes reached the top of the tree and then her eyes lit up in excitement. I saw in her face, the true meaning of Christmas- peace, joy and wonderment!

Our Little Plumber checking out the structural integrity of the tree:



Appreciating all the details:



And taking it all in:

Success! Christmas Photos are done!

Every year I dread taking the kids' pictures for our annual Christmas photo card. This year was no exception..... I thought for sure it was going to be a complete nightmare trying to get 3 crazy kids and 1 very busy toddler to stop to smile at the same time..... Boy was I wrong! I got each one dressed right after they woke up from their naps, and took some solo pictures. Emma was first and she was a complete ham. She could not stop smiling as she sat proudly in her "big kid" chair. Then came Kylie who is usually my monkey of the group- but today she couldn't wait to get all dressed up and to have her hair done and she happily posed by the tree. Ethan and Kaitlyn then joined us and had their solo pictures taken too but Kylie kept trying to hop in for a group picture so their individual pictures were a bit rushed.

The group photo session went really well, too. These pictures speak for themselves: