1. My two baby girls cuddling long mornings.
2. One day both Kate and Sam stayed home from school. They were kind of both sick, but not so sick, so we got to work remaking some furniture for their new rooms. I let them paint the majority of their items. Kate painted a nightstand teal and Sam painted a bookshelf grey. It was great to spend time with just my older two doing something we all liked.
3. Bethany gets her first hair cut ever. Her sweet red hair was forming a mullet in back and I thought it would look better in a little bob while we wait for the front to grow a bit, so I cut off the back a bit. It looked adorable, and enjoyed what we were doing sitting on my counter looking in my mirror and brushing her hair.
4. Sam is now in a wrestling league. His team practices once a week and then has tournaments on Saturday morning. I was really nervous about Sam doing wrestling because he is so small and sensitive. Being small has been advantageous because even though he is 5 he usually gets paired with 4 year olds who are not as strong or don't understand how to wrestle as much because they are younger- but they are always Sam's size or even bigger. They get paired up by size. And he hasn't been sensitive at all- except when they move mats and made him wrestle on a different mat- that rocked his world. He has been amazing. He doesn't cry because kids are fighting him. Maybe because he usually dominates. They don't announce a winner because everyone wins, but really my bias opinion is he is winning all the time. Which is even better when his opponent is a kid in a colored singlet with his Dad and obvious previous wrestler screaming mat side, and Sam goes out in soccer clothes and tennis shoes with us- who know nothing- cheering him on, and he really does amazing.
5. Beth eats a cookie in the car at dark for dinner. I tried to feed her real dinner real quick while we were home shortly but she didn't want it. We run kids everywhere Monday and Tuesday are our busy day and Beth and Mari are sports hoping along side us.
6.Beth has been sick lately. Actually each kid has had their bought with a few things. Bethany, then Sam, then Marianne were throwing up spanning 12 days. Kate has had a cough since we went to Disneyland and we just had her checked for pneumonia it was so bad which was negative, and Beth and Marianne are coughing and snot nosed. It has been a long sick month with lots of cartoons and cuddling, missed school days and cleaning. One night Sam woke up and needed to puke but was confused or something and just ran around leaving piles of puke all over the house. It was awesome as you can imagine for four in the morning. A week or so later my Mom and I and the two baby girls were headed to the big ski swap they have here right before Thanksgiving. And Marianne puked all over the car and herself. Needless to say we headed home and cleaned her and the car up but Mom and I both almost threw up ourselves just riding home in the car and listening to her. Poor girl.
Bethany has been up at night all night many times and seems to always be happy when I bring her into my bed, then she will fall asleep beside me, which is really sweet at first until she starts kicking and head ramming me all night. She has fallen asleep on the couch before too and let me carry her around asleep to her bed.
7. We have started the basement- rather we hired a contractor to finish the basement. Which has been amazing. We are super excited too. We planned our house with the entire thing finished in mind so we are excited to see the home as we had intended for it to be. We had a portion of the basement finished when the home was built, where a wall and door were placed so we could block off the unfinished part, so we had to tear the wall down. Sam and I enjoyed taking a few hits at the wall and then Jake took it down. We have hired the framing, electric, HVAC, insulation and drywall to texture. They have also handled the proper permits and inspections. We will have to do all the finish work- tile, vanity, lighting, flooring, trim, and paint, closets and shelving and doors. We have got a great quick start because the workers have been working everyday all day and got all that done in two weeks, but by the end of next week they will have completed the drywall and it will be turned over to us. Three rooms, the hallway, the bathroom, the kids den, and new theater area, along with closets for storage are starting to feel like a lot of finish work for us to handle on our own.
8. Beth's preferred meal is still spagetios eaten all by herself. She looked a lot like Sam this day to me.
9.Marianne is ready for skiing. We have been collecting ski equipment for the kids. Sam and I made it back to the ski swap and got almost everything else we were missing. It was fun to shop around with him and also see him excited to be a ski racer!
10. I finally got around to blogging tonight because the kids were being hilarious today and I wanted to remember it. I was sad I didn't have my camera to document. But we had a great day today. Kate and I spent the day making pies together for the Thanksgiving Dinner we are having tomorrow at my Grandma Elaines home. She was helpful and happy and interesting the whole time. Sam and Jake played nintendo games together. Marianne and Kate played happily together barbies and crafts. Marianne and Sam happily played race car and coloring together. Beth was sweet like always. Then we went out to dinner. At dinner we were sitting at a table for 8. Next to us was an empty table for two. kate went over to it and said "this is like where Dad and Mom would sit if they were on a date." "Hi how are you?" "Good, thank you" "This is the best date ever" she pretends to be Jake and I as she moves seats to accommodate each character. Then Sam volunteers to play Jake so Kate doesn't have to switch seats to play. they are mocking us kind of. "This is the best date ever" "I love you"... then Marianne wants a turn and replays the same thing. We play "what are you thinking about" while we wait for food. Marianne can't not include the name of the thing you are suppose to guess as one of her clues. Kate begins with something in her mind, but if you guess it you can see her quickly evaluate the clues she has given come up with another option and make you keep guessing. And when you do think again what would fit the already given clues and changes secretly her thing until what you are guessing is "tropical island coconut" because she started with coconut pie but when you guessed that she gave new clues to get to keep playing it. Then we headed to the Rec Center. We played basketball, soccer, football, and gymnastics and had a great time all together. It was snowing finally really hard when we came out of the Rec center and we all hurried to the car together.
