Bradley had a big school presentation on habitats that week and I got to go thanks to my dad hanging out with the youngest two. Bradley's teacher keeps on telling me how thorough Bradley is with his work and how impressive it is that he goes above and beyond and I kind of just thought she was being nice until I went to this and witnessed it first hand. He was so excited to research the desert and share fun facts in his little booklet, I love how much he enjoys learning new things. And it's all self motivated, which I also very much appreciate.
I also share Bradley's feelings about showing his work in math. How do you know? Because it's easy and it is just 10 more or 10 less, that's how.
I'm okay with the kids having a few weeks off of school. We need a break from the bus in particular. There's a bit of law of the jungle when the kids are on the bus, the only adult around is the one driving the bus so he's not paying particular attention to what the kids are doing. One day Eleanor came in the house sobbing and it turned out one of her friends (a boy) and a couple other girls in her grade thought it was great fun to take her water bottle and backpack and a shoe(!?) and toss them around to each other and basically play keep away with her stuff. Apparently Eleanor got fed up, got her hands on her water bottle, and clobbered the boy over the head with it. It's a metal water bottle. He cried, she cried, everybody cried. She was terrified that she was in huge trouble and was relieved when I laughed and high-fived her and told her that was awesome and my only concern was I hope her nice water bottle hadn't been damaged by that silly boy's head. Now she's quite proud that she stood up for herself. I did mention that she probably couldn't do that again if he bothered her and for goodness sake, she had 5th grade neighbor friends and an older brother on the bus to back her up if anyone bothered her again.
Bradley on the other hand. The other day I asked him if he ever sat by Lorelei or any of his other friends on the bus and he said "No, they try to talk to me and it interrupts the stories I'm trying to tell myself in my head. And they just keep trying to talk to me." Ahhhh, it's just so Bradley and it cracks me up. We organized a lot of playdates for him over the break so he could get friend time on his terms. Apparently the bus isn't the time for it.
A lady at one of my mom groups was talking about how children would pretend to like the baby in order to get approval from the parents and I had no idea what she was talking about. These sweet kids like the baby because she's adorable.
It's a little ridiculous what they're willing to put up with in the name of loving Juliet. She's taken to bashing on the boys and they love it.
Sometimes there's so much love and it's a little hard to take it all in.
She grows naughtier by the day.
Yum books.
We did our first family secret Santa and it was amazing and exceeded all of my expectations. Nathan had Eleanor as his buddy, Eleanor had Patrick, and Patrick had Nathan. Bradley had me, I had Juliet, and Juliet had Bradley. I allotted 3 pieces of candy per buddy per day and the kids were adorable and would share the spoils from their secret Santa buddy so if Patrick got his candy, he would eat one piece and share the other two with Bradley and Eleanor and the same would happen if Bradley or Eleanor got candy.
Patrick was perhaps not the most patient during the week we did this and he would leave a treasure map for Nathan outside his door at 7am on a fair amount of days (Patrick treasure maps require Patrick assistance to figure out the real life locations of the randomly placed x's on the map of squiggles) and then he would start moaning at about 7:10 about how his buddy hadn't even done anything for him yet.
Juliet, with a little assistance from her mommy, made some adorable snowflakes for Bradley one day.
Including a string with small snowflakes to serve as decoration for Bradley's chair. Unfortunately, after this Juliet made it her mission to hunt down and destroy these snowflakes whenever she was in the kitchen, which was not very buddy-like.
One of my favorite parts of doing secret Santa was Bradley sneaking off into his room and shooting me furtive looks if I walked by while he was up to something. He loved it so much. I got some amazing treasure hunts and thanks to Nathan incorporating some word scramble clues in a treasure hunt he helped Juliet make for Bradley, I was the recipient of a fair number of word scramble clues after this in my own treasure hunts. They're a little trickier when they are written by a 7 year old who isn't exactly how to spell the words in the first place.
These clues are "look in the upstairs bathroom" and "look in Juliet's room." Such a sweet kid.
We're definitely doing family secret Santa again next year. Such a great time.
Juliet probably appreciated it the least but she sure loved having all her siblings around for winter break. Eleanor loved it a little less, the boys can be a bit much and a couple times she had to yell "quit it out!" at them. I informed her that the correct term was "cut it out" and she was perhaps less than pleased at the manner in which I chose to direct my parental assistance.
The kitties are so nice. They were all sleeping on the sherpa blanket when I tossed a baby Juliet in the middle of them. She loves kitties!
Juliet actually had a dreadful few days leading up to Christmas where she had a terrible cold, a bit of a fever, and wasn't sleeping at night. I thought she had the flu but it turns out she was just getting two teeth in at once. Teething is the worst. Nathan was a champion and took all of the night shifts with her. I would take her at 6:30 or so and let him sleep in as long as possible. It was rough on everyone.
Patrick had a cough and Bradley was running a very low fever as well so it was just me and Eleanor for the Christmas Eve service at our church. I had her be in charge of my clutch purse and she got to call Nathan on my cell phone on the drive home to let him know we were on our way. She was a big fan of Christmas Eve girl time.
And then it was Christmas morning! Juliet's teeth broke through during the night so she ended up sleeping fairly well. This is at 6:30 when the kids could spy their Santa gifts from upstairs and were waiting to go down the stairs together. Bradley and Eleanor were so good, they never said anything about Santa to Patrick.
The video. There was much joy on Christmas morning.
Santa brings three gifts. A game, a book, and breakfast aka a candy cane of m&m's.
Juliet didn't get the m&m's but she did enjoy chewing on the outside of the packaging.
PJ Masks book for elf Patrick.
Calvin & Hobbes for Santa Bradley. Bradley was so cute all Christmas morning, whenever he would open a book he would start reading it and it was very difficult to get him to break away to open more presents.
Nathan got to show off his Daddy strength while opening Hatchimal eggs.
Kids with some Christmas gear. They all got bathrobes like Eleanor and they're very popular to wear around the house on cold mornings. Because despite winter my children still often wear shorts and t-shirts around and then complain about being cold. Sigh. The boys got dinosaur headlamps and I wasn't aware of the nonstop roaring feature before we got them. Oops.
Bradley's face here. Christmas is exciting.
It seemed like a good idea to get Eleanor a karaoke microphone. Fun story, her teacher told me during the fall parent teacher conferences that her one area of growth for Eleanor as a student was for Eleanor to speak up and be louder when talking at school. I had NO idea what she was talking about. It's been really fun to have an excited 6 year old walking around the house yelling into a microphone … but we love that she loves this gift so much. Nathan loaded it up with a bunch of kidz bop songs and she's been singing her heart out.
Hatchimal egg.
Patrick's face here. And note his cute bathrobe!
Bradley has his bathrobe on here and Juliet is getting to check out the one real toy she got for Christmas. Like most of her baby toys, she's sort of into it but the big kids love it. Hilarious.
Slime eggs for Patrick with cool beasts inside to assemble. I just realized I have no idea where this slime ended up after Christmas, which is a rather terrifying thought.
And if you can't have a white Christmas, have a 65 degree Christmas! We went outside for most of the afternoon, brought along some new walkie-talkies and met up with neighbor friends.
Barefoot baby on Christmas day. It was so warm.
She has no idea how lucky she is to have the siblings she does.
Patrick started to lose it when we got home so he and Layla took a much needed cat nap together.
And all better for grandparent arrival in the late afternoon. Grandma got a lot of help unwrapping the ceramic café ornaments the kids made for her.
Please note that our neighbor Addison is in the picture. She was with us for about 7 hours on Christmas. We spent a lot of time with her over break, at one point Patrick was talking about some dragon eggs we had gotten him and who was going to get to hatch them.
Patrick: "I have four eggs! One for everyone! Bradley, Eleanor, Patrick, Addison!"
Me: "I was expecting him to say Juliet …"
And check out my haul of new games from Christmas! 30 new games in total. A little ridiculous but we've already played at least 10 of them. And please note my fashionable and eco-friendly kitty scarf.
We had so many playdates for the kids over the break. It was the best break ever. The kids didn't want to go back to school and I didn't want them to leave. Juliet got a fair amount of attention on these playdates, here she is with Landree who basically treated her like a living doll.
We had a nice visit with Grandma Colleen and Kerry the weekend after Christmas.
Patrick went nuts on crafts with Grandma, they got in a ton of quality time.
Grandma hanging out with all four of the grandkids at once. Check out the new game Bradley and Eleanor are playing!
And a round of family Bingo. This went moderately well, we discovered that the kids couldn't call out the numbers if we wanted to avoid fights. Sigh.
Saying goodbye with Kerry while holding onto fancy new body lotion/chapstick made with Grandma Colleen.
Juliet loves riding on her train toy. I love this age, she's into everything.
But she's also so tired. I get so many compliments on braiding her hair and I will take them because it is an accomplishment, baby girl is not into holding still for the sake of beauty.
Baby in a box!
Juliet loves video game time with the boys but has started insisting on having her own controller. Buttons!
It worked to give her her own for a little while but she's started to figure out that Nathan's is better than the one she is given so she'll push the buttons on hers for a little bit and then crawl all over Nathan trying to take over the one he has. I enjoy watching him play Mario with Bradley while holding his controller over his head to protect it from the Juliet menace.
Watching football. Patrick has the same reaction to watching football as I do.
Staying up late to watch football together. This is basically Nathan's dream come true.
Juliet menace strikes again while Bradley is trying to read a book. She's so lucky she's universally adored because she can be quite the pest.
The Juliet menace likes the crown that Eleanor has created out of magformers.
Eleanor made a new crown for the baby to wear. Lucky baby. Please note Eleanor's choice of a vacation outfit.
I had to cut down an 8 minute video to get the minute and a half gem of Eleanor singing, Patrick being her dancer, and Juliet trying her best to get in the fireplace.
Family trip to Target. The kids successfully campaigned for one of the giant karts that I usually refuse to use because it's basically like driving a bus instead of a car. Much joy.
Juliet. Was opening and shutting the door on me as I sat outside Eleanor's room and was shrieking with joy every time she saw my face.
Trying to get to the forbidden corner of the room. Shrieking with joy when I came around and spotted her.
This caused some shrieking as well. We are 0 for 4 on quiet children. I'm so glad she fits in!
Another Patrick nap over break. Things were just a little too exciting for the boy who always goes hard.
And we all got suited up in Seahawks gear for the first playoff game. Juliet's cheerleading outfit must be a good luck charm because they won the game! Go Seahawks!
No comments:
Post a Comment