Christmas Favorites

I've taken a ridiculous number of photos in the past week (900+) while we had ALL of Eric's immediate family together (both sisters and their families, plus his parents!). The last time we were all together in one place was 7 years ago when I was pregnant with Dean and we were in California for Christmas. Seven years ago, there were 12 of us, now there are SIXTEEN. Wow. Getting an early Christmas present from Eric (a new lens!) only added to my shutterbug tendency.

So in jumbled order, here are the highlights:

Dorothy learned how to really work her way around an iPhone this week. She swipes, she makes calls.... I guarantee that Mom and Dad won't let her get away with as much as Uncle Aaron and Aunt Becky!

Eric and his dad

Rockin' out on New Year's Eve (before everyone hit a wall and fell asleep at 10pm)

Look at our little Drummer girl!

Tisra and Lael having tea at Homestead Manor Plantation with all the girls

Angie and Mom at Homestead Manor for tea. Brrrrr cold!

the most extensive tea menu I've ever seen.... hundreds!!! So hard to choose, but I went with Almond and Lael went with Snowflake (meant to taste like sugar cookies).

What??? No pinky extended? :-)

Pinkerton Park on a cold, cold day!

tire swings and me playing around with shutter speed

Little trouble maker (cute trouble maker!)

cousins at play!

The Dean

bundled in my Ella Roo carrier on a walk to the skate park. Dorothy slept her entire nap in this thing and I love, love, love it for its comfort. I feel pregnant when I wear it... carrying extra weight, but nicely distributed. (I think with it under my coat, I looked pregnant, too!)

Eric was the favorite uncle that night- he brought dry ice home from the grocery store.

Sisters on Becky's birthday "picnic" at the winery (with freezing temps, we camped out in the enclosed tent near the gas heaters)

Cousins! Lots of them!

Christmas dinner on Boxing Day (due to flight delays on Christmas Day)

our family of SIX. (still weird to say at times) :-)

Christmas dinner. Becky and Aaron.

Christmas morning hugs with Grandma captured by Papa

Dorothy's first Christmas presents with her FAMILY! (assisted by Grant at first- then, she needed *no help* and began tearing into presents that didn't belong to her! Ha!)

Favorite gift to the boys this year- Tony Hawk Ride.

Christmas Eve fondue.

Chocolate fondue

Always my baby...

... but now he's NINE!

We had a great birthday party here at the house for him this week with a bunch of his friends. The party was such a great collaboration with my son; I truly enjoyed planning it. About a month out from his birthday, he began making seating charts and party ideas on all sorts of pieces of paper. (He also wrote a pro/con list about a birthday gift request he was making of Mom and Dad!)

The birthday was to be "football themed". His ER visit and busted knee must have left him craving more football (he only got to play 3 games). We sent out football invites, made a football cake, and played a football-themed scavenger hunt in the neighborhood.

I love this age group! Even with 9 boys, everything was super smooth, and not very rowdy. The activities took the perfect amount of time, and I think everyone had fun. Hooray!

More importantly, I am crazy proud of my nine year old son. He is turning out to be mature, respectable, and smart. This past year, I've seen him mellow, too. Some of the attitude and rebellion that seemed to be creeping up, we've been able to address, and crowd out with love and generosity, and selflessness. I really enjoy Grant. I love talking with him, and getting to know how he thinks. And, gosh, I love his smile.

Happy NINTH birthday, Grant!

And, for anyone who's curious, here's the [mostly] football-themed scavenger hunt list I came up with:

- a penny from the year 2000. (Fun fact: The Tennessee Titans made the Super Bowl in 2000, but lost to the Rams) [5 points]

- a birthday candle (Fun Fact: Grant’s birthday is also Flag Day.) [5 points]

- 6 squares of toilet paper (Fun fact: A touchdown is worth 6 points in football.) [5 points]

- the Sports section of a newspaper [5 points]

- a handful of Wheaties cereal, “The Breakfast of Champions” or a handful of ball-shaped cereal [5 points for Wheaties, 3 points for round-shaped]

- a used stamp [5 points]

- eye black marks applied to your entire team (Fun Fact: This was first worn in 1942 by Redskins Andy Farkus) [10 points]

- a spool of thread [5 points]

- a dip recipe written on a napkin (Fun Fact: On Super Bowl Sunday, 15,000 tons of chips are eaten in America.) [5 points]

- a plastic fork [5 points]

- an old sock [5 points]

- a Christmas card [5 points]

- 1 hair bobby pin (Fun Fact: Bobby Pins are used to put hair in a bun; many football player practice ballet to strengthen and train.) [5 points]

- a ticket stub to a sports event [5 points]

- a take-out ketchup packet [5 points]

- a Gatorade bottle, empty or full (Fun Fact: The first coach to get a “gatorade shower” was Bill Parcells in 1985) [5 points empty, 7 points full]

- anything with an NFL team logo on it [5 points]

- a hanger [5 points]

- a “paper football” like the kind usually played on a desk or table [5 points, gain an extra 2 points if you can show everyone how to fold it]

5 Ninjas, I tell you!

First was Dean, diving off the couch into the coffee table.

Next came Lael with her surgery in December.

Our newest member to join the "I've had stitches" Club is Grant.

Here he is waiting in the hall at Vanderbilt Children's hospital before being seen by the physician. At this point, a triage nurse had already taken his vitals and slathered on numbing gel and a protective cling film to hold it all in place. Obviously, he was in pretty good spirits and enjoying the fun of being in a wheelchair. This is before the nervousness over stitches sunk in.

How did it happen? Ugh. He and his cousin were in the back of a 15 passenger van that the seats had been taken out of. They had been helping Uncle Tim move things using the van like a truck. They were riding in the back, sitting on the wheel well, I think, when a turn or stop knocked them off balance. Grant's knee hit the latch that holds the seats, I think. Tore his knee wide open. Deep. Eric and I got the call that he'd been hurt badly and that they were coming to us. It was Saturday night at about 5:45pm. No doctor's offices were open. No urgent care. But when Grant arrived, and we could see it in person, we realized that the E.R. would have been the only option regardless of timing. It was pretty bad, and wasn't bleeding.

Of course, at that moment, I was covered in paint painting the girls' room. Eric took Grant to Vandy, I got cleaned up and put all the paint away then my brother-in-law, my nephew and I headed there as well.

Grant was quite brave, and handled it like a champ. We used good breathing techniques, my silent prayers, and pep talks from Dad to mentally get past the fear of being stitched up. The gel was AMAZING. The doctor said a lot of children can be stitched up without ever getting a shot. Grant was still feeling things, though, so he had a number of numbing shots in addition to the gel. Our physician was a plastic surgeon who was extremely careful to match the skin nicely (how good to be in the right place at the right time!). I think it was about 30 minutes of stitching for the nine stitches. It only took until stitch number 7 before Grant relaxed and commented "I can believe him (the doctor), Mom, he really is going to tell me what he's doing and it really doesn't hurt!". After we finished, Uncle Tim had a double decker taco all ready for the wounded boy and we made our way to Maggie Moos!

Because the story of how things happened is less than wonderful (no one likes admitting that their child was not strapped in while driving), and its certainly not a daring adventure type of injury, Eric helped Grant develop a story to tell others. Grant seems to be more into relaying the truth to everyone, so he might not tell you about successfully fighting off 5 ninjas and walking away with only a nick from a stray ninja star. Oh well.

Disneyland

California Trip- March 2009

When my brother set his wedding date, we knew we'd be heading to SoCal in spring 2009. Conversations surrounding Christmas heavily involved not getting the kids "stuff". We have a playroom with tons of things that have been given to them that they don't play with. Consumable gifts are the best in my book (they don't turn into "junk that must be picked up" after a few weeks), and tickets to Disneyland ended up being what we gave them!

We had three months to get excited about the trip, which made the actual cashing in of the present even that much more sweet. We'd talked about which rides they could go on now that they'd been unable to the last time, two years ago (height issue), and discussed what we'd want to do when we first got there.

Our tickets were parkhoppers and we did Disneyland the first day- joined by Eric's family, and California Adventure the second day- just us. We did bring the stroller, and every child rode in it at one point or another, but it was nice that it wasn't an absolute necessity (everyone can walk well). Of course, when Dorothy comes, we'll be saying goodbye to that freedom once again- but we got a taste of how easy it gets when the children are older.

Because they were older and taller, nearly all the rides were available to our 3 kids. That milestone made it more enjoyable for them (more rides!), and more enjoyable for mom and dad (less splitting up!). Tears were shed when Dean was a hair too short for Indiana Jones, and tears were also shed by Lael when she *wasn't* too short for Space Mountain and rode- but probably shouldn't have.

Lael and Dean were the most amazing to watch because they didn't get scared. Both truly have an adventurer's spirit and it's amazing. Grant always had to be talked into things like that when he was younger. In the end, he has fun, but the dread and nervousness are tall mountains for him to overcome. For Dean and Lael- "what mountains?!". :-) So, Dean thought Space Mountain was AWESOME (if you've never been- it is a fast, loud, roller coaster in pitch dark). And Lael was the four year old on Thunder Mountain with her hands in the air going down the big drop!

Next time, Dorothy will be with us! We said that 2 years ago when we were at Disneyland (thinking our Taiwan adoption was going to happen within a year), and it didn't happen. But, THIS TIME, I can say 100% that next time we'll have 4 kids with us. :-)

And, of course, this is what our precious cargo looks like after two days of theme parks on the way back to Grandma's house:

I knew it was too quiet!!!

Armed with a full sheet of temporary tattoos from a birthday party, this is how Grant emerged from the bathroom the other day!  I really struggled with it, but allowed him to keep them on for one full day.  But yesterday we had to go out in public and I insisted they be removed.  The funny thing was that I overlooked the one on his neck.  So, off we went to a doctor's appointment with a SCORPION on Grant's neck.  I had to laugh!  My eight year old son with a job stopper!