The things you find when cleaning....

So, as you can tell, it's just been a day or two (or month or year or 3 or 5) since I last posted.  Yes, time has crept up on me, and crept on by me!!  While rearranging and reorganizing my bookmarks I noticed this little link that hadn't been clicked on in awhile.  So, out of curiosity, I clicked it!  Lo and behold.....here I am!

Just a thing or two (or two or twelve) has changed since my last post here.  Sean is now 15 yrs old, in 10th grade in high school, has his driving permit (Lord help me), and is actively involved in Science Olympiad, both competing at the high school level, and helping coach at the middle school level.  He has also added in Robotics this year!  Whew, like I needed to drive him to another activity!!

Kaelyn is now 11, and in 5th grade, last year in the elementary school!!  *insert sad face here*  She is loving karate twice a week, girl scouts a few times a month, good news club weekly, and archery club weekly!  She keeps me busy and on my toes, but she's enjoying everything she's involved in!!

Liam and Rylee are 8 now, and in 3rd grade.  My babies are so much babies anymore!!  They are just like their big siblings, keeping me going with karate, cub scouts and girl scouts, good news club and archery club!  I don't even remember what life was like without an activity every evening!!

David is still working at Cryovac, but has changed positions.  He is not in charge of safety around the plant, and works a mon-fri 8-4 job.  That was an amazingly welcome change for us!  After years of working late, or working weekends, he is finally consistently home by 5 and off pretty much every weekend!!  We are loving it!!

As for me, I substituted and then taught part time at First Baptist Church preschool, the same preschool all 4 kids got their educational start at!  I enjoyed it so much that I started school part time in the Fall of 2016, going for my Early Childhood Education associates degree.  I am currently teaching in the 2k/3k classroom, and loving it immensely!!

I make no promises, but I am secretly hoping to update this at least occassionally!!  This is such a great way for me to keep up with our comings and goings, and maybe someone can get a laugh about our crazy life!!!!

Christmas has come and gone...

Now that the hustle and bustle of Christmas season is over, maybe I will find the time to update this more often!

We managed to survive a chaotic Thanksgiving/Christmas season that was liberally sprinkled with sickness throughout our house! Sean's had multiple bouts of strep throat, we've had a stomach virus run through us, and the odd sniffle and sneeze has blown by. Overall, we survived, and hopefully have come out into 2011 sickness free for awhile!!

Christmas was great this year! The kids are all getting older and SO much fun to watch them open presents this year! The beginning of Dec was of course the Christmas parade in town. The twins were far more interactive this year about it and it was adorable to watch them watching all the floats and dancers and such walk by! And they were thrilled by the "Ho Ho Ho" at the end of the parade!!




















It wasn't long after the parade, that Kaelyn had her Christmas program for her school! She did so GREAT, singing the songs they had learned in school!











And then, before we knew it, it was Christmas time!! We had so much fun, David was off work for several days over the month of december and it was a wonderful month of memory making for us!!





















Christmas eve had the kids opening their new christmas jammies, and a movie to watch! But the best, of course, was Christmas morning! Oh the fun they had opening presents!!




































But the biggest, and bestest, surprise of all, was the SNOW we got right after Christmas!! How wonderful for the kids!!



































The kids had such a blast in the snow...all except Rylee! She was scared of it or something, didn't want David to put her down the entire time we were outside! :( But the other kids had fun, they had a snowball fight, made snow angels, and Liam ran around going "choo choo" like a train all afternoon! We came in, made some hot chocolate, and enjoyed the lovely snowfall outside for the rest of the day!!

Once upon a month ago....

Apparently posting once a month is going to be my "thing" right now! Wow, who knew life would get so busy with 4 kids, right?!

The end of october was lots of fun! Sean and Kaelyn both started soccer and had a blast with it! At least this year Kaelyn actually got out on the field with her team, last year she was a side-liner, by choice! And Sean is getting much more aggressive playing, he actually played offense a few times. I think he enjoys soccer more than baseball because he gets to be moving all the time. I may look into a spring soccer league for him, depending on the cost and how far we have to travel for it.

For halloween this year Sean decided to be Indiana Jones, Kaelyn was tinkerbell, and we had b/g twin pirates to round out the foursome. I took the kids, with grandmother and granddaddy, to the Fall Festival uptown for awhile, and then after daddy got home from work we went to the church fall festival, and then on to Aunt Linda's for some halloween socializing.


The kids had a great halloween! Sean and Kaelyn each had their own pumpkin to "carve", Sean chose a bat, and Kaelyn a silly face. I think they turned out pretty cute myself....considering I did a good part of the cutting! :D







The beginning of november has passed in a blur of sickness yet again. I have a feeling this could be the new norm for our little family of 6. A run of a wicked stomach virus for the 3 little ones, 2 bouts of strep for Sean, 1 bout of strep for me...it's been a busy few weeks here. As of right now, everyone is fairly healthy...let's hope it stays that way for awhile.

Thanksgiving is coming up next weekend. It's still very strange to me to have Thanksgiving so late in the year, it feels like it infringes on the Christmas season. But, there's not much i can do, so I roll with it! :D I have so much to be thankful for. An amazing husband, 4 fantastic kids, an adorable poochie, a house to live in, food on my table, clothes on our backs....and a God who provided it all for us! Thank you God, for my many, many blessings! <3

Bu-bye September!

What a crazy month that was! I hate I don't get a chance to update as much as I would like, but life with 4 kids is chaos!

September flew by in a haze of school homework, and sickness for us! Sean's transition into 3rd grade has been pretty rough. He was averaging 2.5-3 hrs of homework every night. After several weeks of this I contacted his teacher and discussed him doing some homework on the weekends, to help take some of the pressure off his weekly homework. We just started that this week and so far so good. We also had a bout of the stomach flu fly through everyone, 4 nights in a row we had a kidlet up sick. David had a little stomach issue but somehow, thankfully, it passed mommy by! Thank goodness, I was too busy taking care of everyone else to have time to be sick!

And october crept up on us like a mouse sneaks up on a piece of cheese! So far this month we've enjoyed a playdate with the twins club to nivens, a playdate with the church to a park and a picnic lunch, and a trip to the mountains for some leaf-gazing! Such fun! Here's some pics:


























Sean's finally settling into his homework routine and only spending about an hour or so each night on it. Kaelyn is loving going to preschool and is so excited to tell me about her day when I pick her up! Both big kids started soccer this week, to add to the chaos! But they are having fun, and wears off some energy for them too!

The twins are being little monkey's as usual :P Liam is such a busy little boy, he gets into absolutely everything, and always has bumps and bruises to prove it. Rylee is such a sweet little bug, she's so loving and adorable...until her brother ticks her off! HAHA!












These are the kids having fun at Nivens Apple Farm.














This is my fearsome foursome, sitting on the little wooden wall in the exact spot that david and I got married at, 13 yrs ago! How precious is that! And everyone was exhausted by then, we'd been in the mountains all day and it was time to get some supper and head home!

Another first day of school….

Monday, August 16th, marked yet another first day of school for Sean!  Where are the years going?!  I remember taking a picture of him his first day of 4K in front of our bedroom door, and it seems like it was forever ago.  But alas, this year he’s in 3rd grade.  He has two homeroom teachers, one in the morning, one in the afternoon.  He’s been upgraded from the little kids playground, to the big kids playground.  He’s in the gifted and talented class.  The kids he’s with this year he will likely continue to be with for the majority of his school career.  Thankfully he has several friends already!

And today, August 23, marks my baby girl, Kaelyn’s, very first day of her school career.  She’s in 3 yr preschool, or 3 yr kindergarten as they say here!  I can’t believe she’s old enough to start her first day of school picture career!  It’s 3 mornings a week, from 8-11 on mon/tues/wed.  She was so excited to start today!  She did so good, daddy only stayed with her for a few mins before leaving her.  She played on the playground, sang songs, did pictures, had a snack…and soon I hope she’ll start making some new friends!  These are some of the kids she’ll share her school career with, and I’m so excited for her to start making some friends!

My beautiful, fearsome foursome…. And an incredibly rare, but very precious picture of our entire family.  I have been so amazingly blessed by God that it brings tears to my eyes every time I see these children.