Videos Galore

Visiting Santa

Keira waving hi

Breakfast (and listen carefully, Keira says Done)

Brody explaining hockey

Magic

Despite Brody's attempt to stay awake to see Santa, and Ty's brief sleepwalking venture right when Santa was about to come, Christmas went off without a hitch. We don't take many pictures Christmas morning, and instead videotape the whole ordeal. Nathan and I actually decided to spend the night before Christmas watching all of our previous Christmas mornings together. It made us so excited to wake up early with the kids. Santa left a very nice note to the kids, and he ate all his cookies, drank most of his milk, and the reindeer really chewed up the carrots the kids left for them. Santa left so many gifts for the kids. The boys were in awe. We had more gifts than I knew was possible to fit under a tree this year, so after they looked through their gifts from Santa, we got to tackling those wrapped gifts under the tree. The boys loved giving the gifts they had picked out for their siblings and for us, and actually were great about looking at who things were from this year. Brody was so excited to tear open wrapping paper, and even would exclaim (in most cases) what he got! HUGE progress!!! Keira was so funny, because when I would help her open (yes she got into the wrapping paper rip off game) she would squeal with delights and pat the gift. The kids changed into their new clothes, and helped put EVERYTHING away. I made a yummy breakfast casserole and we prepared for our Christmas visitors. This is the first year we have not gone out on Christmas. my family stopped by to open gifts first, and Nathan's family came over in the afternoon to open gifts. It was so nice to be with everyone. Ty went with his Nana and cousin Christmas night until New Years Eve, although we will be seeing him tonight for Disney On Ice (can't wait!)
Thank you everyone, for your generosity, thoughtfulness, and giving spirit. We all are so blessed to have you in our lives. Thank you for making each Christmas more special than the last, and for helping us create wonderful memories. We are so grateful for your love and kindness.

Merry Christmas

On our town's common, every December, Santa's Headquarters, or a wonderful little house, magically appears, and every afternoon Santa is there to visit with kids and go over their lists. As much as I love the very famous resident mall Santa that is in my hometown, the lines are usually outrageous, and the prices of pictures with him are expensive, and well, to be honest, holiday season at any mall gives me instant claustrophobia. Have I mentioned that our town common Santa is there for free? He takes lots of time with each child, makes sure to tell them to behave, and do what parents tell them to do, and generally we leave with the kids promising Santa to be the world's most perfect children. No complaints from me on that.
Nate went first and told Santa that he wants a robot that cleans houses and folds laundry and can make food, and I shouted a big AMEN to that one. Ty made a very thought out list with the items he wants, and Brody, bless his heart, was very nice to Santa, gave him his letter, talked to him but refused to go anywhere near him. Did I mention they take a picture for free picture too? Well when it came time for that, I asked Santa if he wanted to hod Keira, who was smiley and happy this whole time, but as soon as I passed her off to Santa, screamed for her life. This picture makes me smile.

Silly Boys

watch the boys pretend to be on So You Think You Can Dance

An Early Christmas

Lots of pictures of Keira on her first Christmas. The boys were so excited to play with their cousins. Thank you all for everything!

About that...

I am feeling abandoned as I am writing because Keira is no longer content in crawling around the toy/computer room, and she immediately crawled off to find her brothers.
I didn't get to mention that I have recently started actually using my prescribed inhaler (suddenly my asthma has made itself front and center in my life, because I obviously needed something else to worry about.) The side effect of using the inhaler is that for about a good chunk of time after I use it, I feel like I have been given a shot of adrenaline and am like wonder woman. Or maybe wonder woman if she was all shaky from too much caffeine or something. To put it in perspective, after dropping off Nate at school yesterday morning, I came home and had 4 hours to start my baking of cookies, make a double recipe of chicken, broccoli and ziti, and make a wonderful pumpkin dip (and the dip was an "if I get to it that would be great" item, that I know could hold off until morning.) My mom stopped by with some ornaments for the kids. I had just used my inhaler and well, before I knew it, less than an hour later, I had completed around 40 sugar cookies, made that double recipe of chicken, broccoli and ziti and finished the pumpkin dip. I also packaged everything up, so my mom could take it with her, cleaned up, and hung the new ornaments, AND did a load of laundry. In fact when I was done, I went back and made another big batch of cookies for our house and for our new neighbors. Honestly, I am a self confessed master multitask-er, but even I was shocked when I was done. I should mention that Brody and Keira were both home, awake, and yes I was taking care of them, which included holding them each intermittently. I'm not a coffee drinker, and have been weaning myself off of diet coke (which is a WHOLE other subject.) Who knew using an inhaler would turn into this?

Bullets

• I have a major cooking day today
• Christmas shopping is nearly complete!
• Keira tried to climb up the stairs today, yikes.
• I love hearing Keira's sweet little voice.
• Brody looks like a mini Nathan. I think they should dress up as Dr Evil and mini me for Halloween next year.
• Yesterday I got a text from my wonderful, dear friend Meg asking me what I was doing (she lives in California) and I found out she was home, and was coming to visit me. I cleared my day, because there is nothing better than having a friend you don't get to see often come visit.
• On that same subject, I think my boys may have scared her daughter, and they each put up a pretty good fight for their attention. I have actually never heard Brody attempt to speak to another child as much as he did to her daughter. I should add he was pantless the whole time.
• When I returned home from errands yesterday I found out that my wonderful child Brody had stolen a shirt from an unnamed store. He had somehow, wriggled out of his jacket, put on the shirt (a Boston Bruins Jersey) and then put his jacket back on. I was unaware until we were home and I took his jacket off. Oops.
• As those close to me know, I find complete joy in putting things in alphabetical order. This stops with helping Ty put his spelling words in alphabetical order because he takes all the fun out of it by complaining about how much he hates it.
• It is below freezing here. Nate wanted to play outside early yesterday morning despite my warnings of his fingers/ears/limbs falling off from frostbite. When he came in (20 minutes later) he ran up to me and asked me if his nose was red. I said yes, to which he broke out into a huge smile and said "Now I know how Rudolph got his red nose!"
  

The Here and Now

I hope everyone is doing better than we are, and has finished up their holiday shopping, and has a sense of peace. I on the other hand still have about a third of the shopping to do, and have a general feeling of anxiety. Ah, tis the season, after all!
On the brighter, more day to day side of life, Nate is getting better about waking up in the morning for school, and has been so helpful (when he's not on a crazy, too much energy induced state) and that has been an enormous help.
I have re decorated the tree about 25 times per day since putting it up. I am on constant Brody-watch because those darn ornaments are apparently too fantastic to pass up. I can not be mad because his eyes light up and he screams "Santa!" or "tanta" in Brody speak, and his excitement is infectious. Think Buddy the Elf level of excitement. Brody also has decided to potty train himself (we have been telling him this was his last package of diapers, and that Santa is bringing him a potty and big boy undies.) He has however, refused to wear a diaper, or has been running into the bathroom every 2 minutes to pull down his diaper and pants and try to go potty. Can't ask for anything better than that! Both Ty and Nate were fully trained by the time they were 3, (Ty just around 3, Nate 2 1/2) so we are on the right track!
Keira has started waving "hi" (I will get it on video very soon) and it melts my heart! She gets very shy around others, and likes to bury her head into me, but when she peeks back out, her little hand opens and closes in the most adorable effort to communicate. I can not even fathom that in four short months she will be a year old. It blows my mind.
Ty got his first graded report card. He did alright, mostly B's, one A+, and two not so hot C's. On the other hand, he got mostly excellents with a few goods in effort, which is what matters most to me. Parent teacher conferences tomorrow. His basketball team was leading their entire game this past Sunday, and in the last period the other team tied it up and the game went into overtime. Unfortunately they lost by 5 points in overtime, but it is a far cry than the past two games.
I will try and update more soon! Happy Holiday Season!!!

Hooray for the Holidays

Ty hanging the first ornament
Nate hanging his first ornament
Brody's turn to put the angel on top this year (we are a democratic household... equal opportunity and such)
I love Christmas lights
the kids in front of the tree
Ty and Nate being silly

Bath time

click here for yet another video (I'm freeing up my camera, finally!)

Mobile Baby

Here are two videos of Keira. Click here to see her crawling. Or click here to see her cruising the train table.

Songs for the Elderly

Here is a link to the video of Nate's preschool singing in the elderly home. Unfortunately, I can not just post the video here, because the file is too big.

As Promised

As promised, here is a slideshow. Some random pictures, Thanksgiving, Brody getting his ride-on Thomas from his godmother, Brody's first haircut, and Nate's haircut, ZooLights, Dinner out and Keira's first pizza, Keira standing, playing in the snow, Keira in her new outfit from her godmother. I'm sure there's more in there too!

Almost!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am getting my computer back tonight! Words can not describe the excitement!!! Turns out it wasn't the fan that was broken (what we thought) but the sensor that detects if the fan is working or not. So simple fix, turn the sensor off, and we're back in business. AND we got it tuned up added some ram and ta-da! Tonight I can look forward to setting it all back up and uploading the 200 plus photos anxiously waiting on my camera. We've had a fun weekend, following a chaotic week. Friday night we went to ZooLights at the Stone Zoo with Nathan's parents (our new holiday tradition with them) and then out for dinner at Polcari's for some can't beat Pizzeria Regina Pizza. The kids loved ZooLights, but this was definitely Brody's year for it. He could have watched this one train display for hours. It's so much fun to see the wonder and amazement in the kids faces. It makes me love the holiday season. Keira had her first bit of pizza that night, and didn't seem too impressed, but then again she had already filled up on the warm bread appetizer.
Saturday we had NOTHING, yes that's correct, a big fat ZERO to do, so I took advantage, cleaned, relaxed with the family. I even got to go to my friend's house for a Lia Sophia party and got a free necklace... can't beat that! We had a family movie night and watched Night at the Museum 2 (really cute) and all in all it was a wonderful night.
Sunday we woke up early and played in the few inches of snow that we got overnight. The boys stayed out for a little over two hours. Keira and I called it quits and watched from the porch after 45 minutes. We all came in, made some wonderful hot chocolate and finished up some cleaning before heading out to Ty's basketball game (another loss, but only by 15 points this time.)
Keira has learned some new tricks as well the past few days. She has mastered going from crawling back to a sitting position, standing on her own, and is getting lightening fast crawling. She seems to alternate between the army crawl (only she does it with one leg crouched, one leg straight) and the typical crawl, depending on the surface of the floor. She is getting more and more vocal every day. She is also getting very daring with her cruising, thinking she can let go and walk on her own.
I will GLADLY be uploading a slideshow of all of the pictures from before Thanksgiving until now sometime tomorrow.
Nate's school's holiday party is tomorrow, and Wednesday his class is singing at an elderly home. (It's another very busy week!)

I see Audiologists...

Brody had his hearing test yesterday. We went to Children's Hospital to get the test done, and I will spare you the details of my day, which include driving for most of the day, back and forth, and never coming home until it was all over with.
The woman, who is a specialist in the Audiology Department, was very nice. We discussed the reasons for the test, and concerns, and then she checked his ears. His left was nice and clear, but his right had a lot of "junk" in it. She then did what I have referred to as the air pressure test, and he actually did better than he ever has on that. Essentially what that means is that his middle ear looks good, where as before it did not. After that we entered a small sound proof room, and Brody sat in my lap. Another Audiologist came into the room and sat across from us, and the original woman was sitting on the other side, observing Brody and working the sounds. If Brody turned towards the speaker the sound came out of, he was rewarded by a little cartoon snip it coming on a tv, or a little animal would light up. It was very odd, and A Clockwork Orange-esque. I was not allowed to make any noise, or talk, or hint that I could hear the sounds.
They switched things up, leaving us alone in the room, and then the women switched places. But there were a large chunk Brody didn't react to.
At this point Brody was done, and had lasted a pretty long time, and I'm sure he will recall memories of this odd place to his therapist someday. We then sat down, and the woman explained that Brody is hearing mid range tones perfectly fine. He could hear some low range tones, and was not hearing any high tones. What does all this mean? Well, for now it means we will be back in Children's to repeat the test focusing primarily on high and low tones (he goes back in 3 weeks) and if we get the same result, there is one more option before having to go in for a procedure where Brody would be sedated and they would record his brain waves when playing sounds.
So that is where we currently stand.