School's Out

It is finally starting to feel like summer. The weather is warming up and the garden is just starting to produce yummy stuff to eat. Emma turned five a few weeks ago. She is REALLY a five year old in a big way. She seems excited to start kindergarten, we'll see? I'm not very excited to let her go at all, but I will hide my feelings from her so she won't take on my anxiety.
My brother Greg visited from California and my sister Kathy is here now. It is so great to see them all. I wish we were closer so we could visit more often. It is so fun just hanging out at my parents house with everyone. I know this is a boring post but I just wanted to write a bit. I will post again soon.

SPRING!!!

Okay folks, we have Spring!!!! I am really excited about it although right now we are having a weird heatwave. It has been close to 90 degrees for the past few days???? Normal high for this time of year is in the 60's. I am going to be upset if we go straight from cold to hot without being able to enjoy that perfect "in between" weather! Our plants are loving the sunshine and I am excited to get our veggie garden in the ground.
Jonathan has started soccer with Paul being one of the coaches. He doesn't like all the running. I think he may be more of a baseball type kid, we'll see?
Cynthia was baptized a few weeks ago and it was wonderful! A few days after that Lucy turned two. April had been busy. Emma is VERY excited to be turning five although it's not until June. Mostly she's happy that we found out she doesn't need any more shots until she's twelve.

Winter

Okay so it is certainly cold and there is no doubt now that winter is here in a major way. We have had snow days and delays quite a bit and church was even cancelled once. We are doing well despite the lack of outdoor activity. I really love having the kids home with me. It's so much more fun around here with all of them underfoot. Paul's been home quite a bit lately too and I've realized that we get along better when we're together more. Not that we are at each others throats or anything like that but the bickering is definitely less the more time we have together.
There's not too much new in our family which is a good thing to me. Lucy has finally started walking at 21 months and it is so great! She can play and run around like she's wanted to now.
I totally intended to send out a Christmas letter this year but it didn't happen so I'll put up pictures that we took of the kids and tell you all that we hope you had a happy holiday.




We tried to take a picture of all of them together but this was the best of the bunch. They were done, mostly Lucy.

Christmas

The presents are all opened and the excitement is over. We had a good holiday this year. I love Christmas more now than I did as a kid I think, it's so fun to watch the kids. The only negative thing I can think of is Cynthia and Jonathan woke up at 3:30am and didn't go back to sleep until 5:30am then woke up again at 6:30am. Needless to say we were tired for the day but it was okay.

Halloween

We had a seriously candy filled Halloween weekend. It started at school for the kids with their parties, then we went trick or treating with our friends in Dana Woods in Belchertown. So fun and thanks to the Hydes for letting us have a "home base" at their house.
Then the next evening we had our church party. The kids all dressed in different costumes than the night before and Paul was nice enough to make Jonathan a Wall E costume just hours before we had to leave. Jonathan ended up winning the prize for best costume in his age group. He was SO excited!
Holidays are more fun as a parent than they were as a kid. I love watching them have so much fun!

Funny

Jonathan was lying in bed looking very puzzled and the following exchange took place.

Mom: "What's wrong Bud?"

Jonathan: "Mickey wears shoes, Goofy wears shoes, ClaraBelle wears shoes, Minnie wears shoes, Daisy wears shoes.....why doesn't Donald wear shoes?"

Mom (trying not to laugh): "I guess he needs his webbed feet for swimming."

Jonathan: "Oh yeah."

It's Fall!

The chill is in the air and I LOVE this time of year. I love the weather, it is perfect...not hot, not cold, just right. It is a bit harder to get out of bed in the morning though. We haven't really used our heat yet so in the morning it is chilly and I just want to stay under the covers snuggling all day. I usually can't do that though because my kids always want silly things like, "breakfast" and "clothes" to wear.

Jonathan turned six last week. We had a fun birthday filled week starting on Monday. The kids stayed home from school and Paul had the day off so we went out to birthday lunch and did presents at home. Tuesday Jonathan brought cookies to school and got to wear the "birthday crown" for the day. Thursday night Paul was working late so we went to Grandma and Grandpa's and had cake. Jonathan opened his presents from Grandma and the cake was Cynthia's first cake that she decorated all by herself. She was very proud!

Then on Saturday we had some friends and family over to play and have cake...again. We had a lot of fun!