Cookies For Santa

Christmas Eve 2008

baking cookies

writing thank you notes to Santa

cookies ready and waiting for Santa

My Christmas posting has been a slow project due to my computer being hijacked. We have a couple of new Webkinz in the house that need tending to!

Johnny had vacation time left for the year that he had to take so he has been off since Christmas and doesn't go back till Monday. Nice break for him, and it's been nice having him around! He has gotten 3 physical therapy appointments in this week for his back pain and has been studying a lot. For those of you that don't know, the direction of our lives may take a huge turn before too long. He is going to take the asvab test for the military and possibly join soon. He will probably be taking the test within a couple of weeks, math is not a strong suit of this family so that is what he is worried of the most. We are still praying for direction, so only God knows what lies ahead of us... we will keep everyone posted as everything progresses or if God chooses to shut the door, does not...

Everyone is napping getting ready to bring in the New Year tonight, so i'm taking advantage of my computer being free!

Christmas Eve

reading the Christmas story...Daddy started over 3 times before everyone sat nicely listening...we actually had to put Ethan in Daddy's lap to accomplish that.

Trey asked me every 10 minutes (that's hardly exaggerating) all day Wednesday how much longer till Christmas eve.

Trey got Daddy this little pillow because Daddy's old one is pretty wore out!

Avery got a computer!

Raegan ripping into her present, a hippo that Trey picked out for her.

Avery loved her laptop she got!

Trey got a keyboard

Ethan and his Bob the Builder gear

Christmas Eve finally arrived! Trey thought the evening might never come...it is our family tradition that the kids get to open 1 of their gifts on Christmas Eve. This year we stayed home and did no traveling since i was working the day after so on Wed. after Johnny got off work we went and finished up a couple of last minute things at Walmart barely making it to the checkout lanes before they closed down everything. We then went and picked up some Papa Johns pizza and headed home for some Christmas music, a few presents and then baking some cookies for Santa... to be continued...

Oh What Fun it Is To Ride In A ....Mini Van....

As we were heading home from an appointment yesterday i looked back and there were the girls holding hands, they did this the whole way home and i just thought it was the sweetest thing, they just sat that way and smiled at each other the whole way home. When we got home i told them not to move mommy wanted a picture...

I'm A Little Teapot...Or No, Maybe A Pan...

Let It Snow...

all bundled up

after Trey came out and threw a snowball in Ethan's face

Ethan lasted the longest outside

Raegan stayed nice and warm inside with her dinner in her new seat!

Ethan was very excited to see some snow today and wanted to go out and play in it. He wandered around and had fun making new footprints all over the yard. Then the kids filled some cups with snow and had coke slushies with our nachos for dinner.

Decorating The Tree

the completed tree-good job kids!

after all the madness i got them to sit still for 2.2 seconds

Avery put the angel ornament on the top

our little stocking stuffer

Tuesday was our planned evening to decorate the Christmas tree. The kids and i came home from allergy shots to Johnny having a spagetti dinner already made! It was a pretty relaxing evening we turned on the Christmas cd like we always do and then the craziness began.... the kids all stacked the different piles of branches to help daddy assemble the tree while Raegan assumed her busy little job of stealing branches here and there from each pile and stuffing them back in the tree box, kept her very busy and entertained but was a bit irritating to her siblings. The kids began sorting their ornaments from years past, and i think for the first year i realized how much they are going to enjoy the ornaments we buy each year (they each get a new one each year) ...they reminisced about each of the ornaments that they had made in sunday schoo, school ect... while Ethan went in the other room and unwrapped a little wrapped milk carton that Avery had made at school last year, thankfully i caught him before complete damage had been done and Daddy was able to fix the package as new! I think it was about that time we heard the first shatter, Ethan had dropped a glass ball and within 5 minutes the 2nd one had shattered. Raegan was taking ornaments off the tree as fast as the kids could put them on and Johnny and i were looking at each other saying isn't this supposed to be fun??? I sat back and filmed and let the kids decorate the tree all themselves. We have a little imbalance of the ornaments it seems in the middle area but over all i think they did a great job. There are ornaments laying all over the house that busy body Raegan removes from the tree all day long (she still believes the word no means, just do it quick and run!) It was a fun evening even with a little stress and now i get to listen to Darth Vader say "the force is with you young skywalker, but you are not a jedi yet" everytime i turn the tree on from now till Christmas, and no that is not Trey's ornament that is Johnny's ornament he has had for years!

Thanksgiving Day 2008

a very large table for a very large group and wonderful meal!

Daddy and Ethan

Avery sitting at the "girls and Grandpa and Grandma table"

the boys table

the boys had a sleepover Thanksgiving night

a worn out crew of boys

the girls had their own slumber party

they could only stay awake so long

unpacking Sunday afternoon-the girl just wears me out!

We went to Hutchinson for Thanksgiving Day and weekend. There were i believe 37 people at lunch on Thursday! Raegan was exausted by lunch time so we layed her down and she conked and slept through the whole afternoon and ate her Thanksgiving lunch mid-afternoon...made for a more relaxing lunch time :)

The cousins all had a blast as usual, the trampoline and playhouse being the main hangout spots of the weekend. Grandpa and Grandma got Christmas decorations and they all decorated the playhouse together which i failed to get a picture of.

Raegan didn't sleep well the whole time we were there, i assumed she had an ear infection...starting to trust my intuition on this since they are a common thing around here. I didn't want to take her to a different dr though cause she just got off 20 days of antibiotics for the previous ear infection and so we stuck it out and thankfully used some numbing drops my sister had the last night we were there and she slept great. (sure enough when i took her in she did have an ear infection and they gave her a shot and we will be discussing tubes at her 15 mo check...don't know that i want to do that but i'm getting tired of going from antibiotic to antibiotic!

The parents did a lot of trading off...guys going to a movie...girls going to walmart or target...guys going to the pawn shop...girls going shopping again...we did not go to the stores early though...the last time i did that in Hutch the stinkin newspaper people decided to chase down my sister and i and interview us for the paper...yeah and we tried to dart away from them but he was a determined guy who seemed to not give a flying flip that we didn't appear to want to be interviewed and definitely did NOT want our picture taken...aww the memories :)

It was a great weekend and i'm quite sure my mom and dad are ready for me to send my little monkey down for a couple week visit to grandpa and grandma :) She was INTO EVERYTHING the entire weekend...climbing on table, chairs you name it. Sooo this last picture is for everyone who had to place my child down off of a high place, rescue an item of yours that she thought was a great toy, take trash from her and put back in the trash can, and probably much more that i missed :)

First Thanksgiving Celebration

Trey just hanging out after a big meal

the girls getting crazy with some sidewalk chalk

Daddy and his kiddos

Johnny helping to carve the turkey

We had our Thanksgiving a few days early with the Seaba side of the family since everyone would be gone on Thanksgiving day. We decided to make it really feel like the holidays and after i got off work Friday night wake the kids and head out to Grandpa and Grandma Seaba's and spend the night. This all happened around 11 pm and halfway there we were re- thinking our great plan... Ethan did not want to wake up and was bawling his head off waiting to get carried to the car...Raegan cried the whole way till we finally stopped and got her some chicken nuggets in Bonner Springs...we were desperate to get her to stop crying :) It worked too! Once we got their and got all the kids settled everything was just fine and we were glad we had done it! Wheww! We had a very nice relaxing day with a huge meal!

Little Piggy And A Couple Of Monkeys!

Raegan LOVES to eat! She is my least picky of eaters of the 4 so far. She will eat pretty much anything we feed her and wants more, more more! I have been every now and then letting her try the spoon out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have hit the treadmill hard this week (getting ready to pack away the food at Thanksgiving!). I finally tried out leaving Raegan running free while i run. Previously i have gated the area off or strapped her in her highchair which didn't last very long (with her being happy anyway). The first day i thought she was going to put her hand on the treadmill once and about tripped and fell telling her "no touch!" She got the hint and stays a decent distance and hasn't tried to touch it since. The loud "ouchie" i yelled must have scared the daylights out of her :) She now peeks around corners and waves at me over and over (so cute), runs the "circle" in our house, or as she did today climbs on the kitchen table and throws every last ball of the bowl of decorative balls all over the house. Before that she and Ethan had been fighting over the tike bike and i finally solved that problem by convincing Ethan to get her the shopping cart to puch around. Once i started seeing the balls come flying form the kitchen i decided my run must be over peeked around the corner and about had heart failure, lightning quick grabbed the camera and proceeded to take pictures of BOTH my monkeys. I don't even know how she managed to get up but i'm sure it was with some assistance by her loving brother, or maybe not, shes a pretty determined little thing! Needless to say, along with baby locking all cupboards, shutting the toilet lid, turning the trash can around backwards, and making sure they both have a drink i will put up the decorative balls before starting my run.

Time For The Wonder Pets

This does not happen every day but on this particular day last week Raegan was very interested in the Wonder Pets and sat their with Ethan for about 10 minutes, that is until she started bugging him...then he no longer had any interest having his little sister sit beside him!

A Good Night

Our church has been having a revival this week with Dr. David Wood. Unfortunately we weren't able to attend until tonight because of my work schedule and a program at school last night. Tonight he did the presentation of Jesus dying on the cross where he tells the whole story up to the crucifixion and then actually has a man "on a cross" playing Jesus as he finishes the story. It is very well done and no matter how many times you see it, it really get's you. This year was Trey and Avery's first year seeing the presentation and they both raised their hands that they prayed and both went forward. Trey said "he was so little when he got saved and it feels like a dream and he wanted to make sure." Daddy was able to talk with him. Avery doesn't remember very well when she was saved a couple of years ago so she wanted to make sure and jumped up and headed to the front all on her own. Grandma Seaba was able to talk with her and go over some verses. We made a video of each of them when we got home because we thought that would be an exciting night that they could later look back on! We are so very proud of you Trey and Avery and so happy that you want to make sure that you will spend eternity in heaven!

A Beautiful Fall Week

i love this picture if only Ethan hadn't crammed half his pop tart in his mouth :)

Raegan get's so excited when she sees "sammy" the dog in the yard behind us

the kids were tackling in the yard last night

Raegan was thrilled to be outside

enjoying the beautiful weather

you can be sure Avery had a shower after laying in the grass- i wish i didn't have to worry about how much they were going to itch after the girls play in the leaves!

silly boys

Trey was making a soft landing of leaves for Avery to push Raegan down into

If the weather stayed like it has been this week all year round that would be perfectly fine with me!! It has been in the 70's everyday and the kids have taken full advantage by playing outside quite a bit, it helps that i'm practically shoving them out the door saying "this will probably be your last chance to play outside while it's nice!" Avery even wore shorts to school one day, i thought that was pushing it a little much but i wasn't in the mood for arguing over it that morning!

Yesterday we got the a-ok to start bi-weekly shots, apparently the first freeze already happened. Hip-hip-hooray i'm not going to spend EVERY Tues, afternoon in a waiting room for half an hr with 4 crazy little kids :) They sometimes do very well, it's just the harder days that seem to stand out the most to me, you know how that is! Twice a month won't seem so bad. Hopefully she will do well on the bi-weekly or they will have to switch her back. She freaked me out last week, i had forgotten to give her her loratadine in the am and after her shot she started coughing a lot and started wheezing. They gave her a pill and thank goodness that slowed it way down. We did have to stay for almost an hr instead of the 20 minutes but at least nothing more came of it!

Last night i let the oldest two stay up and watch the news of the election with me. Johnny wasn't feeling well and went to bed early. Avery conked in the recliner not long after but Trey stuck it out and conked during Barak's speech. Trey and Avery were very dissapointed. They had both voted at school for John McCain. Trey had aprox. a million questions regarding the election, who was winning, what everything on the tv screen meant. Very hard things to explain to kids, when sometimes you don't understand them all completely yourself!