Another First

Joe has been wanting to cut Zach's hair for months now so I finally gave in over the weekend. He kept teasing me by saying that Zach looked like a hippy. Every time Zach would fuss, Joe would say, "I know, Zach, but mama won't let me cut your hair" as if that was the reason Zach was upset. We used the 1 inch guard on the top and the 3/4 inch on the back and sides. You can't really tell that his hair was cut, but now the "comb-over" in the front is gone and it doesn't hang over his collar in the back. Here are "before" and "after" pics. I love this "before" pic. Such a funny face!

Joe and I were at Target on our date last night and found these "jeans" diapers. Of course they were more expensive, but we couldn't resist! Now I can just put Zach in a diaper and he looks kind of like he's wearing pants. It amazes me what they come up with for babies. So many new things even since I was pregnant with Sam 7 years ago.

Christmas 2009

For the first time we went to cut down a Christmas tree as a family. We loaded everyone into the van and barely made it to the Christmas tree farm before dark. It's right outside of town, but we were waiting until after nap time to leave and of course Abby & Zach took long naps that day. Anyway, we got all the equipment and found a great tree. We took some photos and ended up using one as our Christmas card picture for the year. I was glad about that because I was kind of dreading trying to get all the kids looking decent in a picture at the same time. The boys thought it was really fun to watch Daddy cut down the tree. Of course they wanted to decorate it the minute we got home, but it was too late so we waited until the next day.

Our Church had its Christmas celebration on Dec. 13. We do it early before all the students leave town since they are such a big part of our congregation. The kids all got dressed up for it, which is fun to do once in a while. Here's a pic of Daddy & Abby. I think she had been crying because she had fallen down.

We love having a fire place, especially at Christmas time, and I love seeing all the stockings hung on it. On Christmas day Grandma & Grandpa came over and we had a breakfast birthday cake for Jesus. The kids really seem to enjoy singing and blowing out the candles. We opened presents and then later in the day Joe's brother and his family came over.

On the 26th, we went to Gramby & Pa's house in Temple. Just about all of Joe's siblings and many of their kiddos were there. It was good to see everyone and Gramby was really glad to have everyone together. She and Pa have been living in Gonzalez, LA for a year for Pa's work and they hope to move back to Temple in the spring. Here is a pic of Gramby & Zach and one of Gramby, Joe, Dan, Wendi & Jami.

We received a ginger bread house kit as a Christmas gift. I confess I was not particularly looking forward to putting it together because I thought it would make a huge mess and probably not work very well. I was surprised, however, at how easy it was and how well it held together. Of course the kids enjoyed the candy and it was a blessing to see their creativity coming out! Maybe we'll even do it again next year.

Thanksgiving 2009

Our church has an English Converstation class for international students. One of the fun events they do each year is have a Thanksgiving dinner for the students. Our homegroup hosted one last year and we did it again this year. We have it at our house and everyone from our group drops off a dish. Then we let the helpers and students from the class just enjoy the food. It's fun for us to host and hopefully it's a blessing for the class.

Our kiddos went to Grandma & Grandpa's house during the dinner and then came home around 8:30pm. The students seemed to have a good time visiting with our kids and our kids loved getting so much attention from the International students. It blesses me to see the kids making friends so quickly.

On Thanksgiving Day, we went to Joe's niece's house in Hutto. There was a large crowd with most of Joe's family and Kerri's husband's family too. It was a nice day so we were able to eat outside. Of course there was a TON of yummy food! The kiddos had a great time playing and Abby loved wearing her sparkly red shoes for the first time. Zach was a little more laid-back about the whole day.

November 2009...Homegroup kiddos

I don't think I've posted anywhere that we had 3 babies born in our Homegroup over the summer. One girl was born in May, Zach was born in July, and another girl was born in September. We finally got around to taking a picture of all of them at homegroup one night. This was taken when they were 2, 4 and 6 months old. The other babies shall remain nameless to protect their privacy.

We also had one couple leave for Ukraine in November to adopt. They didn't know anything about the kids they would end up adopting and they didn't expect it to take 4 months, but they did end up with 3 beautiful little girls. So, our Homegroup went from our 3 kiddos to 10 within one year, but you'll have to read more about that in my Spring posts (whenever I get around to them). When the above picture was taken we were at 6 kiddos in our group.

October 2009

My mom's good friend, that I've known as Aunt Bonnie all my life, came for a visit in October. The kids love Aunt Bonnie and we all enjoyed her visit. We hope she'll come back soon!

The high-light of the month for me was having my brother and his family come for a week! We hadn't seen them in almost 2 years. The kiddos had fun with their cousins. It was so wonderful to have teenagers around...my nieces took the kids to the park and babysat one afternoon so that all the adults could enjoy a nice lunch out. We cooked lots of good food and just generally enjoyed each others' company.

September 2009

Ben started gymnastics lessons in September. He is such a monkey that we thought we'd try to channel that energy. He loved it, but decided to play soccer in the spring. (We only let them do 1 activity at a time since we know it will only get crazier as they get older. Might as well get them used to that rule now.) Sam played soccer again in the fall and had even more fun because he scored more goals. We try to remind him that playing your best and having fun are more important than scoring goals, but it's still fun for him when he does score.

We went to the Kolache Festival in Caldwell, TX on September 12. It hadn't rained in about 3 months, but it poured that day. Joe's brother and his family met us there and we ran into several other folks that we know. We left Zach at home with Grandma & Grandpa. Of course the rain didn't stop the kolaches from tasting fabulous!

How did 9 months slip by me?

I suspect many bloggers run into this dilemna. You're thinking "It's been too long since I've blogged so I'll need a big chunk of time to fill in everything I've missed blogging about." But you never get that big chunk of time and then you just need an even bigger block of time so you never get around to it. Well, that's what's been going on around here so I'm going to just pick up where we are right now and try to keep things short and to-the-point so that I might do a better job of keeping up with things. Since I have a little time today I may make some entries about what's been going on the past 9 months, though. So, if this is out of chronological order, that's why!

A couple weeks ago Abby was playing in her room after lunch. The boys were busy and I was busy with Zach and dishes. I realized I hadn't heard from Abby in a while so I sent the boys to look for her. They couldn't find her anywhere in the house so we checked outside too. Just as I was starting to get a little nervous, I found this...

She was asleep under her bed. Sometimes the kids pretend that under her bed is a camper (we got a great deal on a used camper in December). You probably can't see it, but she has sunglasses on and everything. I wasn't sure what to do so I just left her under there. I was a little frustrated because it wasn't nap time yet, but she still took a 2-hour nap, so it was all good!

The kids are having a "picnic" in the playroom right now. They brought the play food, plates and napkins from Abby's room to the playroom and are sorting through it all. They informed me that the healthy food goes on the big plates and the unhealthy food goes on the little plates. Now, if only I could remember that myself. I don't think Abby was understand the whole sorting thing if you're wondering why a pineapple is on the "unhealthy" plate. And I guess Ben thinks mushrooms aren't very good for you, either.

It's Been too long

OK, it's been a loooong time since I've written. I was worn out chasing after my 3 kiddos and being pregnant, but now that Zach is 6 weeks old, I think I'm getting some energy back! The biggest news is that Zachary William was born at the beginning of July. It was a quick delivery (1-1/2 hours after the Dr. broke my water and sent me into labor) so there was no time for an epidural this time! He is a huge blessing to our family and we are enjoying him every day. He seems to fit right in with the other kiddos and they love to hold him and give him kisses. He is still waking up a couple times a night, but he goes right back to sleep so it's not too crazy. Of course I'm hoping that he starts sleeping longer stretches at night soon.

I think since it's been so long, I'll go backwards in time in this post, if I can remember what we did. Joe and I celebrated our 7th anniversary on June 22. We usually try to go away for a weekend (or at least a night), but since I was 37 weeks pregnant we just went to dinner. We'll try to do an out-of-town weekend later in the year.

We attended the Hugghins family reunion on June 20th in Huntsville, TX. It was kind of a small group this year, but we enjoyed seeing everyone and catching up. I think they decided to do the reunion every other year from now on, so we look forward to seeing everyone again. The last reunion was in 2005 when Ben was the youngest Hugghins in attendance.

The boys took swim lessons in the beginning of June. Abby will have to wait 2 more years since she'll need to be 3 years old (or we may try to sneak her in at the end of the summer next year when she'll be just a month shy of 3). They did really well. Sam loves to go under water and look around and he likes to sink, which makes mama nervous! Ben is a little more timid, but did a great job and has been improving all summer. We are blessed that Grandma & Grandpa have taken the oldest 3 swimming several times this summer while mama gets some rest at home with Zach.

In May Sam was playing soccer and he scored some goals in the final few games. My cousin Tom and his wife Missy moved to the D/FW area in the spring so they came down for a visit in May and attended one of Sam's games. It's kind of like herding cats (watching 5-7 year olds play soccer) but there was noticeable improvement between the fall and spring. Sam is looking forward to playing again this fall.

Also in May, our church had a baby dedication ceremony and we had Abby dedicated to the Lord. A couple of other friends had their babies dedicated too, including one that was born 2 days after the dedication. I can't remember much else about the month of May so I'll just post more later if I think of anything.

In April we went to Gonzalez, LA to visit Gramby and Pa. They are living there for a year while Pa works for his daughter's company. We had a great visit just hanging out with them and going to Pa's "favorite fishy place" where we all ate some fried alligator. The kids all did well on the 6-7 hour drive. Abby kind of lost it the last hour each day, but who can blame her when she's strapped down into a car seat for the whole trip.

March involved a trip to the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco. We saw lots of animals and had a good time. It's really a nice little zoo that's inexpensive and a good size for a family with little kiddos. We can cover the whole thing in a couple of hours.

Frustration to Laughter

I was trying to get the boys to clean up the HUGE mess all over our house. They kept getting sidetracked and playing and generally not obeying. I was getting very frustrated with them and should have issued some sort of punishment, but I wanted to get some things done while they cleaned. About 20 minutes into this, Ben came to me crying and said the Sam had kicked him in the face. I found Sam in the playroom closet, asked him if he'd kicked Ben and he said, "Yes." When I asked him why he indicated that it was because Ben was trying to sit on the big blue exercise ball and Sam wanted his feet there instead. I was sooooo frustrated by this point that I was looking at Sam rather intensely while I was trying to decide what punishment to issue. All of a sudden Sam got this strange look on his face and said, "Your eyes! They look like dragon eyes!" I couldn't help myself and burst out laughing. I told Sam to go to his room, but I think it probably lost some of its effectiveness. It was hysterical at the time, but I really don't want to be looking at my children with "dragon eyes", but with loving eyes...even when I'm frustrated and they need to be disciplined. Lord, I really need help with this! P.S. It took us an hour, but we eventually got everything cleaned up!

Yuck!

The day started when one of the boys came into our room at 2am saying his underwear and pajamas were wet. So we got that taken care of and I told him to sleep in the bottom bunk (a full size mattress) with his brother. I couldn't get back to sleep, but finally dozed off at about 3am. After breakfast, the boys were playing nicely in their room when one of them said, "Mama, you need come here. We have a problem." The other boy had been coughing and vomitted as a result...on the bottom bunk. So, my one load of laundry (from the wet sheets and PJs was now turning into 2 loads. Not a big deal. After lunch, I went outside for about 3 minutes today to show my mom some stuff in the yard. Well, I heard Abby fussing inside so I decided we'd better go in. She walked up to me holding out her hand making a "yucky" face and fussing. It looked like she'd gotten into some chocolate so I'm thinking to myself, "How did she get into chocolate. I dont leave chocolate around where she can get it." Then it clicked in my brain. She has a poopy diaper and yep, that's poop on her hands! I carefully carried her over to clean her hands off with wipes and then changed her diaper. As I was changing her, she kept putting her hands up to her mouth saying, "Poo". Oh NO! Please tell me she didn't! I wish it weren't true, but I'm pretty sure she ate some of her poop! I finished the diaper change while my mom got her drink for her to wash the "poop taste" out of her mouth then I took her to wash her hands. I'm just hopeful that she didn't touch a bunch of other stuff in the house before I got to her! (For those guys coming to our house for guy time tonight, I'm pretty sure she didn't get into anything else.) Oh, and Abby's nose has been running all day. I think we've covered most, if not all, of the bodily functions in one day! It's still worth it, though and I love them to death!