Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy Holidays!

Oh my it has been too long yet again! The holidays are almost over, here it is New Year's Eve day! Time is just flying by so fast. And as usual the kids are keeping me pretty busy!
Sadly I just didn't have time to do my usual Christmas crochet :( Hopefully I will be able to start early for next year. I love doing it and missed it this year.
But otherwise Christmas was really good around here. Both Duncan and Beatrice were really excited about Santa coming! They helped decorate the Christmas tree :) Of course Beatrice was obsessed with touching it and swiping the candy canes off!
We didn't wrap most of the presents until the day of Christmas Eve, which I felt guilty about, but in reality it was probably the best because it just about drove poor Beatrice to the brink :) I can't imagine trying to keep her from the presents for a week or so...
Santa brought the kids lots of goodies :) They were all overjoyed with what Santa brought them and what they got from relatives.
I uploaded almost 100 pics to facebook, and since I'm horribly lazy and seem to be lacking in the time area, I will just post the link here and you should be able to go look at all of our holiday fun without having to sign up! ;) Click here to see them.

It was a busy year for us, and as it draws to a close... we are optimistic about what the new year will have in store.

Maria has had a great year at school. She really enjoys school and does really well. Her grades are always good. She is still playing the sax and loving it. She is also playing basketball this year! She's really excited about that. She got some nice basketball shoes for Christmas. She's been going out hunting with Mike and enjoy it; she enjoys just about anything outdoors.

Duncan has been completely potty trained since about October! Once he made up his mind, that was it. Pretty much since the school year started I've been doing pre-school worksheets with him. He enjoys it and can't seem to get enough! I will most likely homeschool the youngest 3. There is a charter school in Hayward that works with homeschooling families. He's grown into a little man: absorbing, learning, discovering, interacting and talking nonstop about everything :) His favorites are still "Cars," Spiderman and Batman. Pretty much in that order. He's an undying fan of Lightning McQueen!

Beatrice has just grown leaps this year! She's talking quite clearly. She can sing her ABCs and can count to 17 or 18. She loves Spongebob, Boog ("open season"), Dora, and the Backyardigans (especially the Volcano Sisters). She's still quite the adventurous climber! And she has quite the collection of Dora dolls - and they all have to be in bed with her :) She's a real sweetheart.

Baby Dylan is doing great. He's pretty much over the colic stage. He sprouted his two bottom teeth a few weeks ago (an early teether!) And he's been eating like crazy! We started him on solids at about 5mos. He loves his peas, bananas and pears. He's still up in the air about apples and does not like carrots. He will only eat rice cereal if it has something else in it ;) otherwise he spits it right out. We got him a walker for Christmas since he's so hot to get in on the action with Duncan and Beatrice! But he's got the DeMarr legs ;) he can't quite reach the floor yet. But he did figure out that if he leans over all the way to one side he can reach the ground with his toes and scoot it a little bit. So he's got some big DeMarr brains too ;)

Mike is doing well with his job change :) Same place, slightly better job. He's getting along pretty good there. He's been out hunting quite a bit this year and having fun with that.

And I've been up to pretty much the same stuff as always. Trying to stay sane amidst chaos ;) Can't say that it's a boring job. Most days present some new journey or adventure. I am just thankful that I'm able to stay at home with the kids.

Here's hoping that you all have something wonderful in store for the new year! Happy New Year!!

Friday, November 27, 2009

Happy Turkey Day!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We had a wonderfully relaxing one around here! Full of parades and Turkey and pie! And once again, having issues with the new post editor, and just have no time to really mess around with arranging pictures and stuff, one of these days I will figure it all out and be able to do a somewhat coherent post with pictures in the right places and all ;) Until then, forgive the out of order pics and text.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Mmmm.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Monkeys, Ghouls and Astronauts




The kids were really excited for Halloween this year! We let them pick out their own costumes. Duncan had originally picked out Captain America, which was really cute, but Mike got him a really cool flight suit from the Air and Space Museum on his trip to DC, so Duncan was anxious to be an Astronaut.

Beatrice loved her ghouly costume ;) though she didn't want to leave the mask on, and the gloves we ended up pinning to her shoes because she didn't want to leave those on either! Dylan was a monkey. Maria decided not to dress up at the last moment, she was going to be a vampire, but the fake blood tasted awful ;) They all had tons of fun trick-or-treating and then we all had fun eating a bunch of candy when we got home!!












Sunday, October 18, 2009

Gettin' Ready for Halloween! :)

I've been up to taking tons and tons of pictures again ;) Well, I guess I always have, but it just seems like the kids are always up to something cute these days. And I keep forgetting that uploading photos isn't as much of a hassle as it used to be.. so get ready for major cuteness! ;)

A super sweet hug ;)

Dylan's turn to get Beatrice

And back to her turn

These two have also been up to wearing out the "Time Out" bench!

Uh, yeah, we had our first snow of the season already. On October 10th!! Of course it melted pretty quickly. Then we've had a few more days of flurries and such... Grrr...

Sitting together watching TV :)

These days she loves hats, as long as I don't *want* her to wear one!

Sharing a little chair ;) And there's Maria in the background, reading one of the Twilight books for about the millionth time!! We're anxiously awaiting the next movie coming out next month!

Duncan fell asleep with his Lightning McQueen hat on

He's been having fun helping Dylan with tummy time


Look at that smile!! Flirt!



Beatrice also likes everyone else's shoes... won't leave her own on

In the process of making some festive wear for Dylan!


That Dora pillow is about as big as Beatrice! I've actually mistaken it for her in bed a few times!

Ah... the sling ;)

And I just made this one last night! It's a wrap, more hands free than the pouch type sling (above) and it holds him all close and snug :) He actually slept in it the whole way through the store today (which only took about 3 hours!)
I was really tempted to post pictures of Duncan and Beatrice in their Halloween costumes! But I'll wait until Halloween. We let them pick out their own costumes this year - they had a lot of fun picking them out and trying them on. And they are really looking forward to trick-or-treating! Maria decided to dress up this year - can you guess what she's going to be?

Monday, October 5, 2009

Fall Already?

Amazingly we've already had a couple of hard freezes here! Brrr!! And the leaves have been falling for at least a couple of weeks now. Seems hard to believe that it is that time of year again already.

Things have been busy and chaotic around here as usual. But I finally decided a baby sling was in order ;) And it's helped me to actually be able to do a few more things on a daily basis. Dylan is still colicky, but he's becoming more manageable. Especially if I carry him around all day in his sling!




We actually harvested some of our apples from the apple tree in the backyard this year! We were able to harvest enough to make 6 pies before the hard freeze! We plan on being more on top of it next year!
Beatrice is as rambunctious as ever these days :) She's talking more and more clearly by the day! I actually caught her counting to 14 under her breath the other day, thinking no one was listening to her! ;)
Maria is getting excited about her friend's annual Halloween party next weekend! But she is now "officially" too old to dress up ;)
Dylan has this little tuft of hair that will not stay down! We think it looks like Ed Grimley from SNL (80s?).
Duncan has been doing a great job with the potty training! And he's really looking forward to trick-or-treat this year!

Sweet :)

Getting to be so big!
All the kids are still pretty sweet on baby brother :)

Beatrice thought he might like to play with a couple of her Dora dolls!

And how about a funny one? Beatrice eating lunch ;)