Girls Night

I have been plagued with insomnia for a few weeks and am supposed to be napping now. The one morning I have a chance to nap and Kaylyn thinks she is giving up her morning nap. I am thinking: 'FAT CHANCE little girl!'. Still, here I am NOT resting because she wasn't sleeping. I thought I would just post a few pictures of the girls last night. At bedtime Kaylyn was plastering me with kisses, I personally believe it was her secret ploy to stay up a little later. Thomas and the boys went to scouts so it was just the girls and I. We usually get our pajamas on early and play. It is fun to do just girl 'stuff' sometimes.

Warmth against the cold for Christmas!

Here are some photos of the project I was working on for the girls for Christmas.

In late November, I found fun fur yarn at the dollar store. I picked some up and combined them with some yarn I had stored to make some scarves and hats for the girls. I also made a set for one of our neighbor girls. I enjoyed doing them but wish I had discovered the great price on the fun fur yarn a few months earlier! December is a month that is busy enough without making extra projects for myself! The boys received undershirts and Sunday socks as an 'equivalent' gift. (Although I couldn't really tell them I had knitted love into their gifts....they may look a little more loved when they attend church now!) :)

This is an extra set with hats in two different sizes.

Please ignore the Christmas morning floor.

I am including this photo because it shows the 4th nerve palsy Megan has in her left eye. (We think that is something that developed from her chemotherapy.) Her left eye jumps when she looks off to the side. While we wish she didn't have any after effects of chemo, this is a small issue compared to complications some children-and adults-can and do develop.

In this last photo Kaylyn is already protesting the hat and scarf!

Everyone Should Have a Weston in Their Family!

This is one of those things that I should probably not blog about, but can't help myself. It's just too funny......at least to us.

Here is our Weston. I may be biased, but he's a pretty good looking kid. Looks like a happy, well adjusted, and fairly bright young man. Right?...

Well, he was sitting at his desk at school twisting his hair around his finger. He fell out of his chair and the hair that was wrapped around his finger was pulled right out of his scalp! Yep. That is the kind of thing that happens to Weston. He has rich experiences in life that usually cannot even be duplicated by other, less talented, individuals. One great thing about Weston is that even when these experiences turn out to be less than pleasurable, he can laugh about them. Which, of course, gets the rest of us laughing too. We all gave him a hard time about wanting to look even more like his Dad. That, of course, wasn't as funny to Thomas! :) Our lives would be much less interesting and we would be deprived great entertainment if we didn't have Weston in our family.

Tis the season continued

Kaylyn is up with a fever tonight. Kaylyn is up...so I am up too! A little middle of the night uploading of photos to the blog. Thanks to Kaylyn I have more time to blog than I thought! :)



More photos with FAMILY. :)

As you scroll down, you will see that: Aunt Jessica is loved!... We have beautiful sun rise experiences here in Illinois. Jensen is a girl who takes matters into her own hands. We put our tree up within a few days after Thanksgiving, but it stood there for two weeks with no decorations. So one day, Jen took paper and scissors and cut out many beautiful snowflakes to decorate the poor neglected tree! I think it turned out beautifully and I would have been content to leave the tree like that for the season. (An indication I am feeling a little burned out??) But, we did finally pull out some decorations and have brought a little more of the festive Christmas spirit into our home. :) Also, Kaylyn loves her baths. The children participated in the Nativity play at church. We had two angels, Joseph, and a queen. Jameson had a ball game that night.

I am creeping up on getting caught up. I need to locate a few photos of the children in the play and of the van that I wrecked earlier this month. Yeah, that's a fun story too....OK, it's not a fun story, but everyone is OK and that is something we are all thankful for.

Tis the season...to have no time for blogging!!

Well, the title says it all, really. But for family and anyone else who may wish to hear more here is a bit about our lives the past month and a half. The more we have to blog about, the less time we have to blog about it. We have been going constantly for weeks now. 5 of the children were in the junior high play, so we have had many practices. Jameson is on the basketball team which has daily(during the week) practices or games. I have also been working on a project for the girls for Christmas.
Below are photos of some of the things we've been up to. We went trick-or-treating. I took a few photos, then forgot I had the camera the rest of the night. No photo of Weston here. He was too busy running ahead to prey on more of our village residents for confection of every kind.

Kaylyn, riding in style on her first Halloween.



Jensen turned six. We had pizza, and cake and ice cream at Papa's house. She put her own candles on her cake!

Pizza Anyone??

A few weeks later Kaylyn had her first birthday. It's a tradition in our family to put the whole birthday cake in front of the one year old just to see what they do with it. With so many siblings with birthdays before hers, Kaylyn knew exactly what to do with it!





You may not be able to tell, but we were trying to get Kaylyn to blow the candle here...(Mom eventually helped.)

Aunt Peggy, and her three children came to stay at Papa's for Thanksgiving. Aunt Jessica, Uncle Mark, and Uncle Paul came a little later too. Here, Hailey has the first blue/green egg laid by one of the Arucana chickens.

The holiday concert/play season officially began and here is Jensen at her Thanksgiving play. Does she look like a pilgrim?




Daddy and Kaylyn at the play.

Haven, Morgan, Hailey, and Megan.

Papa and the boys.
Jensen on stage. She really seems comfortable in the spotlight!

What's a holiday without pajama parties with cousins??

We went out the day after Thanksgiving to get a few photos of the family.


Peggy and Paul sure have a cute family!

I'm still not caught up, but I am getting closer!.... :)