Patience...

What does that word really mean anyway? It's something that I am just not good at, and a lesson I have to continually learn. I want to be amongst patients. In a hospital. Having a baby. That's the kind of patients I am talking about! I realize that I still have 4 days to go and I know that my babies like to over bake, but seriously...so ready to have this baby. Anyway, just thought I would let you know, that no...no baby yet. Still waiting. Very impatiently waiting.

For your viewing pleasure, here are the munchkins dressed up in their Easter attire - just for all of my frugal friends out there, I got Bryson's suit for 7 BUCKS! Gotta love clothing resales!

Easter Morn...

We really didn't hype up the Easter Bunny thing this year, we really tried to concentrate on the spiritual aspect of the holiday and also General Conference. In our house, you leave your empty basket at the door and the Bunny comes in the night to fill it with goodies. Like my friend Kelli, I totally didn't play the "you better be good if you want to get anything from the Easter Bunny" card until like the day before Easter, I am still so disappointed in myself. Anyway, I can't remember exactly where Mr. Incredible was the night before, but it's a good thing he came home when he did because the Easter Bunny had fallen asleep on our couch! so I am grateful he came home to wake up the tired Bunny, otherwise we would have had some mighty disappointed munchkins with empty baskets on Easter morning.

I am not sure why we didn't get very good or very many pictures. Not sure what happened, but the videos make up for the lack of pictures.

The Goods...

Waiting at the top of the stairs

Sweet Pea & B-Man got new T-ball gear from the Easter Bunny. Here's Mr. Incredible giving a crash course. It was pretty funny, Mr. incredible was quite disappointed that B-Man wasn't a little more excited about the glove, you know like I said, that whole living vicariously through our children thing.

This one is a diva in the making, she always has to have a phone (preferably one that beeps and makes noise) so she got her own from the Bunny-man.

They couldn't wait to break out the bubbles so we let them out on the back porch and have at it.

Lucky Days...

I know that St Patty's Day pics are yesterday's news and all, but this picture reminds me how incredibly lucky I am and how much I love these 4 people...

Here's a picture of Sweet Pea's Shamrock hair, compliments of the Princess - I was pretty excited about how it came out, but apparently it looked more like a flower to others.

One other little tidbit about St. Patrick's (sorry for the repeat if you are my friend on Facebook) but Sweet Pea kept calling it St. Frankenstein's day, I would correct her and no matter how many times I would correct her it just stuck. So I guess from here on out it will be dubbed St. Frankenstein's Day at our house (does anyone one know, was he at least Irish?)

Christmas Sunday

So here are the kids in their Christmas Sunday clothes, I just had to share :o)

The Eve of Christmas

I am still trying to catch up, so bear with me - it's for posterity sake!

In the last few years that we have stayed home (in Chi-town, not Utah) for Christmas we have tried to keep with the Goates' tradition and host Christamas Eve dinner at our house with some families who don't have family close by. Well this year we decided that our little clan of orphans has expanded to the point where we don't fit in our house anymore. I know a guy who can coordinate things at our church building and it worked out that we were able to have it there.

We had a book exchange for the kids...

And a white-elephant gift exchange with the adults. As usual, things got interesting with the white-elephant gifts, lets just say everyone was quite jealous of the the toilet seat that has taken residence in my basement. (at least it was still in the package :o)

We have such great, fun friends and we feel so blessed for this family away from family.

Another favorite Christmas Eve tradition is the Goates' T-shirt! Every year Mom & Dad Goates have a T-shirt made for all of the family. We were excited to see the old-school "Genuine Goates' Kid" t-shirts and on the back is the 53 names of our Goates' family on the back (fyi- in the less than two months since Christmas that # has grown to 55, and #'s 56 & 57 due in the next few months - talk about exponential growth!).

So after the t-shirts we put out milk and cookies for Santa and Jenna counted carrots for the reindeer - then it was off to bed.

One great tradition...

For those of you who are not familiar with the Goates' family, one of the traditions that they have had for years and years is to decorate gingerbread houses, usually just after Thanksgiving. This is one of my most favorite things and one of the things I miss most about being away around the holidays. I especially have a hard time that my children don't get to enjoy this fun tradition with all of their cousins.

Well, we had a YW activity where we used graham crackers and that inspired me to try, for the first time, to make gingerbread houses out of real gingerbread. I love our family cookbook which gives Mom Patsy's recipes, which I don't know how she makes 20 batches for our entire family to decorate their own house. (and no, I am not exaggerating!)

Anyway, after searching high and low for the cutters and finally finding them in Palantine (yes we drove there to get the last one Michael's had...anywhere) we had our gingerbread houses. I LOVED baking the gingerbread, I wish my house could spell like that all year.

Steve was really excited because this is something that he has been doing every year for as long as he can remember, so it was fun to carry on with this fun Goates' tradition with our children.

Dad helped B-man and I helped Sweet Pea while Muffin went into sugar shock -

I am not sure what happened to the picture of the random letters B-man wanted on the other side of his house - that boy just cracks me up!

This child inherited a little to much OCD from her mother. Everything had a pattern and had to be in just the right place.

Sweet Pea and her finished product - of course it had to have a "J" on it.

My Muffin- just chillin' eating some chocolate

Thanks to Mom Patsy for carrying on a traditon so special to all of us!

Lately...

lots of fun things going on. I am going to try and play catch-up this weekend. We'll see how that goes.

Just a quick update on how the munchkins are growing -

Sweet Pea started back into the half-day preschool program through the park district. Most of the same kids are back this year which is a lot of fun. She is just such a joy in my life. What a big helper and so wise beyond her years. She's an old soul who is trapped in this little kid's body. Funny example...every few days at school her teacher asks a question to all the kids and she writes down the answers and posts them outside the classroom for the parents to enjoy while waiting for drop-off/pick-up. Last week the question was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" While all of her little classmates answered "teacher" "princess" "a mommy" Sweet Pea's response... a paleontologist! She cracks me up! :o)



B-Man also started a program through the park district called Terrific 2's and 3's. I was a little leery about putting him in a "pre-school" for two hours a day, but at the suggestion of his Speech Therapist, I thought it would be worth a try if it helped his speech develop. We had hyped up "school" for about a month before he started but the fact that he watched Sweet Pea go all last year he knew what to expect. He LOVES it and didn't even bat an eye the first day, in fact, he all but kicked me out. His teacher is all cute and bubbly and barely taller than the kids and B-Man loves her. Anther HUGE accomplishment for B-Man... 100% POTTY TRAINED!!! WOOT WOOT!! Once it clicked for him, he is a champ. He even got out of bed the other night at like 3 in the morning to go potty. YAY! (not yay for the 3 in morning, but yay for not having to change child and bedding at 3 in morning) I can't believe he will be 3 years old tomorrow. Love this boy. Mischievous, yet so sensitive, definitely his Momma's boy.



Oh my Muffin!! You know, when we were expecting this little girl all I heard about is how the 3rd one is the calm/quiet one. Let me tell ya people... not the case! Not sure what we do to our children, but they are just super-busy. This trait seems to multiply exponentially with each child. Basically... She. Scares. Me. She is not afraid of ANYTHING!!! I love that she's curious, don't get me wrong, but I just can't stay ahead of this one. It's hard to believe that the last year has gone by so quickly, she's not my baby anymore, she's a full blown toddler, walking around with a mind of her own. She still is getting a hang of that walking thing, I think it's proving difficult because she's trying to run rather than walk. Despite my daily panic attacks of whether or not "that" is going to leave a mark, what a fun, fun little girl. She loves everyone, especially Sweat Pea and B-man and I couldn't have asked for a better sleeper. (it's like a rechargeable battery, she needs 11-12 hours to recharge) I think that is one of the only things she inherited from me. Despite her busyness (is that even a word?) she is a cuddlebug and I love to cuddle and just hold her.