Christmas 2013

 This year Christmas kicked off December 24th at Brian's Parents house for vigilia. (Polish Christmas Eve)

Cameron and Babcia check out where Santa is on the Norad Tracker

The kids listen to Great Babcia explain the traditions that we celebrate.

This is the exchanging of the blessed wafer that comes from Poland everyone gets a piece and we walk around and each take a small piece off the others wafer and eat it and wish each other a Merry Christmas

This year I brought cookies for the kids to decorate so they would have something to do while the adults cleaned up from dinner.  It made waiting to open presents a little more bearable.  This year we were so happy that Christina and the girls, Rose and Lilly were able to be with us at Christmas. We were sad that Jason wasn't able to be with us because he is stationed up in Greenland, but it was nice for the boys to see their cousins!  After cookies were decorated it was time to OPEN PRESENTS!!!

The boys got many wonderful gifts from everyone and they were very excited!  Even Owen started to get the hang of opening presents!  Before we knew it, it was time to head home and put out our....

Reindeer food!!!

Then we came in the house and I asked that we get one picture of the boys in front of the tree

Then it was time to put out our cookies that the kids had decorate earlier in the night for santa

This year we couldn't find our copy of The Night Before Christmas.  So I had to download it on my ipad and we read it off that.  This will NOT happen again next year.  I will be getting a good copy of the book.    Anyhow the kids went right to bed and Brian and I watched a Christmas Story and went to bed to wait for Santa.

The boys waiting at the top of the stairs to be told they can come down.

Santa ate his cookies, drank his eggnog and left the boys a note

And the boys opened their gifts! Cameron was very excited to get the Wizard of OZ DVD and puppets from the Wizard of OZ and Liam was super excited for his Play Doh Trash truck, Brady loved his plane that got with the control tower and Owen was happy with his Taggie blanket!  But the big present for the boys was.....

An XBox 360 with Minecraft (of course)

After the hustle and bustle of the morning died down a little we headed over to my parents house for lunch.  The kids had gotten some games so they brought those over and they got a pretty good game going with uncle Dave, Daddy , Mackenzie, and the boys!

2013 was a great year!  We added another wonderful child to our family who has been such a blessing and fit into our family so well!  Merry Christmas from our family to yours! may 2014 be another wonderful year for all!

Thanksgiving 2013

Last year at this time we were celebrating Thanksgiving in Disney eating in Epcot at Mexico for Dinner.  This year however we stayed in Good old New Hampshire.  We had Brian's family over for dinner and then my family came over later for pie.  It was a very nice day! 

The boys posed for a quick picture

My lovely centerpiece from my dad

Baby's first Thanksgiving

a cut throat game of Candyland before dinner

Our table

9 months 11/22/13

Weighing I at 21.8 lbs (70%) and 31.25 inches (over the 90%) Is Owen Richard Stack!  He is sitting up by himself, has just recently started clapping his hands and babbles words like mama and dada.  He loves his go around walker and has actually started running around it! He loves to play with his brothers and is just a really content boy! Happy 9 months baby boy.  Can you slow down just a little bit.

Owen Richard

So I have been horrible at blogging especially about Owen, which I feel awful about so I figure it is never too late to start.  Owen has been such a blessing! He is such a good baby.  He practically never cries and always has a smile on his face. He takes good naps, pretty much sleeps through the night and is just about the sweetest baby ever.  He loves his brothers and man do they love him! Seeing how my boys interact with him just fills my heart.  Some weekends they will get Owen up and bring him downstairs and Brian and I come down to find them all snuggling with blankets on the floor watching a movie.  My absolute favorite part of the day is when I put Owen to bed and he takes his bottle and gets sleepy and we rock together and he drifts off to sleep while I sing him his song.  I want to hold on to those moments forever. It makes me sad to see how fast he is growing up!  He goes for his 9 month appt on Wednesday and I will post his stats.  My goal from here on out is to give a once a month blog update on him. Starting with his 9 months stats!

Halloween

Ok so I'm playing catch up. I have become a horrible blogger.  This year the boys decided that they didn't want to do a family costume so they each picked their own costumes this year.  As you can see from the picture Brady was a hot dog, Cameron was the scare crow, Liam was Mario and Owen was a monkey.  This year it was raining during trick or treat.  Brady and Liam pooped out early so Brian took them back to his parents house, and Cameron and I kept going we were soggy but we had fun!  We have already decided that next year we a making costumes! I'm tired of buying costumes that only last like a day and I want to have the fun of making them.

Liam Started Preschool

On Thursday this week Liam and I went to the open house for Rainbow Preschool. This is an hour during the day that the kids can go and the parents stay with them to help them get acquainted.  Liam was a little shy to say the least.  He kept asking to go home and didn't really want to play.  I was pretty surprised at his reaction, because he has been talking about going to school all summer.  SO we stayed for the hour and left knowing that I would be dropping him off the next day.  Friday morning he got up talking about preschool and got all dressed and put on his back pack and was ready to go. When we got there he seemed ok.  He hung up his back pack and coat and walked into the classroom. That's when things started to go down hill.  I was going to give him a hug and he grabbed on for dear life and started screaming "I want to go home!!!!"  I pulled him off me and handed him over to the teacher.  I went to my car and could hear him screaming outside.  I got in my car and cried.  Of all people I know that he was going to be fine and have a great time but it was still difficult.  Well I am happy to report that when I picked him the teachers told me he did great and he was all smiles.  He goes to school Mondays and Fridays so we will see how he does tomorrow after the weekend.  Can't believe how big he is getting!

Gone for a while

So clearly I have bee horrible about posting to the blog. Partially because the computer is super slow and it would annoy me to post things, but I have found an app for blogger and I want to get better at posting.  So let's see Brady started second grade and Cameron started kindergarten!  They both love their teachers!  Liam is actually starting school officially on Friday! He will go to rainbow preschool Mondays and Fridays.  Tomorrow we go for an hour to get acquainted, he is very happy that I will be staying the first day.  Owen is 6 months old! When did that happen? I think he is starting to teeth.  He has been a little cranky and his fingers are always in his mouth, however even with teething he is such a good boy! So hopefully this is just the beginning again of blogging.