Brech and Gianna's Lego Towers

I just love these two and their creative minds!!

Cormac's 9th Birthday

Cormac had a wonderful birthday.  He received a few cards in the mail along with some gifts. A holy card from Uncle John and Aunt Maria, money and a book from Grandpa and Grandma Bestgen, money from his Godparents, money from Uncle Dirk and Aunt Twyla, and a birthday I.O.U. for a fun day or evening with his Aunt Courtney.  That is just what he got to open within a day of his birthday.  Lucky kid!

 His Uncle Peter and Aunt Mauri gave him Legos and a Fruit Ninja game.

 Brech gave him more Legos.  Now start counting how many times Brech photo bombs Cormac.

 From Rex.

 From Stephen.

 Trying to prevent Brech from being in the picture.

 From Blase.

 From Mom and Dad.

 The whole loot pile!

 

 The coolest cake!  Perfect for Cormac.

Happy 9th Birthday Cormac!  He was our only true Yooper, born in Escanaba, Michigan.  He was also born on his due date.  The only one to come on his own without a helpful (or unhelpful) nudge from the doctors.  

Christmas 2013

 Our finished Christmas tree waiting for presents.  Gianna would have had opened any present placed under the tree within minutes.  A very lonely Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.

 The nativity scene looked lovely and peaceful for exactly one night.  Gianna really enjoyed rearranging the pieces.  I am sure we are missing one or two people.  She especially liked Baby Jesus and the other baby.

 Eight stockings hung in a row.  I literally finished Brigid and Kiara's just hours before this picture.  Thank you Michelle, for sewing the girls' names on the fabric for me!

 Christmas morning!!  (Notice the grumpy Gianna - this was not the first take.)

 Rex's new pajamas.

 Stephen was bouncing with excitement over the Liberty Kids DVD.

 You have never seen a more excited boy than Blase was when he opened the Stratego game.

 Then Brech opened his movie and we saw even more excitement from him.

LEGOS! 

 Thank you Godfather Jim and Godmother Michelle!

 The kids in their Christmas finery after Mass.

 Coordinating outfits for the girls.

 Mommy and her little ladies.

Christmas feast with roast beast.  Ok, so it was just a leg of lamb.  It was YUMMY!  Darren was our chef for the day.  He makes a tasty Christmas meal.  I was thinking hot dogs and French fries.  It was a good thing he decided to cook.

Merry Christmas to your family from ours.

If you are still waiting for our Christmas letter, you are not alone.  We are a bit behind this year, but I assume you will all forgive us given how busy our days are lately.

Three Months Old

 Brigid

Kiara and Brigid 

Kiara

Thanks Donnie, Naomi, and Thatcher for the cute outfits.

Advent 2013 - Days 19-24

Advent 2013 - Day 19

 The book for Day 19 was a classic Christmas story.  Who doesn't know the song or the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?  The kids enjoyed hearing it read out loud.

 They giggled when the elves couldn't see each other.

We followed up the book by singing the song together.  I did hold off singing the version my dad taught my siblings and me.  That version involves a cowboy, a gun, a foggy night, and a state penitentiary.  Not the most ideal Christmas song.  We will save it for another time.

Today's activity was to make gingerbread houses.  We didn't get a chance to work on them this day.

Advent 2013 - Day 20 

Laura Numeroff has written some of the cutest books.  I also enjoy Felicia Bond's artwork.  This is one of my favorites by them.  If You Take A Mouse To The Movies is an adorable book about a mouse who thinks of one thing to do and then that reminds him to do another thing and so on. 

This is the best snow fort!  It has carrots and branches as a defense wall because on the page before this the mouse was going to build a snowman.  

When we got to this picture about the mouse making ornaments, Blase commented "You can never have too much glitter."  That was a jab at his mother's comment when we were making snowflakes.

The story ends with the mouse wanting to go to the movies - which is where they started the story.

Today's activity was to "go to the movies".  We had a sleep out in the living room and watched A Charlie Brown Christmas.  I don't remember watching it all the way through before.  It was nice for the kids to have a sleep out with the Christmas tree lights on.  I hope it will be a good memory to recall in the coming years.

As you might recall we were suppose to have a Christmas tea on Day 17.  I really wanted to give them their special tea so we had a special lunch on Day 20.

 The girl had the last Cinderella plate from her birthday party.

 The boys had leftover Batman plates from some party.

 Stephen was pretty excited.  We listened to The Piano Guys  A Family Christmas CD.

 That evening we finally started the gingerbread houses.

 Gianna had a lot of help from her mother because it was so much more fun to EAT the candy than to put it on a silly house.

 Brech Earl did a lot more by himself and even had some suggestions on where Mom should put the frosting.

His finished house.

Advent 2013 - Day 21

 I was so excited when I found this book on our shelf.  I hadn't looked at since Brigid was born and had forgotten about it.  The kids were pleased to hear a story about their sister's patron saint.

The story is about when Brigid was a young girl.  While she was tending her sheep she pretended she was going to visit Baby Jesus in the stable.  That night after she put her sheep in barn she walked back outside to find that she was in the desert instead of her own Ireland.  

 In this part of the story, she was the daughter of the innkeeper where St. Joseph came to ask for a place for Mary to stay.  Brigid lead them to the stable where Jesus was to be born.  Brigid used her own cape to help keep Mary warm.  After Jesus was born Brigid heard voices calling for her. 

 They were the voices of her mother and other women who had been looking for Brigid.  Brigid's cape had been changed from an old raggedy one to a deep blue color with stars on it.  Brigid then started her story about how she had been in Bethlehem.

Today's activity was to put up Christmas lights and decorations.  We didn't get too many of them put up this day.  By the time we found time it was too cold to wash the windows to hang up the window clings.

 Rex did work on his gingerbread house.

 He had help with the icing, but all the decorations were add by Rex.

Advent 2013 - Day 22

Fourth Week of Advent

 Four candles all lit!

Today's story was:

 We have quite a few Tomie dePaola books on our shelves.  He has so many wonderful Catholic ones.  This is one of those.

 This is the story of Lucida.  When it was close to Christmas her mother ended up being sick and was unable to finish the blanket they were going to give as a present to the Christ Child.  Lucida tried to finish it herself, but only made a mess of it.

 This disappointed her so much.  Her family had nothing to offer as a gift.  In a last minute effort, Lucida picked the "weeds" around the road and brought them into the church.  This confused the people, why bring weeds as a present.

 As Lucida knelt to pray in front of the nativity scene, the weeds burst forth with beautiful red flowers.  This book was a great lesson in giving what little you have is worth more than anything if it is given with love.

Today's fun activity was to go look at Christmas lights.  We really intended to do this, but the weather was bitterly cold.  We have this rule that we don't take the little girls out if the weather is below zero.  It was below zero this day so no Christmas lights.    

 After the bigger kids and Darren got home from Mass we finished up the gingerbread houses.

 I had plenty of practice piping icing icicles on Cormac's house.

 Stephen didn't want to do a house because he was afraid I'd make him eat it.  He doesn't like the taste of gingerbread.

 Stephen used mostly candy on his.  I made Blase and him so their own icing so it was as easy it as it could be.

 Blase was not happy about making one either.  He would have rather just ate his and called it good.

 In the end he spent the most time of anyone.  He expanded his to include a partial frozen river in the backyard, a row of trees, a yellow trail leading from the house to the river, and shingles on his house.  Wow. That's a lot of work.  He hated to admit that he did have fun decorating it.

 Our completed Gingerbread Village.

As soon as I took the above picture, the kids started eating their houses.

Advent 2013 - Day 23

 No Christmas book list is complete without adding some type of Christmas Carol.

 The book follows the movie very closely.  My favorite part in the movie is when Marley (Goofy) falls down the stairs and does his famous falling cry.

 I just love Tiny Tim.  He's so stinkin' adorable!

 God bless us everyone!

Today's fun activity was to watch the high recommended 

I personally enjoy movies in black and white, but the kids are too quick to judge a movie based on its lack of color.  They weren't too excited about the movie as it started.  In fact, it was mentioned that it would have been better to watch the Mickey Mouse version.  The Ghost of Christmas Future was probably the scariest part for the kids.  I think they liked the movie.  There were a few tears shed when Tiny Tim died.  Yes, some of them were from my eyes.  I had not seen this movie before either.  What an Advent season this has been. So many Christmas movies I hadn't seen that we were able to watch and enjoy.

Advent 2013 - Day 24

Christmas Eve

 My very, very, very, very most favorite Christmas story is The Animals' Christmas Eve.

 It is the story of Jesus' birth told by animals.  I love the fact that it is also a counting book.  It starts with one small hen and goes all the way to eleven puppies.

This book combines all the things I enjoy in a book.  It has cute pictures, rhyming, and learning (counting).

The book ends with:

"Twelve chimes ring out from far away - 

The lovely bells of Christmas Day.

And every beast blows low its head

For one small babe in a manger bed.

I always cry at the end of this book.  There have been many books I have cried over this Advent.  I guess it is the season for me to be sentimental.