Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year!


Well this is my last post of 2008! I am sitting here blogging while Mike is walking a tight rope and the boys are trying to make him fall.....oh yeah we're playing the wii!


This year has been an amazing journey. I survived another pregnancy......barely! Tyler became a 4th grader ( I remember being that old, and I was SO GROWN UP!) Matt is old enough to play rec basketball, Isaac is in his 3rd year of preschool (and he knows he's a little smarty pants!) Lucas is smack dab in the middle of "the two's" (emphasis and deep scary voice necessary when saying that!) and Nicholas is still a great sleeper and we're past the 3 month mark! And Mike and I are back on the "we're going to lose weight and get in shape" cycle. Man I swear I am always on that one!


I love my family and my life. And I am so thankful for every second. Even the stomach flu filled days that we just endured! (I really wish that I had felt good enough to take a picture of Tyler, Matt and Isaac sitting on the couch throwing up into bowls because Mike was in the bathroom doing the same!)


Happy New Year!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Grandma's Wedding Day!


Well, Mom is now Kathleen Wittke! The ceremony was great. Mike Oveson did an awesome job. (It can't be easy to marry your Mother-in-law!) The boys were so cute in their new suits walking down the isle and the little girls were darling. The only problem came after the girls and the boys, and even Mom and Grandpa had made it down the isle, and Don wasn't there yet! It was really funny. He ran in and everyone had a great laugh before the ceremony started!

The dinner was great and the decorations were ok (if I do say so myself!), and despite the fact that Lucas had spent the whole night the night before and the whole morning throwing up....we survived and I think it was a success!




































The Best Christmas EVER!!

This Christmas was "The best Christmas EVER!" in the Staten home! We had decided to make presents this year and the kids were so excited to give what they had made that between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning I never heard "I want...." or "Can I open.......?" even once! Christmas Eve was wonderful as ususal with our cheese fondu, visit from Santa, our "Christmas Eve program" and, pj's (all made by mom this year!). This year though we had an added surprise! Matt had made body pillows for everyone (except for himself and me) for his presents this year and he really wanted his brothers and Dad to have them to sleep on "so that they could have really good Christmas Eve dreams". Well as he was giving them to everyone you could tell that as excited as he was he also felt a little down because he didn't have one too. But the smile on his face when he realized that I had made him one too was priceless! And somehow Mike had convinced Tyler to make me one too, so we all had new body pillows for Christmas Eve!

Christmas morning was a great "mom moment". We had decided to open our gifts to each other before anything from Santa. And not once did the boys ask to even look at the Santa presents!

Here's what everyone made

Tyler: made me a body pillow, Mike a framed drawing of Harry Potter and a letter about how he loves to read with his dad. And then he cut everyone's name out on the bandsaw and painted or stained them.
Matt: made body pillows for everyone else, and a beautiful wood bowl for me.
Isaac: made me a magic wand and then for everyone else he drew a picture of him and them doing something together. Then he and Mike made frames and he painted and decorated them.
Lucas: Made magic wand's for his brothers.

It was amazing! Of course they also loved their new suits, the tickets to "Dinosaurs Walking", the Wii and everything else, but the homemade gifts were still their favorite!















We love Basketball!




Matt has finished another great basketball season! He loved it as usual and Mike and I had a great time taking turns going to the games. GO MATT!!


Monday, December 22, 2008

Santa Baby (s)


I needed Santa hat pic's for the calendar I'm trying frantically finish up. So last night I told the boys to go and grab the 1 Santa hat we have and come for a photo shoot! Ok so little did I know.....the Santa hat it tiny. It fits Nick! But I had to get the pic's so we improvised! Then I thought it would be cute to take Nick's pic in a stocking. Which it would have if he hadn't been so big that he ended up looking like a mermaid! Oh brother. The best laid plans!



Missy was not to be left out!

getting Isaac to hold still isn't the easiest thing!
Our little merman
Tyler is a little too cool for all for this!
crazy Lucas!

Happy Santa Matt!