The Gang is all geared up for tonight. You see my parents were out of town for Christmas and they returned home last night. They are hosting the family tonight for dinner and more presents. My kids can't wait and are very excited to see what Gram and Pa has gotten for them. We are also looking forward to giving Gram and Pa their gifts from us. One is homemade and one is somethng great that Gram is going to love. We're going to be having create your own sandwiches, maccaroni salad, and chips. Yummy!!! More on tonight later. :)
Well we survived the Christmas fun. Grandma and Pa are out of town and were unable to come for the Christmas gift unwrapping, but Auntie, Uncle, Emily and Ali were here. It was a huge surprise for the gang and they did not disappoint in the screaming and happiness department. Tom and I just kept looking at each other and smiling. The kids were so cute and happy with their gifts. It was a very joyous time. On Tuesday we will have another Christmas with Gram and Pa. I better get to finishing Pa's gift and get Grams wrapped. I tend to wait until the last minute on some things. We had a really nice day playing with our gifts and relasing as a family. Our dinner was yummy and we had great company to share it with. We did have a couple of items break on us. Of course Tom and I weren't surprised at the breakage. We live with a few destructo derbies. Today, I have taken back an item and bought Macie a pair boots to replace the pair she got for Christmas that she didn't want. Tom is off to return an item that broke and Macie's boots. Other than that we are relaxing and having fun as a family. The house is a disaster, but that is easily remedied.
If you are here reading about us, the Hay Gang, you more than likely received our Christmas card telling you to come here and find out what has happened to us this year. Thanks for checking in on us. We want you all to know how blessed we are to have such a great support system of family and friends. Our year has been full of family outings, kids accomplishing many things as they grow older, and lots of fun. In March we went with Pa up to the snow. We packed a lunch and made a day of it. What fun we had. With Auntie, Uncle, Emily, Ali, Ashley and Grandma we traveled to Six Flags for a day of fun in the sun. We left Henry home and made a day of it seeing all the animals, riding rides, and eating. We went on our second camping trip at the end of July. We swam, ate, played in the water, roasted marshmallows, and got very, very, dirty. The 3 older children were on the Loomis Basin Dolphin's Swim Team and participated in the Rocklin Little Thunder Basketball league. The other 2 were always there cheering on their big brother and sisters. If you're still reading then we are going to fill you in on how each child is doing. Macie who turned 10 this year is a very creative and talented girl. She loves to sing and is singing in the Parker Whitney School Choir, taking violin, swam on the 9/10 swim team, and played basketball. We also were able to watch her perform in the Parker Whitney talent show in May. She had a couple of lemonade stands this summer and has been given the money making job of co-recycler with Thomas. Macie says that the best thing about this year was going to Arcata to the HSU homecoming game where Pa was put into the Hall of Fame. She also said seeing her cousin Brad and meeting his girlfriend, Justine, was great as well. Thomas is a very bright and active 9 year old boy. He also was on the 9/10 swim team and played basketball. He has taken up the violin this year and sings in the Parker Whitney Choir. Thomas has earned his wolf and bear badge in cub scouts this year and will be moving onto Webelos when he turns 10. Tom is his cub leader and that has been very fun for the both of them. He loves his job as a recycler. Tom brings cans & bottles from work and Macie and Thomas sort them and I take them to get the money. Thomas says that the best thing about this year was spending time with my family. Julia is 6 and in the first grade. She has an Alternative, Augmentative, Communication device to help her speak. She is progressing very well. She is in Special Ed and is mainstreamed into Reg. Ed for all subjects except Language Arts. Julia loves all things pink and loves to play with barbies and dolls. Summer of 2009 was Julia's first season on the Loomis Swim Team. She swam for the 6 and under team and at the awards ceremony was awarded the most improved 6 and under girl and received a trophy which she proudly displays in her room. Julia says that the best thing about this year is being a first grader. Matthew is a 4 year old pre-schooler. He is having the time of his life at school. There is sand to explore, bars to climb, swings to ride, and slides to slide down. He also is learning a few things as well. Matthew is taking swim lessons so he can try out for the Loomis Swim team like the rest of the gang. He is doing so well at lessons the only problem is that he doesn't like going and screams the whole way there. He goes on Tuesdays and is very happy when he finds out it isn't a Tuesday. During the summer he took gymnastic lessons. It was right up his alley, and he was a great little climber. Matthew says that the best thing about this year was that he gets to go to school. Henry is 2 and into everything. One of his favorite things to do is watch Signing Time!. He will bring me the DVD's and keep at me until I put it in. Along with learning to sign he is also learning to speak better. He has qualified for speech therapy and sees a nice girl at JabberGym in Roseville. We are constantly amazed at how far he is progressing. He likes to play with cars, Julia's barbies, and loves to ride his stuffed pony. He is very funny and keeps us all laughing. Henry would say that the best thing about this year was that he got to see his cousins Ali and Emily, visit with Grandma and Auntie, but best of all going with Pa to get hair cuts and shop at the grocery store.
Wow! We can't believe what a year it has been. We love you all and wish you all a Happy Holiday Season and hope that you can find the true meaning of Christmas. Please check back with us here at the Hay House blog. You never know what you might find out about us. :) Here is a sweet video helping us to remember the true maning of Christmas. Enjoy
We here at the Hay House are officially in the Christmas Spirit. We have out tree up and that brings the Christmas season to us. We decorated the tree for family home evening last week. Of course, it wouldn't be a Hay House Christmas without something going wrong. I had bought 2 strings of lights at Costco and while hanging them on the tree we realize that we need more. I run to Costco with the girls and yes, you guessed it, they are completely out of what I needed. So the girls and I decide to go to K-Mart. I buy 4 more boxes, bring them home, and Tom hangs them. We have the tree lighting time and the lights are two different colors of white. Who knew that could happen. Then the kids got to stay up late and decorate. Once again this year we only put the kids ornaments on the tree. It is so pretty and they love seeing their ornaments on it. Saturday night we were in the Auburn Festival of Lights Parade. It was very cold and we got to ride on the Head Start School Bus singing songs, hanging out the windows yelling Merry Christmas. We did this because Matthew goes to Head Start. He loved that the night was all about him. Then on Sunday night we had snow. The gang couldn't believe it that it actually snowed in Rocklin. It has been very cold the last few nights. Things have frozen and some people are without power. We are busy getting everything ready for Christmas to come.
We had a terrific Thanksgiving. The new picture at the top of the blog was taken at Thanksgiving. We very rarely have family pictures so this was a favorite for me. We ate and laughed and talked with our big extended family. I think the final count for dinner was 53, and if you can believe it that is not all of us. We left the gathering with full bellies and tired eyes. Got home and put everyone to bed and then I went because I was getting up early to go to BLACK FRIDAY. Yipppeee!! My mom and dad went with me and helped me get the items I wanted. I know that I said I was done, but who can resist a few last min. items at good prices. I even got a couple of things for birthdays coming up. I came home and got the gang ready to go to Costco where we got our Christmas tree. This year we got a Noble Fir. I love how green and piney smelling it is. Kelly and Scott and gang were with us as well. They got a huge tree. Costco is such a great value. Brad even got one to go back to school with. He won't be coming home this year for Christmas and we won't see him until his graduation in May. He will be working this year over the Christmas break. We also got our annual Christmas tree getting picture. We are in typical Hay form for the picture and we got a picture of everyone together. It might be our last year for the Christmas Tree adventure.
This Saturday, Sunday, and Monday Signing Time! will be having great sales. Please check them out. Saturday November 28, 2009 $15 Off Any Order of $50 or more
Sunday November 29, 2009 Spend $50 or More and Get Free Shipping on Your Order
Monday November 30, 2009 Get 20% Off All Gift Sets at Signing Time
If you want in on the great deals just click here.
I am grateful for this time of year when we give thanks for our blessings. We are blessed here in the Hay House to have such a wonderful group of people to be there for us when we are in need. I'm grateful for my parents, sister, brother, husband, nieces and nephew, and my little gang. I love being a stay at home mom and I'm blessed to be able to stay at home. This year has been hard for everyone to make ends meet and we have blessed to make it every month. Here is a video that gives thanks. Enjoy!
Hi everyone, A lot has been going on around here in the last month since I posted. I am very grateful for my family and all the challenges and joys that they bring. We have been knee deep into homework, violin, chior, swim lessons, and school. The month has just flown by. I am officially done with christmas shopping and looking forward to wrapping and getting the tree up. I love Thanksgiving with all the promise of the holiday season. This year we will be having dinner with 48 members of our extended family at my cousins restaurant. We have done this the last few years and it is terrific. A proffessional kitchen, restaurant dish washer, togo containers make it all very easy for us all to enjoy ourselves. Everyone brings something to contribute to the dinner and the feasting begins. I plan on going to black friday again this year, even though I am done christmas shopping it should be fun. :) I met with the kids teachers for parent teacher conferences. The gang is doing well and we can look forward to learning much more in the year to come. Macie and Thomas sang at the Veteran's Day ceremony at the city cemetary. I took Macie and Henry to visit Matt and we had a good visit. We are now getting ready to go to the church for tithing settlement. I now need to make sure that everyone has shoes, socks, and clothes on. :)
Hello all! It has been a loooong time since I have blogged. Let me just tell you what has been going on around here. Tom has had to have his gall bladder removed. I'm glad to say that the surgery went well and he is doing fine. He is having a little trouble holding any of the gang and some trouble lifting. At the beginning of the month Fairytale town hosted a party with the Sac. 20/30 club for families of special needs kids. I took Julia, Macie and Thomas for games, crafts, music, and a bbq. It was very nice and they even gave us t-shirts. We were gifted some really nice and expensive carpet. Our neighbors across the street were given some nice carpet from a man who was re-doing his floors. The carpet he had was only a few years old. Our neighbors couldn't use it so they called us. We now have beautiful carpet in our living room. Please no shoes in there. Julia did you hear me? :) We had to have help moving all the furniture out because Tom can't and I have had a bad back since my accident last October. I also went to Tahoe the first week in October. I am serving on the Policy Council for Placer County Action Council. It is for Matthew's pre-school. The Tahoe trip was for training. I got my own room and they fed us some wonderful food. It was loads of nice alone time. Matthew went on a field trip and I got to go with him. It was a very rainy day so they just rode the bus to the Loomis Flower Farm, picked out a pumpkin, and got back on the bus for the trip back to class. I think it was a great field trip. To kids that little just getting on the bus is a trip. :) The kids (Macie and Thomas) had their Tony Crane dance. They were cute. Thomas was awarded his Bear Badge at the last pack meeting, and Macie was declared the Grand Prize winner in the Rocklin Chamber of commerce Chili Cook-off coloring contest. She gets to go to a winners party at McDonald's this Thursday. They will give her her prize on that day. She is thrilled. Last weekend we traveled to Humboldt State University for my Dad's inductee ceremony. He was inducted into the HSU Athletic Hall of Fame. We all had a blast and went up on Thursday night so we could have some fun on Friday. We went to the beach which was gorgeous. We couldn't have asked for better weather. Then we went swimming in the hotel pool. We had the place to ourselves. In fact a couple of young guys came in and turned right around. Are we that bad? :) It has been a jam packed month, and I sure hope I can update a little more frequently than monthly. Here are a few pictures from our adventures:
Do you think the girls loved their drumstick ice creams last night? School has started and we have been trying to get into a routine around here. The children that are in school go to 3 different schools. While this is probable nothing new to people with older children it has been a transition for us. Julia goes to school by bus which helps a lot. She does get on the bus at 7:05 a.m. and comes home by bus at 3:00 p.m. it is a very long day for her. She thrives when there is routine so this has been no trouble for her. Tom takes Matthew to school and I get the other 2 to their school. He is still taking swim lessons and is becoming a good swimmer. We're hoping he can get strong enough to be on the swim team next summer. Next week Macie is starting a before school reading program which starts a 7:20 a.m.. This just throws a minor wrench into things, but we will get it worked out. Macie and Thomas are both taking violin, participating in the Parker Whitney Choir, and going to after school homework club. They are very busy. We were supposed to go camping over Labor Day weekend, notice I said supposed to. Tom got violently ill and ended up in the ER on Sunday that weekend. He has to have gall bladder surgery and is still not feeling well. I have been doing most of the work around here and have a huge respect for those single mothers out there. Hopefully things will get back to normal soon, what is normal?
Should we start potty training Henry? He loves messing with the toilet paper and is very curious about what the potty does. :)
We went on a family vacation a few weeks before school started. We had to wait to go until swim team was over. The day before we left we went to the awards night for the Loomis Basin Dolphins. You bring your own dinner/picnic and then the personal best awards and coaches awards are handed out. This year we bought the hot dogs and hamburgers that the team was selling. I didn't have time to pack a picnic as we were leaving the next morning. To our surprise Julia won the 6 and under girls most improved award. She received a trophy and coach Lizzie said some might fine words about our Julia. We were so pleased with her efforts this year and all that she accomplished she was even in the newspaper. Check out this article that ran in the Loomis news (front page), Auburn Journal (front page), and Placer Hearld ( page 3) click here There was a picture of her, but now it doesn't seem to be coming up. Anyway check her out!! She loves being a celebrity. The next day we packed up and headed out on our 5 day camping trip to Collins Lake, which is near Marysville. We (Tom and I) are genius' when it comes to planning a camping trip in the Summer, we choose the hottest place near us and then go there. At least there was a lake for the kids to swim in. As is turned out it wasn't as hot as they were predicting, but it was hot enough. I was very organized this year, or so I thought. I kept saying boy I have packed well, I just hope I'm not forgetting anything. Well, the minute we got there I realized that I hadn't packed the hot dogs, hamburgers, or sausage. I had to buy hot dogs and sausage at the little highway robbery store there at the entrance to the lake. We had friends from our ward go with us. Both families had a ball and we want to camp again, just not at the dirt pit we were at this year. :) My mom and dad brought us dinner on Sat. night of our trip. I didn't have to cook and the kids loved seeing their grandparents. We swam, played at the playground, rode bikes, ran from our camp to the Watfords camp, ate tons of smores, and slept on the ground. Who wouldn't love a trip like that. Now to get ready for our last camping trip of the season. We are heading to Plumas/Eureka State Park with the Bates and Techau's for Labor Day weekend. Could someone please remind me to pack the frozen items? :)
Well, yesterday was the first day of school, and we, here at the Hay House, had 4 children going to school. Macie and Thomas are in 5th and 4th grades. They will be in a 3 teacher rotation and since Thomas is in the 4th/5th combination classroom he will be rotating with the 5th graders. We will see how this will go because as we all know brothers and sisters together in the same group of students doesn't always go well. :) Julia entered 1st grade at a different school. She is in a K/1 multi-age classroom (that's fancy speak for combination of two grades in one room). She has some of her friends from Kindergarten in there and some new ones to make. All is well on the 1st grade front. She starts school a bit early at 7:50 and gets on the bus at 7:10. I have to say that we were rock stars this morning and had breakfast, a good one at that, and she was ready to go waiting for the bus. One day down and many more to go. Matthew is at the same school as last year and his hours are 8-12 a.m. everyday. Now, what is a family to do about getting all these children to all their places on time. The daddy has valiantly accepted the job of taking Matthew to school before he goes to work. This means an hour change at work, but his job is very flexible on time to start the day. After Julia and Matthew are off to school then I can take the other children to school. I plan on walking them up to school and then taking Henry on an extended walk. Wow, a lot happens around here before 8:15 a.m. Now that school is on I guess I need to start thinking about Christmas, yes I said it. :)
We had some very special visitors yesterday morning. Ali came and did hair for first day viewing and Emily helped with dressing. Gram and Pa showed up because afterall it is the first day. :) Thanks for all the help getting us up and out on time. We love all of you!!! Backpack time came and Macie got a plain black pack. It wasn't up to her liking, she wanted something a little more jazzy. So we went to town and jazzed it up. I think she may just start a trend. Nice job Macie. :) She also looks like a fashionista. Before going school shopping Macie created 3 different outfit drawings. We were on the hunt for the looks that she created. We weren't able to find the exact colors, but we got the looks that she wanted. Maybe she has a future in fashion. :) Here are the other children with their first day outfits. You might ask why Thomas doesn't have a fashion shot of his own. Well, he is a boy need I say more. :)
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