The day after Christmas

The gang sure knows how to have fun. Santa brought many terrific items. Some needed and some just because they are fun. On the day after Christmas the gang settled down to business and dug into the gifts. You could see Thomas making bouncy balls and locking stuff up in his laser protected secret code safe. Julia was seen feeding her new baby Ally and strolling her around the house. Matthew was busy hiding out in his tent and riding around the house on his super speedy bike. Henry just tried to get everyone else's items, but he did like riding on his little just his size fire truck. Macie had a friend over and they did spa treatments. I love watching my group of people enjoying their gifts. We only had a couple of items to take back, but the store didn't have the correct sizes. Oh, well the girls will just have to grow into them.
It was a great Christmas filled with many magical moments and love was felt by all. Grandma and Pa came over to watch the unwrapping and then Tom's brother came by to see us. It was great to see him. We had dinner at Grandma and Pa's along with Auntie, Uncle and the cousins.

A Reindeer

So, this morning started out very early. Julia is an afternoon Kindergartner and because today is the last of school before Christmas break the teachers had all kinders come at the A.M. time. This meant we had to have her at school at 7:50a.m. She was excited because she got to wake up early. Matthew has to be at school at 8 and the others have to be at school at 8:25. You can see how our logistical nightmare was. I took Matthew, Thomas and Macie to school then went onto Julia's school. Tom had already dropped Julia off and I was needed there at 8:30 for the K-3sing-a-long. Julia was so cute in her reindeer hat. Her class sang and led the audience in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. She shined with her beautiful smile and great voice. My heart grew more today and Henry just sat there and watched. He let out a little howl every now and then.
Here are some shots of the cute Reindeer:

A Santa Play and A Recorder Show

As school is winding down for the Christmas break there are many activities the kids get to participate in. Last week we had Macie's recital and today we had Thomas' Play and recorder show. I love being their mother and watching them shine. My heart always grows big (kind of like the grinch :) ) when I'm watching my children do terrific things, even if it is unloading the dishwasher without being asked. Anyway, today was another heart growing moment. Thomas was an elf in the play and did an amazing job on the recorder. He, too, is playing his mother's old recorder. His teacher is terrific and is teaching the children recorder because she thinks it is important to learn to read music. Yea for her. Tomorrow I get to go to Julia's school and participate in a K-3 grade sing-a-long. Julia has signed to me that she is scared of me coming and watching. She's probalby worried about my heart growing too big and embarrassing her. Or maybe she is afraid to be in front of a lot of people.
Here are a few shots of our recorder playing elf.

A violin Recital

Last night we went to Macie's first violin recital. She was a bundle of nerves waiting for the performance. When the violinists came in (4th grade violins) I was so proud of her. She was all smiles and very happy to be there. She is playing the same violin that I played when I was a girl oh so many years ago. They played 3 tunes and then we listened to the 5th and 6th grade bands. If you want to still play the violin in 5th and 6th grade you can. Macie showed some interest last night in sticking with the violin next year. Thomas of course is coming unglued with excitement about playing the violin next year. Grandma and Pa joined us for the recital and they were very impressed with our little violinist.
Today is my Dad's (Pa) birthday and the gang called him this morning to wish him a Happy Birthday. We will celebrate here at the Hay House on Sat. with dinner.

Christmas decorating

Now that the tree is up I still had to finish putting out all my treasured Christmas items. As I took each one out of the storage bins I lovingly decided not to do it to the beautiful item. I just couldn't put my beloved items out for my little people to find and give scary love to. I came up with the plan to just put out things that could be place on the tv stand, piano, buffet, or on the mantle. The gang still has the magic of Christmas and my treasured Christmas decorations are safe for another year.
Macie has a violin recital tomorrow night and Pa and Gram are coming to watch. I get to go to my bunco groups annual Christmas ornament exchange. I look forward to this during the year. It is such a nice night.
I accomplished so much yesterday. I organized all the presents and even wrapped some. Matthew insisted that some of the gifts under the tree were for him. Sadly none are his. He will be getting a few gifts soon enough.
Thomas gets to be in a Christmas play at school and will be an elf.
The Holidays are in full swing and the gang is so excited about all the traditions and fun that goes on around here. Tonight we see Santa. Macie's list is full and ready to go.

We have a tree

The whole family at the annual christmas tree get.

As you can see we took our annual trip to the tree lot. In a few years past we have gone to a tree farm and cut down our own tree, but this year with my bum leg we were unable to climb the hill and cut our own tree. The tree getting extravaganza was on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I did manage to get up at 3:00 a.m. and get to my mom's by 3:45 a.m. to get to Wal-mart by 4:00. My sister and I were in line for the great deals. It has been years since I have been able to go to Black Friday shopping. We then picked up my mom by 6:30 and were off to Target and then back to Wal-mart and on to Costco. We were done by 11:00. I then had to take the van in to be looked at. It turned out to be nothing very big and then we were off to tree hunting. The tree we picked was the 3rd one we looked at. It is a noble fur and very pretty. We decorated it last night. The gang loved the magic of it all. Tom and I decided that this year we would only decorate with the gang's ornaments. We have way too many and some are fragile. As you can imagine we wouldn't want fragile on our tree with Henry and Matthew around.
This year we got ourselves a gate for the living-room so that the littles could stay away from the tree and the fire. So far so good.

The Hay Gang tree dcorated by the gang. :)

I've Been Gone Awhile

Hi all, I've been gone for awhile. I'm back to my blogging ways though. I was hit by a car while standing on the sidewalk on Oct. 4, 2008. I was taken to the hospital and treated for a dislocated left knee. We were in Arcata, CA for my nephews Homecoming game at Humboldt State University. He plays football and is in his senior year, so we thought it would be fun to go up and watch his game. They won and it was very exciting, but as we got back to the car and was preparing to get everyone in their seats the car that was parked behind us jumped the curb and hit me from behind. I have been at home reouperating. I'm now able to bend my knee a bit and am excited to be back in the blogging world. I have many things to report and I will in a few days as soon as I get some pictures uploaded.

We're Working For A Living

Saturday is a glorious day, you get to do things that you don't normally do during the week. This Saturday morning Thomas and Tom went to the dump and home depot to pick up a much needed rubber mallet for the floor installation. The girls and Matthew and I started in on moving the 2 cords of wood from our driveway to the pile we were building in the back yard. I love accomplishing big projects. Tom worked on the boys floor while the rest of the gang moved wood. Tom and I came up with what we thought was a genius idea of paying the children 5 cents per log moved. I pinned paper to their back and every log they moved to the wood got a tally mark on the paper. (think job-a-thon) We underestimated our gang. Those 2 worked tirelessly all day. We took a lunch break and a few little breaks for water during the day and finished the wood pile at 5:15p.m. Macie ended up earning $20.75 and Thomas earned $13.90. They hauled and hauled and hauled. We are so proud of their working spirit. Tom finished the floor around 9:00p.m. He seemed to be moving so much slower than at the beginning of the day. He says every part of his body aches. To that, Macie, Thomas and I say ditto. :) Anyway, here are a few photos of our working for a living day. Enjoy.

New Baby Signing Time! DVD's

Signing Time! has done it again. They have created 2 more DVD's just for babies. I can't wait to get them then maybe Henry will take off with his signing. We have been working at teaching him some signs, but he has been refusing to sign. The only he will sign is more and by the looks of him he gets plenty of food after signing more. :) Signing Time is having a contest to win the Baby Signing Time! gift set. Check it out and you might be one of the lucky ones. I'm hoping to win, but of course if I don't you can bet that I will be ordering the new ones for the Gang here at the Hay House. Anyway, take a look at these great previews of Baby Signing Time! 3 & 4.

The Ant Invasion

It is so hot outside that I think some ants decided to come into the coolness of our house. I noticed them yesterday and they were quickly crawling all over the floor. As you can imangine we have a lot of items on the floor that might appeal to an ant. They came in over by the family room window and then migrated towards the kitchen table. Well, Julia, Matthew and I cleaned them up with, what else, the vaccum. I then moved onto other cleaning matters and put Julia and Matthew on ant detail. They loved the opportunity to suck up some ants.
Here they are in ant removal action.:)

On another note, it is the annual fall picture day up at Macie and Thomas' school. I took pictures of them just incase I don't like the results. Mine aren't all that great, but it is what they look like today August 29, 2008. I can't believe they are in 4th and 3rd grade. How time flies.

We are making progress!!!!! :)

I had a custom closet company come and install the girls closet. We went back and forth on installing ourselves or having a professional. After some consideration we decided on a professional. I know, I know it shouldn't have been that hard of a decision with us being the half done family and all, but the cost of it was the stumbling block. I am so glad we had a professional. It took him a couple of hours and it looks great and is very functional. We are not going to put doors on the closet so we hung a cieling mount curtain rod and put light and airy appliquied curtains up. The girls think they are so cute.

I do have to do a bit of hemming to make sure they don't hit the ground.
What are we going to do with all that room? Julia has lots of toys and we aren't sure how to organize yet, but once her bed gets here we can figure that all out. They are just thrilled to be sleeping in their own room again.

The first day of school

Well everybody had their first day on Tuesday. Matthew had his on Monday. Everyone seemed to like their new situations and classrooms. Thomas has the same teacher and same classroom, but Macie has entered a whole new world. She has a "homeroom" teacher and then goes to another teacher for Social Studies and Math. The other teacher is a man and I think she has a crush on him because she talks an awful lot about him. :) We'll see. Julia goes to a Kindergarten at a school across town and rides the bus once again. Matthew thought that he would be riding the bus because Julia gets to, but his bus happens to be daddy. Matthew has been having a hard time adjusting. I was called on Friday to come sit with him because he was crying for about 40 min. I got there and of course he had stopped crying. The teacher (young and new) wanted me to go outside and see him. I said no because he will start crying again. I then asked what the adjustment policy was. She had no idea what I was talking about, so I had to talk with the director. The director and I were on the same page, let him cry a little bit and he will get used to school. If I come and rescue him every time he cries he will learn that crying gets mom. We still have to get used to the schedule. The way it is now I am never alone with Henry except for the time between Julia getting on the bus and me going to get Matthew. I think that is about 1 hr. Henry has been taking 2 naps this week and seems to be sleeping well.
On another note we finished putting Macie's bed together and the girls are sleeping in their bedroom. Julia's bed is due to arrive next Friday or so, and the closet people are coming Monday. Yippee!!!!
Take a look at the living/bedroom. You can now see why we have been living in such a mess for a few weeks now.
Now I have to concentrate on the boys room.
I think that one might just take us longer because Kelly and Scott are now into Football season and will be traveling to all of Brad's games. We are very proud of Brad he has been chosen as Humboldt State's team captain. We get to watch him at the season opener against Sac State on Saturday. Go Jacks!!!!

5 Minutes For Mom Laptop Contest

I have entered Julia into a contest at 5 minutes for mom. I am hoping that she can win a laptop to help with her communication. Most of you know about our situation with the school district and the talking box. Well, this laptop could help us out with her communication at home and with many of you. It would work just like the talking box. Because the laptop has speakers and sound it could talk for her. We could put the talking box program on it and presto she can talk. Here is my nomination letter. Let's hope we win. Go Julia!!!!
I would love to nominate my daughter, Julia, to have a laptop given to her. She is only 5, but she has a brain disorder, called schizencephaly, that has left her without speech. She was born with the disorder and has struggled to communicate. We have taught her sign language and the school district has purchased her a vantage/vanguard communication device. This is a great talking box, as we call it, but the school does not allow her to bring it home or have it over vacations. A new laptop would make it easier for her to communicate with us and others out in our community. We would be grateful for the opportunity of getting this valuable communication tool for her.

Matthew goes to school

Matthew has turned three and Alta Regional has kicked him out of special services because of it. Matthew was receiving speech, physical, and occupational therapy. He no longer gets them and the school district doesn't feel he qualifies for any of these services as well. So, I started looking into pre-schools that might take him. I applied for Head Start and he got in. They will watch him closely and if they feel he is slipping back into needing speech or any other service they will have the school district out to evaluate him. In the mean time he goes to school 5 days a week, 4 hrs a day. Today was his first day and he was tuckered out when he came home. He seemed to like it, but the teacher said that he was very busy. I tried to tell them that, but I guess you just have to experience Matthew for yourself to believe that he has issues. :) I'm sure he will get used to being away from us for that length of time, but today it was a little hard on him. The rest of the gang starts school tomorrow and we went today to meet the teachers. Julia will be in Kindergarten and is very excited. She will once again be riding the bus. I have a very full schedule of events this year. 4 different start times and 3 different ending times. I guess we will get through it. Anyway doesn't our little Matthew look cute. He got new Diego shoes and wanted a Diego outfit, so of course Grandma had to buy him one. :) Here's to a great 2008-2009 school year. Happy 1st day of school!

Back to School Giveaway

5 Minutes for Mom is having a back to school giveaway. They are giving away a Kodak ESP 5 All-in-One Printer and a Dynamo Personal Label Maker. I would love to win either one. I hope you will go and check it out and enter to win for yourself. Oh and happy back to school! My kids go back on the 19th. Isn't that just a bit early? Oh, well they are looking forward to it.