Well Happy New Year! I have some friends who were pretty darn happy to see 2009 exit stage right. I on the other hand was fine with 2009 sticking around for as long as it wanted to...This past year was one of our most uneventful ones. I'm not sure how long you've been reading for, but we LOVE uneventful years... Heck, we love uneventful days!
This past year though was truly a nice one... In January, Jon and I spent time in Washington DC reuniting with each other. As many parents of multiples, Jon and I went through some incredibly rough times over the past years. So rough in fact that at one point separation seemed very imminent. I am incredibly pleased to say that we have since taken the time to find each other, fall in love with one another, and remember what it felt like to truly listen to each other... It had been a really long time since any of that had occurred.
February was quite a nice month... We discovered that our big boy Evan was reading everything and anything in sight. It was one of the most awesome discoveries as a parent... Since then, Evan has moved from just reading words to reading at around a 4th grade level. He can read books without pictures, and absolutely loves any type of books about animals. His favorite books are ones about Zebras.
March finally brought some warmer weather, as well as a wonderful trip for Jon and myself. My
best friend Matt of nearly 13 years, had the crazy notion to get married! We were invited to join in the festivities and saw Matt & Sandy get married on the beaches of St. Croix. Jon and I loved being away for a few days, and really enjoyed vacationing with friends. It was one of the greatest trips!
April was a nice quiet month, we celebrated GaGa's birthday, Easter, and the birth of our wonderful friends son Grayson. All of those things made for a really lovely, but quiet month...
May brought a visitor to our home...We welcomed a stray, abused, very pregnant kitty into our already full house. We appropriately named her Mommy Kitty, and only expected her to stay for a few weeks... Alas, she delivered her singleton baby and won our hearts over. We didn't have the heart to send her away to another home, so she stayed with us for the next few months...We were also able to celebrate Apple Blossom here in Winchester, we had hoped for nicer weather, but unfortunately only got rain... There's always 2010 though right?! Jon and I also made a very impromptu trip with the girls to Virginia Beach. We visited
with my very good friend Greg who is stationed there in the Navy. We spent the night and loved spending time with Greg, and having some one on one time with the girls... It was their first time really playing on the beach...it was really an awesome overnight trip!
June brought a ton of excitement for us as a family! This month really flung us head first into summer, and we dove straight in! Nearly every single weekend was consumed with some sort of activity or adventure. This summer was certainly one to remember... The beginning of June we celebrated the boy's FOURTH birthday! This was by far one of the hardest birthdays yet. I really felt like the boys were no longer babies... They are truly growing up right before my eyes. It's hard to see sometimes, and other times it's truly an amazing thing... I just wish I could slow it all down sometimes.
July brought more summer fun, lots of parties, rekindled friendships with old friends, a
handful of new friends at our new church, the girls THIRD birthday, and a new adventure for Jack! My New-Old Friend Cherie, was able to give me some great information about a study going on at NIH in regards to children with Autism. Jack was welcomed into the study with open arms, which of course was a back handed compliment... We were excited of course, but to be welcomed into the program...You have to be diagnosed clinically, as being Autistic. Double edged sword eh? It was totally fine though, we already were very well adjusted to the idea of Jack's diagnosis. This study enabled us to have clinicians really look at Jack and give us some more in depth information in regards to how they believe that he processes information, feelings, his own emotions and whatnot. We were lucky enough to find a study that is not interested in medicating Jack... They are merely interested in monitoring his progress over the next few years. Just like we are... I love being on the same page...
August was an absolute whirlwind of a month! We ended July with a week in Vacation Bible school, which all five of the kids absolutely adored. Myself and Connie both worked the whole week at the church, and made so many new, lasting friendships. It was an awesome experience for all of us. After taking a mere weekend off, Danny, Connie, Jon, Myself, all five kids AND our au pair Adriana packed up, in two vehicles and drove down to Sunny Florida. Upon leaving the house, I was really ready for the most dreadful trip ever... On the contrary! It was stupendous! We took two leisurely days in making our way down, stopping right about halfway in South Carolina. We spent the next week enjoying being a family... We spent one day in Disney World but it's just so hot down there, that anything notinvolving water is kind of rough. In fact, we spent a good amount of time in the water, and still found ourselves sweating! In any case, WDW was amazing and I loved every single blistering second of it...
September! My goodness the changes that September brought with it... All five of my babies were off and running to school this fall! Evan and Jack continued along with the county's Early Intervention program, Jack is still in class five days a week five hours a day. Evan is still going three days a week five hours a day. What made this year so different though, was that our other three were no longer needing to be shuttled across town to a local church preschool. William, Noelle, & Lilley all were accepted into the peer model program of Evan & Jack's preschool! So now, I have all five kidlets at the same delightful school, with the same awesome teachers! I'm really in love with the program for a lot of reasons, but the main one is that the kids schedules vary from child to child. So this allows me to have some good one on one, or two on one time with the kids! It's been great to take the girls to see friends, and the boys to do story hour...
We were also able to take the kids on another Family Vacation in September! We went down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for 2 weeks. We spent this awesome vacation with my parents, and my 2 Uncles. It's an awesome time for the kids, and it ended up being a wonderful vacation for Jon and I as well. We are really fortunate to have parents who are so invested in our families. To be able to vacation in Florida one month, and then the beach the next month, all because of our parents... We are SO lucky.
The month of October was filled with our children telling, and retelling us exactly what they
wanted to be for Halloween. The girls seemed to be pretty rigid on the idea of being some sort of Princess/Witches. Evan & Jack seemed pretty ambivalent so I got to choose for them. William however, was a whole other story! His ideas went from Oswald the Octopus, to Mickey Mouse, to Buzz Lightyear... He finally settled on being a pirate. I have no idea why that was the costume that appealed to him, but inside I was just glad I didn't have to make something for him to wear! Crafts just aren't my forte.
The kids also spent a good amount of time caring for the new kittens that Mommy Kitty had delivered just one month earlier. We found these new little bundles of joy to be an absolute delight! Four kittens, and two grown cats make for one crowded house! Especially when there are already 7 people living in the house! After Mommy Kitty successfully weaned her kittens, we sent all but one off to new forever homes. We also were able to find a place for Mommy Kitty as well... This left us with just our good 'ol Toby, and our newest addition Gilbert!
November was filled with Good Friends, Turkey and birthday cake! I was lucky enough to celebrate my 32nd birthday with my very best friend Matt. I got the gift of time from him this year, and truthfully isn't that the best gift of all? I was able to spend nearly two weeks with him! We had lunch, watched movies, played with the kids, made fun of each other endlessly, and of course just laughed. It was a really great visit, one that certainly made me, yet again, realize how awesomely lucky I am... Shortly after my birthday, we were swept up into the craziness of the holidays! Jon and I finished nearly all of our Christmas shopping much earlier than I had ever anticipated, so this allowed us to be so much more laid back about the rest of the holidays! Thanksgiving Day was spent here at our house with both of our families. We were also lucky enough to have Rick, Nita, and their little boy Ricky join with us in our holiday fun! It was so much fun having family and friends! It was really this season that I realized how much of a homemaker I've become... How much I truly enjoy having a full house... How much I love cooking for a crowd. I suppose this is why I have five children! Our dinner was awesome, and for all the work, it seemed far too quick! All in all though, a superb success...
December... This last month of this awesome year seemed to absolutely fly by. It seems as though we just put our tree up yesterday, I'm in awe that it needs to come down already! The Christmas season was phenomenal this year. The children really had great grasp on what we were talking about! They also had a very large interest in the birth of Jesus... We tried our best to place as much emphasis on this as possible, but to a three or four year old, Santa is still far cooler!
The children did their best to behave, and really put a lot of thought into what gifts they wanted Santa to bring them.
Evan wanted a "Yellow Robot". We were exhausted over trying to figure this one out... Evan already has a few Plex figurines from Yo Gabba Gabba. It didn't seem that it was that obvious, alas it was. He was able to clarify for us after days of poring over the internet looking for a yellow robot that he might have seen somewhere...
William wrote a lengthy letter to Santa asking for a number of different things, a bike, a puzzle, etc. The one thing that he had been solely focused on however, was a Buzz Lightyear doll, and a Woody doll with a zipper in the back.
Jack was a bit more mysterious as far as what he wanted. Never really explaining in full what it was that he wanted, he seemed interested in everything. His sisters were adamant that he wanted a new book all about Dinosaurs.
Noelle was quite specific in her request this year. She had her hear set on a pink princess Barbie, with a crown, and a heart, and a star. She spoke of the Barbies a lot this year leading up to Christmas, prior to now we hadn't heard of nor played with many of the dolls.
Lilley's request wasn't very shocking. Lilley decided that she wanted a new Snow White dress. Anytime that we were to try to dissuade this request or move past it, this was all that she wanted...
Christmas came and went quite quickly, especially considering the amount of planning and
preparation that went into the day... On Christmas Eve we were joined by both sets of our parents, My two Uncles, as well as our dear friends Kelly, Elizabeth and their baby Grayson. Christmas morning was incredible! Everyone had either spent the night with us, or had arrived bright and early in the morning. Nobody missed any of the crazy action of the day! The children received their gifts, and it was just awesome... Seeing their faces, watching them tear through the paper... Incredible.
I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen, cozied up to my stove, my mixer, and my oven... I felt like the hostess with the mostess, as we needed to prepare food for everyone for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner! YIKES! Thanks to everyone for chipping in, the day went off without a hitch...
We spent the New Years holiday with a handful of good friends at a very nice low key party. It really was the perfect way to wrap up the end of a wonderful year...And it truly was, a wonderful year.
