Winter Break

The three of us in school or teaching at school had different breaks this year, but it worked out ok.  It will be nice next year when at least the kids are on the same break schedule.  We all had the same amount of days off, but it was split up differently.  Nick was also able to take most of the time off.  We had a very busy start to break.  Nick and I went out with my co-workers, we took the big boys and Uncle Chris to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and got ready for Christmas. 

 Tony has decided that it is a good idea to wake up around 10:30 at night.  He caught us with ice cream and stole mine.

 We got these sweat shirts from my Aunt and cousins and they finally fit into them.  They are so cute.

 They do love eachother

 Being that Vince and I were off, we were able to go to Dominic's Christmas party. 

 Baby love.

 Fun time with coworkers

 Almost time for the Orchestra

 The Orchestra.

The concert was at Little Ceasers Arena and it is a very cool venue!

Christmas Party

The Spina Bifida Organization we are a part of always puts on a Christmas party and it is wonderful.  Every child in each family gets a gift from Santa and it is at really wonderful place too. 

Pictures before we left.

 Santa picked out the most perfect presents.  Legos for Dominic

 A flying thing for Vince

Tonka buildable trucks for the littles.

 The cupcakes were on the table and Tony needed to eat one right away.  He was very insistent.

 Alex then saw that Tony got one, so he needed one too.

December projects

The boys are at a fun age where they like to do projects and I do too.  I hope they are always willing to do them with me, but I am sure as they get older, it will not be nearly as exciting. 

Grandma Jan and Dominic put this together.  It was a ginger bread Paw Patrol lookout.

Last year we got this advent calendar and it was fun.  We are going to have to be a little more creative next year with the daily events. 

We also got this advent lego calendar.  Dominic loved it!

 My cousin and her family came over and all 7 boys, yes, all boys, played great.  We made sugar cookies too.  On that side of the family, so far we are all boys.  9 in total.  

Thomas made a great ginger bread man and Alex stole it.  He did it so quietly.  Alex is going to be the one we have to watch out for.  :)

Alex fell asleep before the picture was taken.

 Salt dough.  I wanted to make their hand prints this year, so we did.  They turned out very nice.  The big boys go to pick their colors and paint their hands.  I made the snowmen on the smaller prints.

 Vince

 Dominic

 Tony

 Alex

 They were just being cute, so I included these.

Thanksgiving

So, Thanksgiving was interesting this year.  We had plans to go to Nick's brothers house and we were going to spend it with his family.  We were getting ready to go and I was down in the basement getting the pies I had made when Alex started crying.  It did not sound too bad, but when I got up the stairs, Nick was holding him with a towel on his head.  There was a decent amount of blood and my first question was, "Does he need to go to the ER."  The answer to that ended up being yes.  He was not being wild, but somehow tripped and fell onto the bench we had tipped on it side so he would not climb up on it.  He got a good cut on his forehead and it had to be checked out.  Nick stayed back with the other three and I took him in.  The doctor checked him out and gave me two options.  We could do the for sure fix, stitches, or we could try glue, tape, and more glue.  The doctor suggested doing to second option so there would be less trauma to him and I agreed.  He was not sure it would work, but it was worth a shot.  After numbing it and putting the glue and tape on it we let it sit for about 20 minutes and it worked.  We were in and out of the ER in about 2 hours, which is really good.  By that point though, it was too late to head over to Chris's house, so we had some pretty sad boys.  It was about 5:30pm and we only had a box of stuffing, mashed potatoes, rolls, and pie.  We needed some turkey.  Nick and the big boys went out to Walmart.  In all of this we forgot that Walmart started with their black Friday sales at 6pm.  The boys thought it was very cool that isles were blocked off and there was tape guiding people where to go.  Luckily they were able to get in and out of there in about 20 minutes and they missed the actual 6pm madness.  We let the big boys have pop and that seemed to help them feel better about missing out on our plans.  We also watched Elf.  When we were putting them to bed, Dominic said it was the best Thanksgiving ever.  Haha.  It all worked out.  I will say, out of the four boys, Alex was the last one that we thought would be our first trip to the ER for an injury. 

Poor buddy

Numbing cream in action.

 Waiting to see if it worked

It worked!  Also, his head was still numbed up and he was feeling good.  Later his head did seem to hurt some, but we gave him some medicine and he slept all night.

 Dinner

 Watching Elf